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Lent is here again! We\’ve heard a lot of Dominicans telling us recently, \”Instead of giving something up, why not do something extra for Lent?\” This doesn\’t necessarily mean extra church services, extra prayers, or extra volunteer time (although all those things are good practices!). It can also mean strengthening the virtues, building up those that are weak within us. You could try putting Paul\’s reminder about Christians being ambassadors for Christ into practice (as another friar told us). And hopefully, by practicing a new virtue for the six weeks of Lent, it will become a new good habit that will carry you through the months and years to come! So this Lent consider striving to be more grateful, more loving, more patient…or whatever you most need to work on. If you are faithful to your practice it will bear fruit in your life at Easter–or even before!

With this in mind, we\’re going to bring you some \”Lenten companions\” to help you as we proceed through Lent. We did this for Advent, and it seemed to be helpful for many, so we will try again for this season! We hope to have at least one Lenten companion each week, so please check to find out who\’s being featured. And we will also be posting monastery news and other things!

Have a blessed and holy Lent! We\’ll be meeting you on the way!

We\’ve got the winter 2015 issue of \”Monastery Bells\” in the mail! If you want to read it right now, just click here. 

We are also holding our annual raffle again this year! You can check out the prizes–we have seven, but two are not pictured as they are surprises–here. If you don\’t receive \”Monastery Bells\” by mail (and therefore do not get tickets for our raffle) we invite anyone in the United States (sorry, we can\’t mail prizes overseas) to enter just by sending us an email or contact form message with your name, address, and a way of contacting you! No donation is required, although we accept any donations gratefully. We hope to hear from you!

These are sisters from a congregation based in Puerto Rico, called the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary of Fatima. Their mission is to \”bring Christ to the family, and the family to Christ\” so their primary work is social services. They have been doing great things in the diocese,  working mainly with the Hispanic population. We are so delighted to have some active Dominican sisters in our diocese again, and we hope they will visit us when they can. 

Here you can see most of our community, plus the visiting sisters and our chaplain, Fr. Marcos Ramos, OP. A true meeting of the Dominican family!

It\’s hard to know what to do with a poinsettia after Christmas. During the Christmas season, they are a beautiful addition to all the liturgical festivities…then in mid-January you have all these dying flowers in conspicuously red and green pots, which are usually disposed of in the dead of night when no one is around. A sad ending! But for one lucky poinsettia, things turned out very differently. A few years ago, Sr. Mary Jeremiah nabbed one of these wilting poinsettias after Christmas and determined to keep it alive. Like the servant in the Gospel who hoed and watered the fig tree for another year to see if it would eventually bear fruit, Sister carefully tended her poinsettia and saved it from several attempts to be thrown out. The first couple of years, the poinsettia flourished, but its leaves remained stubbornly green. However, this year Sr. Mary Jeremiah\’s patience finally paid off, and the leaves are slowly turning a brilliant shade of red!

 

Being nuns, we of course draw a moral from all this gardening. So often our good efforts seem to come to nothing. But grace often works slowly, imperceptibly in our lives, so that one day we realize things have changed without realizing the exact moment when the change came! It\’s like the seed in another parable–the farmer plants it, and then he sleeps and rises, every day noticing the seed had grown, but he does not know how or when it actually happened. May we continue to be patient with ourselves and others, so that the seeds (and green leaves) of grace make reach their fulfillment in due time!

Today begins the Christian Unity octave (January 18-25). Here at the Monastery of the Infant Jesus, we pray for church unity, and we also try to practice it in our way. Just yesterday we visited with a group of Methodist teens who are preparing for Confirmation in their church later this spring. We had a very fruitful discussion with them about prayer, listening to God\’s voice in our daily lives, and yes, we discussed Christian unity, as well. We open our doors to people of every faith (although in Lufkin, TX  we mostly get people of various Christian denominations) who want to come and pray before the Blessed Sacrament, or join us in the Liturgy of the Hours. And they do come. Some people just stay out in the parking lot, but they tell us they can feel the presence of God in a special way even there. We are always open to dialogue with people of different faiths, and we enjoy discussing our faith and practices with people who are curious about what we do. We are Dominicans, after all!

Let us be united in prayer during this week and throughout the year, remembering that Jesus was willing to ask the Samaritan woman for a drink at the well. Whatever our faith, let us be open to each other and ready to find common ground.

Today begins 9 Days for Life, a novena of days to pray for pro-life causes of every kind. We\’ll be praying, and we hope you will, too! You can pray the novena from the USCCB here. It\’s in both English and Spanish. We hope you will join us in a special way on January 22, the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, in praying for an end to abortion in this country and throughout the world. Let\’s get on our knees and pray!