MEC Student Blogs
News and Events > Student Blogs > Cathy

The following entries were made by junior Cathy Floro.

April 20, 2010

And the Academy Goes to…

The Junior Class!!

Well, actually the junior class presented the academy…I think I need to back up a little bit.

Here at Mater Ecclesiae, each class gives an academic presentation (affectionately referred to as an “academy”) every school year. Each academy has a different theme, usually based on some element of what that particular class studies during the year. The way these academies are presented range in style and formality, but they usually consist in memorized speeches, voice choirs, power points, and a (usually original) song (my favorite aspect of academies).

We, the Class of 2011, have done two in the past—one on consecrated life in our freshman year, and the other on the Wonders of the World. They were smashing. I say smashing because not only did the academies turn out really well, but it also really helped us as a class to bond in ways we never imagined. (Think about it—we brainstorm topics together, write the script together, memorize the parts together, plan the logistics together, and perform it, that’s right, together.) It’s an entire production that showcases in two hours many weeks of preparation and hard work.

Our class had the pleasure of presenting the literary masterpiece Don Quixote. We didn’t just read the book, but we made it come alive for our fellow students through word, picture, and song. If you’ve ever read the book, you might have found yourself wanting a better, more uplifting ending. (I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s kind of depressing.) So we decided to step in and conclude with a song! It was written by Joan Kingsland, Emily Roman, Sarah Lang and… me! It’s called “Nothing more real” which I’ll paste the lyrics to below so I can let it speak for itself.

Nothing more real

“It’s only a dream”

I heard others say

That I’ll wake up one day

“You can’t live for what you can’t see”

They say I’m a fool

That I should get over it,

Get on with my life.

But there’s something lasting

That I am fighting for.

Refrain

There’s nothing more real

It’s more than a feeling

I’m more than a dreamer

Striking the wind

There’s nothing more true

Than what I’m believing

This battle I’m fighting

I’m living for you.

I will follow you

There’s nothing more real.

I hear them again

They say that I’m dreaming

The world keeps on questioning

What I hold deep inside

But there’s something lasting

That I am fighting for.

Refrain

Nothing more real

Nothing more true

Nothing more,

Nothing more worth it than you

Refrain

(That was the end of the song… now this is the end of my blogJ) I hope you all had a Happy Easter! He is risen, ALLELUIA!!

March 26, 2010
A Visit From Our Lady

When I walked into the chapel, I stopped breathing. I saw her by the altar, and even though I hadn’t seen her in person before, her face was so familiar. It was Our Lady of Fatima.

This pilgrim statue has travelled all over the world, accompanied by two “custodians” who bring the message of Our Lady of Fatima to those who cannot make it to Portugal to the actual site where Our Lady appeared to Jacinta, Francesco, Lucia. On March 23rd, this pilgrim statue came to us. She remained for two hours in the Mater Ecclesiae College Chapel accompanied not only by the students, but also by parishioners of the local parishes. During that time there was a talk given by one of the custodians, Patrick, time for personal prayer, rosary with songs, and Eucharistic benediction.

I was able to talk to Patrick before the prayer service began, and found out about all of the places that the Fatima statue had been to. I was amazed to find out that this statue had actually been to my home parish in California a few years ago (when I was a freshman here at MEC), which meant that my own family had also seen her!

After we prayed together, each person had an opportunity to take a closer look at Our Lady. I was extremely excited to see her up close. The hand-crafted statue depicted the mother of Jesus so beautifully; when I looked at the statue, I felt like I was looking at a real person. Her eyes were big and full of love and her gentle smile told me that she was happy to be with us.

It’s amazing how much a beautiful statue can bring us to prayer and lead us closer to God. It’s even more amazing how God has given us a wonderful mother in Mary to lead us to Him.

(Check out the pictures from this event at www.pilgrimvirginstatue.com.)

March 12, 2010
You Put WHAT on Your Apples?!

I don’t think that life would be complete without experiencing some sort of culture shock. The degree of this “shock” doesn’t matter. Learning how to use chop sticks, weaving “eh” into ordinary speech, or eating a Pop Tart for the first time are all moments of cultural discovery that can be very enriching, not to mention thoroughly amusing.

When I came to Mater Ecclesiae College, I was welcomed by a community of young women marked by its internationality. Because I had grown up in a multi-cultural Californian city, I didn’t think I would be affected too much by the presence of different nationalities and backgrounds.

I was so wrong.

The day I realized this is still engrained in my mind. We were sitting along the huge rocks that overlooked the ocean, enjoying the last days of summer vacation before school would begin. We had made our way through the chips, sandwiches, and carrot sticks, and were about to sink our teeth into the apples we had brought. But it soon struck me that, instead of enjoying the crisp, crunchy slices like I was, everyone in my group had proceeded to pass around little packets of Mexican powdered chili. What happened next caused me to freeze mid-bite. They poured the chili over the apples…and then ate them. Shock commenced.

It took a few seconds, but my companions noticed the look of sheer confusion on my face. Their laughter made it clear that this wasn’t the first time that this chili-fruit combination had caused scandal. Maria Jose, Mexican through and through, explained to me the Mexican custom of putting chili on everything—chips, fruit, you name it. I realized in a few seconds that for Mexicans*, it wasn’t so much about eating food with chili, but eating chili with food. And then she invited me to try it out myself.

Culture shock is very enriching, no matter what culture you are from. And in my three years here I’ve been blessed to be enriched by companions from all over the world. The ten other nationalities that surround me bring a distinct flavor to every group encounter. There is a wealth of hidden knowledge from all corners of the world that I’ve been able to taste.

Carolyn and Lauren Hawkesworth come from South Africa, where tea is almost equivalent to oxygen and monkeys are the most common uninvited houseguests. Taniele Tucker, through her smile as an always-beaming Bahamian, gives us the inside scoop of what it means to live on a beautiful island of paradise surrounded by friends and family you love. Catherine Smith is our native Kiwi—she never fails to bring a certain New Zealand humor to lighten up every situation.

I have companions from above in the land of the Maple Leaf to the land Down Under—and everywhere in between. Each of them brings not only her unique personality, but the richness of the culture and history that her country has given her.

Not only have I found myself learning from other cultures, but also that people from other cultures can learn from me. We Americans get so used to the fact that peanut butter is good with just about everything. But to people from other cultures, putting sweet, sticky, peanuty goodness on something like an apple might not come naturally. “What am I supposed to do with this?” is not an uncommon question at the dinner table, and thus the exchange of the method and meaning of international foods (such as the richness of American peanut-butter-loving) is shared.

See? We really can learn from one another—on this little international island in Mater Ecclesiae College in little Greenville, RI, we have learned a lot from each other. Food-eating tips are just the beginning, because there is so much more to discover about the world around us. This small world is still pretty big after all.

*Please pardon my hasty generalization. I do realize that there are existing Mexicans who do not share this view about chili.

November 27, 2009
Thanksgiving at Mater Ecclesiae College

If there’s one thing that I’m more thankful for than a good piece of apple pie, it’s being in a full house. And this Thanksgiving I was able to be grateful for both!

It’s been quite the week here, with over sixty guests with us! It’s been great to welcome other consecrated women and alumni to stay with us, as well as all of the International Volunteers from around the U.S. (You can check out more information about the international volunteer program HERE)

We celebrated Thanksgiving in good style – turkey dinner and all, but we added our own MEC specialty: the final presentations of our composition contest!

It all started with the launching of our now third annual fall speech and declamation contest, and this year had a unique spin this year. In October, Jennifer Ristine, professor and one of the coordinators for student activities, launched our Thanksgiving contest. We were invited to submit original compositions revolving around the theme of “The Sense of the Sacred”. Since then, we’ve been clamoring to compose creative compositions of all genres—from poems to Power Point presentations to songs, and even postcards! Finally, on Thanksgiving Thursday we were able to view the submissions that made it to the final stage of the contest.

Now this was quite an opportunity, because being such a music lover I saw an open door to express how music can and does help people to think of the transcendent. And I’m going to let you in on a little secret. It has always been a dream of mine to write a musical, and actually, it still is. God is so good and He let me have a little taste of a dream fulfilled on Thanksgiving Day. I wrote a little five-minute commentary sung as a four-part harmony inspired by my own awe of music as being able to touch the human person and reflecting the mystery of God’s creativity. I call it: A Melodious Montage of the Mystery of Music, and since it qualifies as a (very) mini-musical (remember that dream of mine?), it just added another thing for me to be grateful to God for on that day. I sang it with my fellow classmates Nicole Gaucher, Emily Roman, and Sarah Lang. The student body loved it so much that we were asked to sing it again during our Thanksgiving meal!

I was absolutely floored by the hard work that was put into each presentation and through the depth of the content that my companions showed while up on the stage! Most of the student body participated, including all of my fellow bloggers! That’s right; Becca, Mary, and Sarah were all featured in the presentation. In fact, the submissions were all so phenomenal that our Spring/Summer issue of the Dialogos (that’s our creative works journal that our Publications team puts out every semester) will adopt the “Sense of the Sacred” theme and include the works that were presented (at least the ones that we can present in ink!).

I love Thanksgiving because it’s the perfect excuse to stop and count our blessings. Goodness knows that we need moments like this to send up a little prayer of thanks, and in stopping and taking a look around at all the gifts that we have, we discover more of what is “sacred” in our lives!

November 9, 2009
Adopt-a-Priest Campaign

What do you do when the Pope invites us to celebrate a year dedicated to the priesthood?

Naturally, an Adopt-a-Priest campaign at Mater Ecclesiae College was in order. We decided to make the most of this opportunity to show our support and gratitude to all those men who decided to give their lives to serve others, especially the some hundred priests who serve in our diocese of Providence.

So how does one “adopt” a priest? Good question. It is actually pretty simple. Each of us picked the name of at least one priest in the area, and for a whole year we pray for them. We each offer up different moments of our daily prayers, including (but not limited to) Mass, Rosary, and evening Benediction, keeping our adopted priest(s) in mind and heart. Besides praying for them, we’ve also invited a few over to say Mass and have breakfast and we could thank them in person. It’s been such a blessing to meet and see the testimony of many priests who love God and others so much.

October 12, 2009
Follow the Red Brick Road        

I had never been to Boston in the fall, but thankfully there’s a first time for everything. Last Thursday marked our first cultural visit of the school year for the juniors.

After morning Mass, a hearty breakfast, some coffee (it’s finally grown on me, after all of these years), and Creed class with Professor Reinagel, all of us piled into vans and headed out to Massachusetts to trek the Boston Freedom Trail.

As we made our way into downtown Boston, we began to notice a line of red bricks on the sidewalks that wove its way through the city streets. “Aha! The Trail!”

We decided to head to the northern part of the Trail and start at the USS Constitution, also fondly referred to as “Old Ironsides”. I found out that the ship’s nickname came from an incident in which canons were fired at close range toward the Constitution, but instead of doing any damage to the ship’s live oak exterior, they just bounced right off! (I wonder if it would be worth it for the auto industry to look into investing in live oak exteriors for vehicle-accident prevention…) Anyway, there was this informatively interactive (aka “really fun”) museum that educated us about the history behind the Naval ship, the maritime activities of the States during the Revolution, and also—my favorite part—how the sailors lived onboard (hammocks and deck swabs and riggings, oh my).

After the museum and taking a tour of the World War II destroyer USS Cassin Young, we followed the red brick line to the Old State House, located ten feet away from the site of the where the Boston Massacre occurred. The house’s second story had a tiny balcony facing the street, from which the United States Constitution was read shortly after it was drafted in Philadelphia.

As we continued along the trail, we saw the various meeting places where our country’s forefathers would plan their next steps towards liberty, relived the Boston Tea Party (no tea was harmed in the duration of the cultural visit), and even stopped at the burial ground where Ben Franklin, Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, and Mother Goose were buried. (Mother Goose; that was a name I hadn’t heard for a long time and was shocked at discovering the gravestone of a person who had such an influential aspect of my childhood!)

It was incredible how even though I was surrounded by twenty-first century skyscrapers and modern culture, that particular afternoon I went back to the 1770’s and to the bare-beginnings of my country. I really enjoyed our visit and I hope to go back again! For now, though, especially after a full day of walking, exploring, and learning, I couldn’t help but think as we drove away from the red bricks and headed back to Mater Ecclesiae College that “There’s no place like home!”