Light Lemon Salad

Celebrating Jubilarians 2012

Poor Clare Sister Mary Gabriel Metzger

50 years as a Franciscan Poor Clare Nun

St. Clare’s Monastery, Sauk Rapids

This is the sixth and last in an occasional series of recipes shared by jubilarians in the St. Cloud Diocese. A jubilee marks the special anniversary of one’s religious profession.

On the October 25 menu for a dinner honoring Poor Clare Sister Mary Gabriel Metzger’s 50th jubilee is a light lemon salad that is a favorite of the sisters as well as priests and other guests who have sampled it on special occasions at the monastery.

“For my jubilee I get to choose the menu,” Sister Mary Gabriel explained. “I’ve been thinking about it and the Lord laid it on my heart to have this salad.”

It does sound tasty — a blend of slight tartness and generous sweetness that nearly melts in your mouth. Best wishes for your special day, Sister Mary Gabriel! CJK

Light Lemon Salad

(Poor Clare Sister Mary Gabriel Metzger)

2 (3.4 oz.) boxes instant lemon pudding

4 cups cold milk

1 (16 oz.) container Cool Whip®*

2 cups miniature marshmallows

1 (15.25 oz.) can pineapple tidbits, drained

1 (12 oz.) container cottage cheese (optional)

Prepare pudding with milk as directed on the package. Gently fold prepared pudding and all the rest of the ingredients together. Chill and serve.

Yield: 12 servings

Cook’s Notes: *One pint of whipping cream (whipped) would equal 16 oz. of Cool Whip®.

A note from Carol: Poor Clare Sister Mary Gabriel Metzger is an extern with her community. When she made her final vows 50 years ago she took the vows of poverty, obedience and chastity but not the vow of enclosure that the cloistered Poor Clare Sisters take.

As an extern she takes care of the external duties of the monastery. She is the sacristan of the chapel, serves breakfast to the chaplain and Mass server who come each morning, takes care of overnight guests, is a part-time portress assisting with the phone and door duty, accompanies sisters to the doctor and runs errands for the monastery.

An extern is granted permission to visit her family for various reasons, such as impending death, a funeral or to celebrate a 25th or 50th jubilee. Sister Mary Gabriel recently returned from a 12-day visit back to the New Munich, Minnesota, area where she is originally from. She is the fourth of Ray and Eleanore (Kulzer) Metzger’s six children. Her homecoming was combined with a large Kulzer family reunion at her cousin Tony and his wife, Barbara, Welle’s farm near New Munich.

Sister Mary Gabriel will be honored with a special Mass celebrated with her community October 25 — the day that she and the late Sister Mary Clare Kellsen took their first vows together 53 years ago.

Other jubilarians featured in this occasional series, which began last April, include Franciscan Sister Mary Joel Bieniek with the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls’ homemade sauerkraut recipe, Poor Clare Mother Mary Matthew Tomsyck and her monastery’s zucchini casserole recipe, Benedictine Sister Ingrid Anderson dishing on her anchovy sauce for pasta, Franciscan Sister Mary Pat Zangs sharing her secrets for Italian meatballs and Benedictine Sister Herman Tschida recalling Concord grape pie.