Category: Uncategorized

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!

Rest in Peace, Sr. Mary Sybillina


Our oldest sister and last foundress, Sister Mary Sybillina of the Crucifixion, O.P., died yesterday afternoon at about 5 PM. Sister was 93 years old. She had been a member of our Lufkin monastery for 75 years. Sister entered the Monastery of the Blessed Sacrament in Detroit, MI (now relocated to Farmington Hills, MI) and two weeks later left that monastery to come to settle a new foundation here in Lufkin. We hope to post more about Sister in the next few days. Due to COVID-19, the funeral will be private.
Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon her. Amen.

Solace of Migrants (Solacium Migrantium)

You shall answer and say before the Lord your God, ‘My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, few in number… (Deuteronomy 26:5)

People have always been migrants, for one reason or another. Although we manage to settle in one place for a time, we usually end up on the move again. In the United States, this is usually a voluntary choice: a decision to go elsewhere to find a better job, good weather, a safer neighborhood. But you can look at any newspaper or Internet news site to see that Americans are privileged. The majority of the world\’s migrants are on the move because they have to go. It’s a question of life or death. They are getting away from religious fanatics, drug cartels, oppression by the government, and general lawlessness. They leave home, often with only the clothes on their backs, and they journey to an unknown destination.
When you read the Bible, you find that it is primarily about people moving around. Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden. Abraham was called to live in a faraway country called Canaan. Moses led the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery. During the time of Jeremiah the prophet, the people were systematically rounded up and taken by force to Babylon. And, of course, the story most of us know best: the journey of Mary and Joseph away from their home in Nazareth to be enrolled in the census in Bethlehem, and then their flight into Egypt to escape Herod\’s murderous plans.
Pope Francis has added this title, Solace of Migrants, to the Litany of Loreto in order to remind us. Not just of the past, although that is essential. But we must also remember that nothing in life is ever stable. Even a hurricane or tornado can force people to migrate. They see their homes and lives completely ruined, and all they can do is try to start over.
A Christian writer once suggested that a creed for Christians that begins, “My father was a wandering Aramean…” might be more meaningful than the creeds we recite during Mass on Sundays. Although we don’t think this should be an actual practice, she makes a good point. All of us are, in a sense, wandering Arameans. We are separated from God, and we spend our lives searching for Him. We are strangers and sojourners on this earth, and our true home is in Heaven.
Holy Mary, Solace of Migrants, pray for us!

Mater spei (Mother of Hope)

Our Lady of Hope as she appeared in Pontmain, France, 1871
The title “Mother of Hope” is not entirely new. Like \”Mater misericordiae\”, Our Lady is also addressed in reference to this title in the Salve Regina: et spes nostra salve, hail to our hope. Additionally, there were small confraternities, primarily in Europe, that invoked Mary as “Mother of Hope”. However, it was not until 1871 that the title really caught on, so to speak.
In January of 1871, France was fighting the Prussian army and things were not going well. At Pontmain, the Prussians were at the edge of the city. A young boy went out to finish his chores on the family farm and, to his astonishment, saw a beautiful Lady hovering in the air. His brother also saw it. They rushed to eat their supper, then went back outside. The apparition was still there. A religious from the school brought two young girls, who also saw the vision of Mary. Soon, word spread through the town: the bad news was that the Prussians were closer than ever. The good news was that more and more people were coming to be near the visionaries, to pray the rosary and sing and recite other prayers, although they could see nothing. At last, something like a scroll unrolled itself, and the children read, “But pray, my children…my Son allows himself to be touched.” The vision disappeared at 9 PM. It had been visible–to the children, anyway–for three hours.
The Prussians never attacked Pontmain, The next day, the frightened soldiers reported to their commanding officers that an “invisible Madonna” was blocking their way. They returned home, and the war finally ended. It was impossible, unbelievable, but it happened. This apparition, under the title Our Lady of Hope, was accepted by the Church in 1875, and a great basilica in honor of Our Lady of Hope was built there.
So, how does this (probably) little-known apparition come into our lives today?
We need to be reminded that Mary is our Mother of Hope. Our lives in this modern world of serious political division, racial unrest, and COVID-19 all remind us in the most forceful way: we need hope, and Mary is our Mother of Hope. We have to hope for better days to come. As Charles Peguy wrote in his long poem, “The Portico of the Mystery of the Second Virtue”:
The faith that I love best, God said, is hope…
Hope, said God, that does surprise me.
Even me…
It is faith that is easy and not believing that would be impossible. It is charity that is easy and not loving that would be impossible. But  it is hoping that is difficult.
And the easy way and the inclination is toward despair and that is the great temptation.
 
Holy Mary, Mater spei, Mother of Hope, pray for us!