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Christmas at the Monastery

Christmas at the monastery was fun, festive, and very busy. Our celebrations lasted for days and we had many special events and visitors.

We always enjoy decorating our monastery to get ourselves in the festive mood, and keep the decorations up as long as possible.

Our sacristan, Sr. Carmen Gloria, is particularly creative with the decorations in the chapel. The creche gets special attention to call everyone over to adore the baby Jesus.

Every year, the magi start at one corner of the chapel, but eventually make their way over to the Holy Family in time for Epiphany.

Christmas wreaths make the chapel particularly festive.

Right before Christmas, we had a visit from jolly old St. Nicholas and one of his elves (the Healys, good friends of the monastery), who brought along some friends

Dr. Price and Dr. Fidone with Bella

They brought along their new puppy Bella, a beautiful chocolate Newfoundland dog, who was given special permission to come over to the nuns’ side of the parlor and quickly made friends with everyone.

Bella takes a nap.

On Christmas Eve, we had our usual midnight mass, then sang Christmas carols on our way to the refectory for our traditional midnight breakfast.

The refectory looked so beautiful with all of the foliage and Christmas lights. The novitiate did a wonderful job decorating!

Sr. Mary Pauline, Sr. Mary Christine, and Sr. Marie Augustine with the beautiful refectory Christmas creche.

On Christmas day, we spent all afternoon opening presents from our generous benefactors. There were group gifts to the whole community, and we also each got many gift bags full of treats for ourselves.

On New Year’s morning, we had our usual Big Chapter, in which we each get a card with a saint patron and a special cause to pray for during the upcoming year.

Then we give each other the kiss of peace to welcome in another year at the monastery.

In the evening, we go around the monastery Christmas caroling, which gives us a chance to see all of the Christmas decorations in the various departments throughout the monastery.

Sr. Mary Pauline and Sr. Mary Christine with their beautifully decorated novitiate Christmas tree

Christmas caroling in the outside lobby

We love going outside and seeing all the beautiful Christmas lights our workmen have put up for Christmas.

We made sure to go over and sing to our patron, the Infant Jesus!

On Epiphany, we have our big Christmas feast day, where we play games and recreate together all day.

This year, the novitiate was in charge of the evening’s activities, and divided us up into three teams and had us play star-related games.

In the end, everyone was a winner and we all got gift bags, including some special “star bread” baked by the novitiate.

Christmas is a special time for us, when we reflect on the closing year and look forward to the next. It’s a time not just for our community to come together, but also for us to visit with our special friends and benefactors who are so generous and make our lives here possible. Thanks be to the Infant Jesus!

Happy Thanksgiving in the Monastery

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration this year, full of laughter, fun, and feasting.

As usual, we decorated the community room and set up tables so we could display and eat the food together. Seeing the full tables reminded us how blessed we are and how God always finds a way to provide us with everything we need. Friends of the Monastery were so generous, as they are every year, so we had plenty of food and treats. We even had an “international” table, with Vietnamese pho soup and a couple of Tanzanian dishes.

We’re especially thankful for our hard-working cook, Sr. Marie Augustine (pictured with a pie).

Other than feasting, we spent the day recreating with each other in the community room. We talked and laughed and relaxed together.

In the evening, we went outside for out annual fireworks display. Sr. Mary Christine was in charge of lighting them while most of us sat and watched, but when she brought out the individual sparklers we all took some to put on our own fireworks show.

When we were done with the fireworks, we went back inside to relax. We had enough time for our aspirant, Sophia, to entertain us with some musical pieces on the piano.

Sophia is an extremely talented pianist, and we all enjoyed chair dancing to her music.

As usual, we had so much fun on Thanksgiving, and it was a wonderful day for the community to come together as a family. We are all so thankful for our monastic vocation, each other, and all of our wonderful benefactors who make our life possible.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sr. Mary Christine’s Novice Mistress Feast Day

On the Solemnity of Christ the King, the novitiate celebrated the feast day of our novice mistress, Sr. Mary Christine. The novices prepared a day of fun, games, and surprises for our hard-working sister.

The novitiate can’t wait to show the novice mistress what they’ve planned for her.

First, the novitiate sang a special song and put on a musical performance (which they later showed to the entire community so we could all enjoy it). Then the group played games the novices had made up.

The party had both meals in the novitiate courtyard, with lights strung up overhead to add to the festive mood.

Sr. Mary Christine also opened up her many gifts, from the novices as well as from the community. She loves to garden and do crafts, so we gave her lots of gifts to help her with her hobbies.

Sr. Mary Christine is happy with her beautiful new peacock fountain.

In the afternoon, the party watched the movie Enchanted, a funny live-action Disney spoof of traditional fairy tale movies. They liked it so much that they showed it again later in the week so the entire community could enjoy it.

Sr. Mary Christine works very hard to show our new sisters what to do and to help them integrate into our community and the monastic way of life. It’s important for us to give her a special day to show her how much we appreciate her, and we’re happy she enjoyed her special day.

A Visit from Our Master General, Fr. Gerard Timoner

Fr. Gerard Timoner, O.P., Master General of the Order of Preachers since 2019, came to visit us recently. He brought Br. Jordan Turano, O.P., the Socius for the United States, with him and we had a wonderful visit with them.

All the nuns visited with the friars in our community room. Br. Jordan has visited us before so it was good to see him again. This was the first time we’ve met Fr. Gerard, though, and we were honored that he came all the way to Lufkin to see us during his visit through the United States.

He told us a bit about himself, his family, and his history with the order. We told him about the history of our monastery, and then he asked each of us what we were most thankful for about being cloistered nuns. It was interesting for all of us to hear what each of us valued most about our vocation.

Our visit with Fr. Gerard and Br. Jordan was a joyful reunion of Dominican friars and nuns. We value our brothers in the order and always enjoy when they come to visit us.

Columbus Day Picnic

On Saturday, October 12, the community celebrated our annual Columbus Day picnic. It’s always a day of outdoor exploration, community games, feasting, and fun.

We began the day with our traditional flag raising of the United States and Texas flags. We sang some patriotic songs, then our prioress Sr. Mary Margaret led us in a prayer thanking God for the freedoms and liberties we enjoy as citizens of this country.

After the flag raising, we went to the refectory to look over the treats our cook had put out for us. Special snacks fortify us for a day full of community adventure, games, and fun.

The nuns sample special picnic day treats.

Several nuns decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and made a trek around the back path, the part of our land that we own but is outside the cloister. It’s a great wooded area, and halfway through we came across a huge tree that had fallen over the path. Some of us were able to climb over it and continue walking, and we found a beautiful area with wildflowers such as goldenrods and baby’s breath. We never know what we’re going to find when we go exploring!

When we returned to the monastery, we decided to pick some of the persimmons that were growing behind the professed dorm.

Sr. Mary Christine holds the ladder while Sr. Mary Therese cuts down a branch full of ripe persimmons.

We were able to harvest quite a bunch that the squirrels hadn’t gotten to yet, and then took them to the novitiate courtyard to finish ripening. We were able to enjoy the fresh persimmons a few days later. Delicious!

We spent the rest of the day feasting and playing games in the community room.

Sr. Mary Jeremiah, Sr. Mary Christine, Sophia, and Sr. Miriam enjoy playing Uno.

Running a monastery can be hard work, and with our usual days filled with prayers and our own work we don’t have a lot of time to spend together as a family. Our picnic days provide welcome time for us just to relax and have fun with each other. Laughing and playing together bond us as sisters and strengthen us for our important work of praising God as a community.

The Novitiate Celebrates St. Louis Bertrand!

The novitiate recently celebrated the feast day of St. Louis Bertrand, the Dominican patron saint of novices. On his official feast day, October 9, our novice mistress, Sr. Mary Christine, led the prayers during the Liturgy of the Hours throughout the day. Then the novitiate had special activities on Friday and Saturday to celebrate their small community within our monastery and to thank God for the gift of our novices who are in formation to join our order.

The novitiate opens gifts from the community.

They spent much of the day playing outdoor games such as tennis, and then came inside to play table games like the monastery favorite, Sequence.

For supper, the novitiate had a special meal of barbecue. Then they played instruments and sang songs.

Our novitiate is forming quite a band!

The community was happy to let the novices have some free time to celebrate their special day. We’re very excited when new women want to join our community, and we look forward to see what God has planned for them!

Sr. Mary Margaret’s Triumphant Feast Day

On September 14, the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, the community celebrated the feast day of our prioress, Sr. Mary Margaret of the Cross. Since this will be her last feast day during her term as our prioress, we wanted to make the day particularly special.

We began the celebrations by gathering in the community room and singing a special song that Sr. Mary Jeremiah and Sr. Mary Gabriel had written to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas”. Then Sr. Mary Margaret opened all of the gifts the community gave her.

Sr. Mary Margaret’s Feast Day table

We’ve been working hard hand-making such gifts as knitted and crocheted items, stuffed animals, cross stich pieces, and diamond art pictures. We have plenty of beautiful items to go in next year’s raffle!

Sr. Marie Augustine and Sr. Mary Christine have a special gift for Sr. Mary Margaret–the novitiate bearing gifts!

Then we gathered in the community room for a special steak dinner.

Tables decorated for the feast day

In the afternoon, we watched the movie The Chosen, based on the Chaim Potok novel. It’s about two Jewish boys growing up in 1940s New York, and explores ideas of friendship and family.

The evening’s program was a variety show, in which various sisters showed off their performing talents.

The novitiate performed several songs.

Sr. Maria played a couple of pieces on her accordion.

In between acts, Sr. Mary Rose shared fun facts about Illinois, Sr. Mary Margaret’s home state.

It was a fun, relaxing community day for the sisters, and a wonderful way to celebrate our love and appreciation for our prioress!