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As you can guess, we haven’t had a lot going on at the monastery because of the enclosure–of other people, that is! Lectures had to be canceled or postponed, guests haven\’t come to visit, some other interesting things were scrapped. (But we keep them quiet for now, because they may be news later on!)So we\’re going to bring you some of the “fruits of our contemplation”, as our brother St. Thomas Aquinas said, by sharing some Marian meditations each weekday of May. We’re going to focus on some of the titles in the Litany of Loreto, which our community prays every night as we process to the statue of Our Lady of the Pines.

The Easter Octave is usually a quiet one for us. Unlike Christmas, with all its attendant activities–gifts, guests, special schedules, possibly a movie one day, culminating in Epiphany with games and skits and such–Easter is usually solemn. But nothing is the “way it always is” this year!

A silly time–but we really enjoyed it!

We had a delightful circle recreation on the evening of Easter Sunday. This is just what it sounds like: we all gather in a circle and recreate, instead of sitting together in small groups around the community room. We told stories of all the funny things that happened during our Triduum retreat (sorry, we can’t publish them) and, much to our surprise, we received some little gifts! Most of us have never experienced this in the monastery. Each one received a sturdy plastic Easter egg with candy inside–a gift from friends, a darling handcrafted box from the niece of one of our sisters, and a fancy cake of soap made by our own sisters here at the monastery! It was such fun.

Close up of the fancy soap and handcrafted chick. There were also bunnies and flowers.

One of our sister’s relatives gave us a DVD of the movie “Apollo 13”, so we decided to watch it, especially because the anniversary of this sad mission was around that time. Most of the sisters had never seen it, and many of those who had did not remember it too well. A very powerful story!

And finally–we received a belated Easter gift from our dear friend Janet Paneitz, a talented seamstress who, like so many others, is doing her best to supply ordinary folks with masks to cover their mouths and nose when they go out in public. She made them for us in a variety of colors and we each chose our own.

Can you recognize anyone in her mask??

Thanks to Janet and all those out there doing their best to stop the spread of COVID-19. We\’re praying for you all!

This is something new for us!

Hard at work preparing the \”Monastery Bells\” mailing. Yes, we still do it all ourselves!

As readers of this blog, you may not be aware that we also publish a newsletter–“Monastery Bells”. This “snail mail” update on monastery events is published twice a year, in the spring and in the fall. In the spring, issues of “Monastery Bells” come with a May novena slip and a return envelope. We invite all our subscribers to send in their prayer intentions to be placed at the feet of our Blessed Mother as we spend the month of May in processions and other devotions to Mary. In November, you receive basically the same thing–except that we invite you to send us the names of your beloved dead, so that we may pray for them during the month of November. (As an aside, Dominicans make praying for the dead an important priority as part of our charism–so it\’s something we take very seriously.)

It\’s actually fun to work together on this!

We send out two other mailings: one in early summer, which includes the tickets for our increasingly popular raffle, and one in early December, which is always a Christmas greeting and pocket calendar for the upcoming year designed by the nuns.

If you are interested, please send your mailing address to mt0031@gmail.com. Sorry, we cannot send these mailings online yet. We happily accept donations, and we are grateful for anything you can send us, but no donation is required to send your novena slips and raffle tickets to us.
We are unable to accept credit and debit cards, but we are working to include this service in our new website, hopefully coming soon!

We just sent our latest issue of “Monastery Bells” before Easter so there is plenty of time to request a subscription. Then we will send you the latest “Bells”, the May novena slip, and the return envelope.

We’d like to take a little time now and pick up a story describing a grace-filled two weeks or so here at the Monastery, a while back before COVID-19 became the headline everywhere. But first, all of us here wish all our readers and prayer companions a joyful and blessed Easter! As the saying we’ve heard going around says, “The churches are empty–but so is the tomb.” More on that in a later post.We had a lovely visit with Fr. John Sica, OP, a brother from the eastern (St. Joseph) Dominican province. Father John is currently living in Houston with our brothers at Holy Rosary Priory while he works toward a degree at the University of St. Thomas. This school is run by the Basilian Fathers, and has an excellent program Father wished to pursue. He came here to the Monastery for a double purpose: to be our supply chaplain while our regular chaplain, Fr. John Lydon, OP, took his vacation, and also to take his personal retreat. In between retreat days and celebrating at Mass, Father gave us a couple of very interesting talks on basic Thomism.

The beautiful thing about the works of St. Thomas is that you can be at any level and still find something to chew on. You may be cracking open the Summa Theologiae for the first time, trying to understand the old disputatio style of the Middle Ages that characterizes its format. You may suddenly realize how the five proofs of the existence of God fall into place, the cornerstones of theology. You will almost definitely be surprised to read that far from being a Puritanical, prudish old bachelor, St. Thomas makes it very clear in several places: the greatest pleasure a human being can know is physical.  And far away at the other end you may see, just for a moment, the glory of God Himself that blinded St. Thomas at the end of his life, leading him to put away his writing materials, saying, “Everything I have written seems like straw, compared with what I have seen.”

Fr. John brought a lot of fun to both his classes and our recreation time with him one evening in the parlor. We know it can be tough to be one priest facing so many nuns, but like most Dominicans, he was up to the task! We wish Father well in his studies and hope to see him again sometime before he returns to his province.