Our Marian Centre Visits (Part One)
Our friends from Madonna House who work at the Marian Centre in downtown Edmonton are just the most incredible people who have dedicated their entire lives to the service of others. ( And Our Lord of course.)
Years and years ago I used to volunteer there once in awhile to help feed our marginalized folks in the inner city.
When my friend, Tim, found out that one of their mandates was to celebrate the ‘whole’ person (which includes using your gifts for artistic endeavours) he asked if I could have a tour of their art studio upstairs.
At the time, Terry and I didn’t have a studio in our home and I had nowhere to paint except the kitchen table which had to be cleared every time I had to get dinner. Patrick Stewart, a beautiful artist and then director of the Centre, invited me to paint on Fridays with him in their amazing art space.
Until Covid ,I had been painting up there most every Friday for over 15 years I think. Terry soon joined me and the three of us had a blast with our chats, creations, the warmth of the pot bellied stove while we sipped tea, and we enjoyed warm visits from ‘the family’ who would stop in to work on their own creations or just stop by for a ‘chin wag’.
Two years later (after the entire Marian Family recovered from Covid (!) and all being doubly vaxxed) and having kept to themselves except for perhaps one on ones with “the Christophers’ ,we received a request for a couple of our friends to drop in for tea. YAY!
This was a few weeks ago and it made my heart sing to be with these dear friends once again. AND they invited us to come back and paint on Fridays! We’ll look into bringing all of our supplies back in the new year.
These good folks are in the middle of a badly needed renovation so they aren’t able to cook and serve for the Edmonton needy at the moment.
This week, it was our turn to pop by with some “Santa gifts” and a great visit with even more of the Marian Centre family. We grabbed a coffee and then were invited over to the “Our Lady Of Guadalupe” corner to light a candle and offer up a prayer to Our Lady.
We then chose a ‘gift from Our Lady’. ( I love my beautiful book mark. ) I always enjoy seeing “Jesus in the Breadline” painted on the wall of their dining room. And they also allowed me to choose a gift from the table so I picked a daily ‘thought for the day’ calendar.
Soon, more of our friends joined us in the dining room and we had a great time chatting about everything from daily life to remembering the lyrics to silly commercials from our childhood. “ My bologna has a first name. It’s O S C A R…..” Etc. Lots of laughs.
There were donkeys everywhere symbolizing the nearness of the Christ child.
It was a lovely morning and after our nice visit it was time to visit “ Bethlehem “.
More about that in “Part Two”…..
Above you can see the three, large gift bags we brought over from “Santa”. I am excited for them to be opened on Christmas Eve.
I am with Michael ( who is in his 90’s I think). Such a lovely man!
And you can see 6 of the nine folks who live at the Marian Centre in the above photo : Gloria, Fr. Blair, Janet, (me), Diirector: Hugo, Dina, and Michael.
Looking forward to sharing with you the incredible crèche that Hugo built, Until then…..
Peace, friends.