Texas OP Nuns

Sr. Mary Agnes\’ Birthday: The Big 90!

On September 15, Sr. Mary Agnes turned 90! It\’s quite a milestone, so we celebrated with a party and a treat of ice cream and cake in the community room. (It actually took place on Sunday night so we were dispensed from the fast!)

Sr. Mary Agnes\’ cakes and ice cream, plus some treats from Trinidad brought by Sr. Mary Ann. You can see Sr. Mary Agnes\’ plate is ready to go!

Sr. Mary Agnes contemplates 90 years of life while the community sings \”Happy Birthday\”

Blowing out the candles!

The happy nonagenarian with her cake and ice cream!

We are so blessed that Sr. Mary Agnes is such an active part of our community. She still answers letters and creates enrollments in the Guild, and keeps up with a variety of other activities, including crocheting beautiful hats and scarves and playing a fierce game of canasta! Many more years, Sr. Mary Agnes, and may God give you good health for all of them!

You can see Sr. Mary Agnes\’ 88th birthday celebration here.

Assembly 2012

Left to right: Sr. Mary Rose, Sr. Mary Ann, and Sr. Mary John

Sr. Mary John (our prioress), Sr. Mary Rose (our delegate), and Sr. Mary Ann (the prioress of our Dominican monastery in Trinidad) left Lufkin this morning for the 2012 Assembly–a gathering of Dominican nuns belonging to the Association of Monasteries of Nuns of the Order of Preachers which is held every four years. They will be electing a new President and Council for the Association–and we just have to say, we are so proud of our own prioress, Sr. Mary John, who has served two consecutive terms as President of the Association! And special prayers are being offered for Sr. Mary Rose, who in addition to serving as a delegate will be accompanying Mass and Morning Prayer on a keyboard instrument yet to be determined! (We know you\’ll do great!)

The Assembly is being held at the motherhouse of the Springfield Dominican sisters in Springfield, IL. This will be an important meeting for the nuns, for various reasons, and the Master of the Order, Fr. Bruno Cadore, will be coming for a few days as well. Please keep all the Dominican nuns in your prayers during these days when we try to discern and plan for the future!

Exaltation of the Cross 2012

\”Do not be afraid to welcome the cross of Christ into your life! It gives full value and meaning to life\’s joys and sorrows, helping every person to make his own life a gift of love for God and neighbor.\” –Blessed Pope John Paul II

Today we celebrate the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. Today also begins our monastic fast–which lasts from September 14 until Easter. Fasting is done at each sister\’s discretion (we don\’t just serve bread and water for meals!), but we usually have some corporate fasting as well, such as giving up dessert. Giving up dessert may seem like a small thing to do, when we want to do big and spectacular things for God, but we each do what we can. And little things add up to a lot! Think of St. Therese and all her \”little\” sacrifices which cost her so much! We especially feel the need for extra prayer and sacrifice with all that is going on in our nation and in the world today. We hope you will join us today in trying to give up some little attachment, or some little indulgence, or even some \”little\” sin–it will make a big difference, in your life and in the life of the world!

Anniversary of Deceased Friends and Benefactors

Dominicans, like all religious and all Christians, try to welcome guests to their houses as Christ himself. We were reminded of this in today\’s special Mass reading from Matthew 25:31-46: \”I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me…Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brethren of mine, you did for me.\”

Today we are celebrating the anniversary of our deceased friends and benefactors. All those people who come to our monastery for Mass, to join us in community prayer, or to just sit a while and pray before the Blessed Sacrament…all those people who contact us via letter, email, phone call…all those people who help make our Dominican monastic life possible through their friendship and also their financial support. We are so grateful to them and this is why we remember them today, both living and deceased. We have been especially blessed this past year both in friendships and in gifts from our benefactors, and we thank you for all your generosity to us, spiritual and temporal. Please know you are in our prayers always–in life and in death!

Monastic Theological Studies Program 2012: The Second Week!

Wow! It\’s been quite a week–a very intense week of moral theology with Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, OP!

Fr. Nicanor, from the province of St. Joseph (also known as the Eastern Province), began with a beautiful discussion of eternal beatitude and moved from there into the basics of moral theology based on the teachings of our brother St. Thomas Aquinas ending with a stimulating discussion on law and grace.

Father teaches the old fashioned way–with a blackboard!

What do you have to say, sisters??

Father\’s lectures were extremely good and very thought provoking…

…but he also took time to speak with the students during the breaks! Above, Sr. Mary Thomas and Sr. Mary Gabriel (both Lufkin) discuss an ethical question with Father while Sr. Maria Teresa (Summit) and Sr. Mary Dominic (Lufkin) share a joke.

Father Nicanor with the class–still smiling at the end of it all!

We also want to give a hearty Thanks!! to Sr. Mary Jeremiah (Lufkin) who not only coordinated all the classes, but also acted as tutor for our papers on the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, which we presented in the afternoons this week. The pictures of these were almost identical to our psalm presentations, so if you look back at those you\’ll get an idea of what went during our seminar sessions this week! Sr. Mary Jeremiah was also responsible for recording all the classes and duplicating them for the students so they will be able to listen and continue to learn over the next year.

Our students and Fr. Nicanor will be leaving tomorrow. We look forward to seeing the sister-students next year and definitely hope that Fr. Nicanor will be able to visit Lufkin again someday!

MTS: Psalm Presentations

Part of our Monastic Theological Studies Program is writing a paper and presenting it to the sisters. Since last year we had a class on Scripture, particularly the Psalms (which are such a huge part of our monastic life), this year we each presented an exegesis of a Psalm. We were guided along the way by Sr. Mary of Jesus from the Monastery of Mary the Queen in Elmira, NY, and she was a wonderful help to all of us!

Sr. Mary Giuse (Lufkin) presents Psalm 1

Sr. Mary Thomas (Lufkin) expounds Psalm 2

Sr. Maria Teresa (Summit) explains Psalm 4

Sr. Marie Augustine (Lufkin) talked about Psalm 5

Sr. Mary Francis (Farmington Hills) elucidates Psalm 11/12

Sr. Joseph Maria (Summit) interprets Psalm 17/18

Sr. Mary Dominic (Lufkin) enlightened us with Psalm 18/19

Sr. Mary Gabriel (Lufkin) gave us insight into Psalm 22/23

Sr. Mary Rose (Lufkin) makes an intriguing point as she details Psalm 49/50

Sr. Mary Amata (Summit) gave a profound exposition of Psalm 50/51

In case you\’re wondering why some psalms have two numbers–no, they didn\’t do two psalms! But the numbering of the psalms varies, depending on what translation of the Bible you are using. Thus, we put both numbers, so you can look up these psalms in your Bible and hopefully pray along with us!

Many thanks to Sr. Mary of Jesus (Elmira) for coming and helping us so much, and thanks to her community for loaning her to us! We are so grateful!

Monastic Theological Studies Program 2012: The First Week

We just finished a amazing first week of the 2012 edition of the Monastic Theological Studies Program! This first week was devoted to the study of patristics (the Fathers of the Church) under the able guidance of Professor Noel Pretila from St. Louis University.

Professor Pretila gave a (literally) animated series of lectures, using PowerPoint to help explain the concepts. We wish we could reproduce his excellent presentation for you, but you\’ll just have to attend one of his classes at SLU to experience it!

The students listening in fascination to Professor Pretila\’s talk!

Serious thinking going on. From left to right: Sr. Mary Rose (Lufkin), Sr. Maria Teresa (Summit), Sr. Mary Dominic (Lufkin), Sr. Mary of Jesus (Elmira) and Sr. Mary Thomas (Lufkin)

And the rest of us: Sr. Mary Giuse (Lufkin), Sr. Mary Francis (Farmington Hills), Sr. Marie Augustine (Lufkin), Sr. Mary Gabriel (Lufkin), Sr. Joseph Maria (Summit), Sr. Mary Amata (Summit)

You can\’t leave Texas without a souvenir! Professor Pretila seems pleased with his!

Smiling happily at the end of a FANTASTIC week of classes! You can see Professor Pretila\’s slide of Justin Martyr in the background…He will be defending his doctoral dissertation on Justin Martyr next week at SLU. We wish him well and keep him in our prayers!

We will be bringing you more from the MTS in days to come…the second week of classes (which will be on moral theology) and our presentations from this past week. Stay tuned!