Category: Holidays and Celebrations

Honoring Our Mothers–Updated

Sunday was the solemnity of the Ascension here in Texas…and it was also Mother’s Day! We had festive meals and games in the evening to celebrate these two events. We started with Mass of the Ascension in the morning, had a delicious meal in the community room for lunch, enjoyed some free time during the afternoon, sang Solemn Vespers of the Ascension, and had yummy sandwiches and chips for dinner. After that, we went back to the community room to play games!

Sr. Mary Margaret, our “mother prioress”, and Sr. Mary Rose holding the card she designed for Sister. We each promised to offer three days of prayer for Sr. Mary Margaret’s intentions.

Sr. Mary Pauline, Sr. Mary Giuse, Sr. Mary Jeremiah, and Michelle seated at one of the decorated tables in the community room.

Sr. Mary Christine and Sr. Carmen Gloria

Sr. Mary Therese, Sr. Maria Cabrini, and Sr. Mary Thomas

Sr. Maria, Sr. Miriam, Sr. Mary Giuse, Sr. Mary Jeremiah, and Sr. Marie Augustine–ready to play games!

Sr. Maria Cabrini, Sr. Bernadette Marie, Sr. Mary Margaret, and Sr. Carmen Gloria–another team for games

Spending some free time working a puzz

Michelle and Sr. Mary Pauline with the novitiate turtles, Jerome and Anthony

At the end of the day, we had our May procession (inside, because of the rain), singing the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

One more picture! The novitiate honored their directress with a lovely card and two plants.

It was a beautiful day, filled with many thoughts of Our Lord’s ascension into Heaven, and many prayers for all out mothers (and those who have been like mothers to us), both living and deceased. We keep all of you in prayer as we continue our May devotions this month!

St. Thomas Aquinas: 750 Years

Today, March 7, is the 750th anniversary of the death of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Dominican Order is celebrating a triduum of years–honoring not only St. Thomas’ death but also the 700th anniversary of his canonization in 2023–and you can receive a plenary indulgence by visiting a Dominican church or other Dominican place dedicated to St. Thomas, or by participating in a Mass or other celebration in honor of St. Thomas Aquinas. The three years began on January 28, 2023 and will last until January 28, 2025. The usual conditions for a plenary indulgence are required.

Let us be united in giving thanks to God for the great gift of St. Thomas Aquinas to the Dominican Order, to the Church, and to the world!

Sr. Mary Christine’s Feast Day!

Although we always celebrate feast days here at the Monastery, there are only two days that get an extra special celebration–the feast days of the prioress and the novice directress. And Sr. Mary Christine celebrated her feast day on November 26. The novitiate invited the prioress, the vocation directress, Sr. Maria (our transfer, recently of the novitiate), and the sisters who teach in the novitiate to this fun celebration.

The whole group! Back row: Sr. Mary Margaret, Sr. Mary Pauline, Sr. Mary Christine, Michelle. Front row: Sr. Mary Rose, Sr. Mary Jeremiah, Sr. Mary Thomas, Sr. Marie Augustine, and Sr. Maria.

The novitiate put on a charming play about their life, and then we played some fun games. We ate dinner in the novitiate community room–a festive meal with talking and Cokes.

Sr. Mary Christine demonstrating one of her many talents.

After dinner, we all watched joyfully as Sr. Mary Christine opened her many gifts.

A lovely scarf hand-knitted by Sr. Mary Therese.

New book for the novitiate!

Possibly Sr. Mary Christine’s favorite gifts–a persimmon tree and an Asian pear tree! Sister is very good with plants, as you can see in these pictures!

In the afternoon we enjoyed a fun, family-friendly movie and then had a special supper in the novitiate. After supper, we played some more games.

Tossing beanbags–always harder than it looks. And check out the great decorations! We especially liked the disco ball!

As the bell rang for Compline, we had to end our party. What a beautiful day of sisterly sharing it was! Thanks to all the novitiate sisters who did such a wonderful job making the day awesome.

Sr. Mary Christine and her companions with gifts.

So Thankful and Blessed

We had a beautiful Thanksgiving holiday! Although the weather was cold and damp, our spirits were bright and cheerful. It was so good to be together with our sisters sharing a Thanksgiving meal–and almost all prepared by the sisters, too!

The day before–Hard at work preparing various dishes!

Sr. Mary Giuse made a delicious Vietnamese noodle dish while our kitchen helper Diana sliced pineapple.

Sr. Mary Thomas and Sr. Marie Augustine with dressing and dirty rice

Michelle chopping carrots in the bakery. (More on Michelle to come!)

Thanksgiving Day! Sr. Miriam checks out the dessert table.

Fruits and salads!

Sr. Mary Veronica gets some ice for her drink.

Looking over our groaning table.

Some sides and bread–as well as the gravy and cranberry sauce.

The community room was beautifully decorated by the novitiate.

Although we cooked and prepared almost all the food, most of it was given to us by our very generous benefactors. We are truly thankful and blessed to have so many wonderful people who support our life. We are praying hard for all of you!

Sr. Mary Margaret’s Feast Day!

Sr. Mary Margaret’s actual feast day is January 18–but that is so close to Christmas and Epiphany that we usually celebrate either around the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (her mystery) or St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. This year were celebrated on October 14 and 15. It was grand!

Sr. Mary Margaret in front of her groaning feast day table

We started the day with a traditional feast day song. This is usually a melody we all know with new lyrics written by one of the sisters.

Singing the song…

…and still singing (it was long!).

After the song, each of us came to greet Sister and wish her a happy and blessed feast day.

Following all this, we began playing games. We had a number of games involving plastic cups, dice, and playing cards. It may sound funny but they were games everyone could participate in, no matter what their age or condition.

Picking up a die…harder than it looks!

Concentrating…

If you managed to pick up a die, you had to stack it on top of another! Only two teams managed this.

We also had a game where we had to flip the cups upside down. They had to land standing up, which was quite a trick. On the right you can see the cups in mid-flip.

Sister Miriam (on the right) did really well as usual!

After the games, it was time for prayers and our noon meal. Sister Cook made all Sr. Mary Margaret’s favorites, including homemade lemon meringue pie…yum!

We enjoyed our festive meal in the community room. Since we were not in the refectory, we were allowed to talk–and talk we did!

Dinner was followed by the inevitable dishes and a nap for many. In the afternoon, following prayers, we returned to the community room for a sweet treat from Dairy Queen.

Finally, it was time for the opening of the gifts. Sr. Mary Margaret received a lot of homemade gifts–maybe some will be featured in our next raffle.

Baby blanket

Cat

Shawls and a bag

Man’s vest–started by Sr. Miriam and finished by Sr. Carmen Gloria

Hair accessories

A new way to wear your veil, modeled by Dominic’s Angels

Painting

Embroidered tablecloth

Cross-stitched cross

Sister also received a book version of this blog–handy for the sisters who don’t use the Internet and also good for the archives.

The decorations in the community room made us feel like we were on vacation!

In the evening, the novitiate performed an aerobic dance routine for us–made us tired just watching them! Then Sr. Mary Therese organized karaoke! Most of us had never done it before but we had a great time. Several sisters were put into teams of two, and three sisters were judges. The songs were all family friendly and ones we knew, although if you didn’t feel you knew a song you were allowed to choose another.

Sr. Mary Therese demonstrates karaoke.

Sr. Maria and Sr. Mary Thomas attempted to sing “The Rainbow Connection” from “The Muppet Movie”

We finished the celebration on Sunday with a screening of the movie “Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris”. This was the more recent version–not the TV movie (for those who remember it!). It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed seeing how the characters changed over the course of the story. We had a little free time after the movie, so we watched some Hungarian folk dances in honor of our Hungarian prioress. All together, a lovely weekend. We are so grateful for everything Sr. Mary Margaret does for us!

Fall Picnic Day!

We had our annual Fall Picnic this weekend! When we have a picnic, we still sing the entire Divine Office and pray the Rosary and keep our times of Eucharistic adoration–we just don’t work (except for doing some dishes). But that makes for a great holiday!

We always begin the picnic with an official flag raising. Sr. Mary Pauline thought she might try to pose as Lady Liberty!

It was such a beautiful, cool fall day, some of us decided to go for a long walk. On picnic days we are allowed to go outside the main part of the enclosure and wander through the wild woods. This year, things looked a little different! We recently had a company harvest some of our trees. We do this about every 15-20 years, and the company returns in the spring after they harvest to plant new trees. This was all good and necessary, but as we walked, parts of the forest now resembled a desert wasteland.

You can still see the tire marks from the machines that harvested the trees!

Some of the younger trees remained untouched.

Ah…this is more like it!

Postulant Sarah reclining on some rejected trees

And we joined her for this photo op!

Beyond the stack of downed trees, the woods appeared, wild and beautiful again

It was a fun and relaxing day for everyone, and so delightfully cool! We started this tradition of a fall picnic when we realized our summer picnic (held around the 4th of July) comes at a time when it is too hot to go outside and walk around or play games. Sometimes it’s still hot even in October, but this year the weather cooperated!

May you be blessed with abundant peace, this fall and always.

Summer Roundup

Hey, all y’all! It’s been a long time since we’ve had a chance to catch our breath and write something for this blog! Today we have some time so we’re bringing you a good old Texas roundup of some of the various events that have made our summer exciting (and busy).

Not long after Sr. Mary Veronica’s jubilee celebration, we welcomed Fr. Reginald Baconin, O.P. to our monastery for a couple of months.

Fr. Reginald comes from the province of Toulouse in France, but has been studying in Rome at the Angelicum. He is working on two licentiates at the same time–one on Trinitarian theology and one on Islamology. He speaks English beautifully, with almost no accent, and we were delighted to have him celebrate Mass for us–and give us some classes.

At the end of June, we had a farewell recreation with Fr. Ian.

Sr. Martin Marie crocheted this classic-looking scarf for him, which he was happy to receive.

We also gave him a Dominican coffee mug:

We are sad to see Fr. Ian leave, but know he is needed at his new assignment, which is much more challenging than the one he had here. We are proud of Father for finishing his doctorate and getting his degree. Hopefully he will come back someday, to give classes or even a retreat!

On June 30, Sarah Larmore entered as a postulant.

Sr. Mary Pauline, Sr. Mary Christine, Sr. Marie Augustine, Sarah, Michelle, and Sr. Maria Goretti

Sarah could hardly wait to begin her life as a cloistered contemplative nun!

On July 1, we had our 4th of July picnic. We like to have our picnic celebration on Satursdays if possible.

Here we are, all decked out for the traditional flag raising after Midmorning Prayer.

We had a joyful day of food, fun, games, conversation, and patriotic fervor.

As is our custom on the Fourth of July, we sang “My Country ’tis of Thee” from the Summit Choirbook at Vespers. While we were all filled with love for our nation, Fr, Reginald (joining us for Vespers in the outside chapel) was perplexed. He asked us later, “Why did you sing ‘God Save The King’ to celebrate July 4?”

And as it happens, July 4 is Fr. Reginald’s birthday! We had a special recreation with him that night.

Fr. Reginald has been a big Texas fan for many years, thanks to his father’s love for John Wayne movies (especially “The Alamo”), and various people in our community took him on many Texas adventures, including visits to a Native American reservation, Nacogdoches TX (the oldest town in Texas), the San Jacinto battlefield, and, yes, the Alamo! He bought this hat for himself soon after his arrival, but we had some gifts for him, too–especially this one:

A T-shirt that proudly proclaims, “Texas–Bigger than France”! He loves it!

A few days later we had a visit from our Southern Province novices. We’re happy to say all five of them made profession! Please pray for them, and for the upcoming novitiate class.

We have even more news to share with you, but this is enough for now. We plan to post the rest of the recent news soon. For now, we hope you enjoy this glimpse inside the boring and monotonous life of the cloister! (And yes, we always keep our prayer schedule–even on holidays.)