Month: August 2020

Annual Retreat

We\’ve been on retreat the last week or so!

Father John Sica, O.P., gave us a retreat on the theme of the Image of God. He used many examples taken from the lives of our own Dominican saints, which we found especially fruitful for meditation. In a nod to our prioress, Sr. Mary Margaret, he gave one conference using St. Margaret of Hungary as an exemplar for the Dominican nuns to follow. Of course, one would need to be prudent in this regard, because while Margaret was generous, self-sacrificing, humble, joyful, pious–all things a good Dominican nun should be–she also tended to disdain things like baths and clean habits. Obviously the source must be considered when imitating most saints of centuries past!

In addition to Father\’s conferences, we enjoyed a few days of “silent” retreat, which has become a feature many of us enjoy. Since the schedule is more free, we are able to spend our time in prayer, lectio, and other activities for a much longer period than usual.

Father John is a Dominican friar from St. Joseph\’s province (or, the eastern province). He has been living at Holy Rosary Priory in Houston the last two years attending classes at the University of St. Thomas. He has come before to give classes and to make his own personal retreat, so he was not entirely a stranger. We were especially lucky to get him for our retreat in these times of pandemic. He drove straight from Houston to Lufkin and always practiced social distancing when he was around us. It is always such a joy to get to know another of our Dominican friars!

We emerged from our retreat spiritually refreshed and ready to return to our daily work and routine. So far none of us has contracted COVID-19, although our chances are probably smaller because we don\’t get out much. Still, we continue to pray for a speedy end to the pandemic–with a vaccine, or some other help–and we pray for all of you in the world who are struggling so much more than we are. This was an important intention during our retreat.

It is our privilege to pray for you, always and at all times!

The Great Raffle Drawing

August 15 was the auspicious day chosen for our raffle drawing, and so in the afternoon after Rosary and prayers, we gathered in the community room to see who would win our 2020 Raffle prizes.

It\’s not exactly the Academy Awards, or the accounting firm of Price – Waterhouse, but our Guild sisters did their best to keep track of the many, MANY tickets that were sent in.
Our prioress, Sr. Mary Margaret, gave the tickets a first shuffle as subprioress Sr. Mary Rose looks on.
OK — let’s start drawing!!
Several sisters took turns drawing.
Sr. Mary Jeremiah graciously modeled the prizes for us (or held them up for viewing, as the case may be)
And we had some “surprise” prizes as well, modeled above by our sisters. Sr. May Annunciata, in the middle, is holding a regular prize. It’s yellow, a color she loves, and August 15 is her birthday, so we wanted to give her a chance to be seen here on our blog.

We are just immensely grateful to all of you who entered, and for all your kind donations, whether monetary or spiritual!

Are you wondering whether you won a prize? We\’ll be calling to let you know over the next few days. Stay alert!

St. Dominic’s Day 2020

Although we’re a bit late, we wanted to share some of our St. Dominic\’s Day festivities with you.

We began the day with the most important matters: the Liturgy of the Hours and a wonderful Mass in honor of our Holy Father Saint Dominic.

Father John Lydon, OP, our chaplain, with some of the members of our Dominican Laity and two religious from the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of Fatima. We promise, after this picture everyone put their masks back on and started practicing good social distancing!
Our two Dominican sisters were able to spend most of the day at our monastery. Several sisters from their community, which has its motherhouse in Puerto Rico, serve in our diocese of Tyler.
Meanwhile, the cloistered sisters helped in the kitchen, mindful of the decorum due on such a special day and being appropriately subdued. Well, maybe not so much!
When the kitchen was in good order, we all gathered in the community room to sing a feast day song–“Dominique”. We sang it in English since none of us speaks French. (Now, if it had been in Spanish…)
We spent the rest of the morning playing “Domingo”, which is, of course, “Bingo” with a Dominican theme. Instead of numbers, we have names of saints, important places, writings, things like that.
The sisters who organized the feast day this year thought up a unique–and welcome–prize. Instead of more “things”, we got the gift of time! Every winner (and fortunately, we all won in the end) received a Golden Ticket. This provides her with one full day of freedom to do whatever she wants to (within reason). The other sisters will even take her duties for her! No wonder Sister looks pleased in this picture.
We all had a long siesta time, and came back in the afternoon for a milkshake treat. Finally, we ended our great day with a movie, enjoyed by all.
Truly, how good and how pleasant it is when sisters live in unity!

Remembering Sister Mary Sybillina

Sister Mary Sybillina was a special person in so many ways. She was the last of our founding sisters who came to Lufkin from the Monastery of the Blessed Sacrament in Detroit (now in Farmington Hills, MI). She was a hard worker and kept most of her jobs until she was around 90! She had a great sense of humor, often making us laugh with her dry witticisms and quirky jokes.

So, we present here a retrospective of Sr. Mary Sybillina in photographs.

Sister as a postulant, 1945
Sister in a relaxed moment on the porch at the “old house” (first monastery building right on Lotus Lane–our present monastery is “up the hill” via an access road).

 

Sister Mary Sybillina at work in the laundry. We still use this extractor! (They don’t make them like the used to…)
Sister was a great reader! In addition to the local newspaper, she never missed reading L\’Osservatore Romano (news from the Vatican) and Origins (Church news and transcripts of talks by various people). She read all kinds of books, too.
Sister was an avid canasta player, almost right up until she died. No one who ever played canasta with Sister could accuse her of mental decline!
Celebrating her Golden Jubilee of Profession
One of the last pictures of Sister Mary Sybillina, seen here relaxing on the infirmary deck with Sister Mary Veronica.

Eternal rest grant to her, O Lord,and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

The (New) Rugged Cross

                                                                                                                                                                        Like most nuns in monasteries all over the world, we have a lot of crucifixes around the place. For us, this is a beautiful remembrance of the love Jesus has for each one of us, even to His surrender to death on a cross for our sake. Although we put up these signs of Christ’s death, they are at the same time a reminder of His resurrection and His glory.
For many years, we had this plain wooden crucifix in our refectory. It was large enough that it could be seen easily by everyone in our big refectory, and it was poignant without being too gory. But this year, a little before Easter, we received a surprise gift:
A kind benefactor gave us this lovely new crucifix! The cross is handmade and hand-carved, and the person who made the cross bought an appropriate corpus to make the cross into a crucifix. This one is slightly larger than the old one, and definitely more eye-catching and colorful.
While it may seem strange at first to have a cross carved so beautifully, even this small attention to detail reminds us of the inherent beauty and majesty of Christ’s self-offering on the Cross. We are very thankful to have this in our refectory, where we can meditate on our Lord\’s Passion while we eat our meals. (Nuns do things like this!)
Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Hail, Cross, the Hope of All!