Author: Texas OP Nuns

Pray the Rosary!

October is the month especially dedicated to praying the rosary, and here at the Monastery we pray the rosary together every day except Sunday (when we have a different schedule so we pray it privately). The Rosary is a powerful prayer–in fact, today\’s feast, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, commemorates the great victory at Lepanto in 1571. Pope Pius V (a Dominican Pope) encouraged Christians to pray the rosary for victory, and Don Juan\’s Christian forces successfully defeated the Islamic Turks. Today we are still fighting all kinds of battles, and while action is often necessary, there is great wisdom in this advice: 

As contemplative nuns, that\’s what we do when faced with difficulties–our first option is always prayer. With everything that\’s going on in our nation and the world today, consider taking 15 minutes each day to pray the rosary, or some other prayer of your choice. Prayer can change the world, starting with you!

St. Francis and St. Dominic 2012

St. Francis and St. Dominic are both great saints who are kind of misunderstood. We might think of St. Francis primarily as a proto-hippie, preaching to birds and petting wolves, and while he did these things, he also received the stigmata as a sign of his love for the crucified Christ. We might think of St. Dominic as more the \”establishment\” type, rooting out heretics and preaching against sin, and while he did these things, he is also known as the \”joyful friar\” who went on his travels through Europe singing hymns. When we look beneath the surface, we see the connection between them, and we see why the Church needs them both. They are two types of holiness for the faithful to imitate, both mendicant friars, both determined to change the Church and the world through a return to Gospel living. They accomplished their tasks in very different ways, and yet there was a common thread running through both their lives, a love of evangelical poverty, a desire for martyrdom, love and respect for the Pope…the list goes on. Here at our monastery we have several statues of St. Francis in addition to a few of St. Dominic (it\’s easier to find a statue of St. Francis, since he\’s infinitely more popular than St. Dominic) and we gladly honor him as our \”Holy Father St. Francis\”. May he intercede for all the Franciscans–and Dominicans–today and every day!

A Rose from St. Therese

You may be familiar with the pious concept of praying to St. Therese for something and asking her to send a rose as confirmation that God has heard your prayer and will hopefully grant what you are asking for in the way you ask for it! (Because God doesn\’t necessarily answer our prayers the way we expect Him to.) We have a sister in our community who once made this request in a halfhearted way, not really expecting anything to happen…and then she received a dozen roses! She\’s a believer now!
 
In honor of St. Therese, a website called Imagine Sisters is proposing that you should offer a rose today to a young woman you think might have a call to the religious life. We think that\’s a great idea–we need more sisters in the world! And very often a woman interested in religious life is waiting for a \”sign\” of some kind–a word of encouragement from a friend, from a priest, a special passage of Scripture that suddenly speaks to her heart, circumstances mysteriously arranging themselves to make religious life possible. Even if you don\’t want to offer a rose, you can still encourage a young woman to consider religious life–maybe direct her toward a website like the Imagine Sisters project website, which has some nice information on vocation discernment, or maybe direct her to OUR website! 
May St. Therese intercede for all of us to find our vocation in life as she found hers at the heart of the Church!

Congratulations, Sr. Mary Rose!

Our sisters are home from the Assembly, and we are delighted to announce that our own Sr. Mary Rose was elected to the Association Council!
 Sr. Mary Rose serves as bursar (treasurer) of our community, and includes playing the organ for the Liturgy and Mass among her many other talents.

The entire new council, from left to right: Sr. Mary Catharine from Summit, NJ  (Councilor), Sr. Mary Thomas from Farmington Hills, MI  (Councilor), Sr. Mary Rose from Lufkin, TX (Councilor), Sr. Anna Marie from Elmira, NY (Vice-President) and Sr. Maria Christine from Menlo Park, CA (President)
Congratulations to all the newly elected officers and many thanks to all who made the Assembly so successful. You all are in our prayers!

Monastery Bells

It\’s that time again! Our latest issue of \”Monastery Bells\” went out in the mail this morning. If you want to get a sneak peek at the contents, or just read it on line, you can do it HERE. Just choose the link for \”Fall 2012\”. If you are living in the United States and wish to receive \”Monastery Bells\” in your mailbox–and this free subscription includes extras like our novena slips and other things–you can give us your address HERE. We never sell or distribute our mailing list to anyone! Sorry, we can\’t send to foreign addresses because of the expense. However you decide to read it, we hope you enjoy \”Monastery Bells\”!

What do nuns do at recreation?

People ask us this question all the time. We pray a lot, we work a lot, and yes, we do have time for what we call \”recreation\”–basically the chance to talk freely to each other and have a good time for about an hour twice a day. But what exactly do you do? Well, it all depends! We play games on Sunday nights. Sometimes we sit in a big circle and discuss things as a community–usually this happens when we have a guest or a new postulant and we all want to ask questions, or when the prioress or another sister has news she wants to share with the entire community. Mostly we sit around at tables in the community room and talk–that\’s a lot of fun for us, since we spend so much of the day in silence! Several of the sisters like to do handwork while they are talking…

…like Sr. Mary Jeremiah who recently completed this lovely macrame owl! We also enjoy crocheting, knitting, cross-stitch, quilling, and almost any other kind of handwork you can think of! Some sisters like to go to a corner of our community room and listen to music, and sometimes we work on puzzles. Occasionally we all go to the parlor for a visit with someone (or some people) who come to visit us, whether friends, relatives, or groups who would just like to meet the nuns! We laugh a lot, and always have a good time. It is truly \”re-creation\”–a chance to deepen our relationships with our sisters and relax after an intense day of prayer and work. We always end recreation with a special prayer to our provident God, Who has brought us all together and sustains us in our Dominican way of life. We  have much to be thankful for, and we are thankful!