Dominican Life on Lotus Lane

The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes heaven as \”eternal life with God; communion of life and love with the Trinity and all the blessed. Heaven is the state of supreme and definitive happiness, the goal of the deepest longings of humanity.\” (1023) As we see in the picture above, Fra Aneglico, OP pictured Heaven as a beautiful garden where saints and angels join in an eternal dance of joy. St. Ambrose wrote, \”For life is to be with Christ; where Christ is, there is life, there is the kingdom.\” This mystery is beyond our limited human understanding. There was a cartoon many years ago that depicted a man–wearing wings and a halo–sitting on a cloud, presumably in Heaven, and thinking wistfully, \”Wish I\’d brought a magazine…\” This idea that Heaven is a place of static, boring perfection is entirely wrong. Heaven is something that, as the band MercyMe sang, we can \”only imagine\”. 

In meditating on Heaven, some of us may also think of music, and a piece that came to mind was Olivier Messiaen\’s composition \”Quatuor pour la fin du temps\” (Quartet for the end of time). This work was composed in 1940 while Messiaen was in a prison camp. Friendly guards gave him paper, pencils, and erasers, and allowed him a place to write. He composed the quartet using the instruments available in the camp: violin, clarinet, cello and piano. The result is a remarkable and deeply moving meditation on the end of time and eternity itself. Messiaen used a phrase from Revelation 10:7 to inspire him–in his Vulgate translation the angel says, \”There shall be no more time\”, although today we are more accustomed to the translation which reads, \”There shall be no more delay\”. The piece was actually performed in the camp in January 1941 before a large audience of prisoners and guards. What does this have to do with Heaven? Well, for one thing, there is no time in Heaven. Heaven is a perpetual and eternally present Now. Time with its sadness has come to an end; the joy of Heaven goes on always. Messiaen\’s composition, especially the two movements in praise of Jesus (5 and 8) attempt to suggest this beautiful sense of peace and everlasting happiness. It is also a reminder that even in the most dire of circumstances, we can lift our eyes to God and trust that in His great mercy He will bring us to be with Him forever one day. Messiaen\’s response to the cold, hunger and deprivation of the prison camp was to compose a masterpiece using what he had available to him. His Catholic faith sustained and encouraged him throughout his ordeal. 

St. Catherine of Siena, OP once said, \”All the way to heaven is heaven.\” When we remember that Heaven is our longed-for, most desired destiny, we will not mind the little irritations and the enormous problems that confront us each day. We will hopefully keep our eyes fixed on Christ and remember that in Him alone we find our true happiness and joy. 

As we approach the Good News that is Christmas (the Incarnation of our Savior!) we also have some good news to share from our monastery, namely, some exciting happenings coming next month!

You\’ve seen our postulant Cloe doing all kinds of things over the past year, and we are happy to announce that on January 28, 2016 (the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas) she will receive the habit and begin her novitiate as a nun of  the Order of Preachers! Any guesses about her new religious name? We\’re all stumped! And incidentally, Sr. Mary Thomas is already taken!!

And on January 30, 2016, our Sr. Bernadette Marie will make her solemn profession! This is not as dramatic in an obvious way as a clothing or a simple profession, but it is certainly more serious and, well, solemn! 

We hope you will keep both Cloe and Sr. Bernadette Marie in your prayers as they prepare for their special days. We will bring you more information and updates as the time draws closer. And please pray for all the young women who are discerning religious life at our monastery! 

The third of our Four Last Things is hell. Hell is the \”state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed\” (CCC 1033). The Church teaches that hell does exist, but there is no way of knowing who is (or who isn\’t) in hell while we are on earth. 

When we were looking for an illustration of hell, we had to reject most of what we found (too gruesome!) and went with this illustration from Dante\’s Divine Comedy. This is particularly appropriate, though, considering that Pope Francis has urged the faithful to read (or reread) the Divine Comedy during this Year of Mercy. In the section on hell, Dante writes that once judged, the damned actually run to their assigned places in hell, anxious (as it were) to begin their punishment. Note what the Catechism said above: it is a state of self-exclusion. Anyone who winds up in hell has freely chosen this place of torment by his or her own actions, which caused a definitive rejection of God and His freely offered mercy. The Catechism continues:\”God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end.\” (CCC 1037) Rather, as St. Paul writes, God \”desires all men to be saved\” (1 Timothy 2:4) and so He is always extending His mercy to those who are willing to accept it. In the Mass and the daily prayers of the faithful, \”the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want \’any to perish, but all to come to repentance\’ (2 Peter 3:9).\” (CCC 1037) In the time we have remaining in this Advent season, let us make an effort to turn back to God before it is too late and our habitual sins may have made it impossible for us to accept the mercy He offers us at every moment. 

Excellent article by Bishop Robert Barron on Dante and the Divine Comedy here. 

Saturday, December 12, was the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In addition to our beautiful Mass, we celebrated Sr. Maria Guadalupe\’s prioral feast day! The general theme for the day was \”Lord, Make Me An Instrument Of Your Peace\”, since this is her motto.When a nun in our monastery makes solemn profession, she also chooses a phrase that is meaningful to her to be her motto. This can be almost anything. We have a sister whose motto is simply \”Fiat\” (from the Vulgate version of the Bible) and another whose motto is \”Nothing but Yourself, O Lord\” (the famous quotation from St. Thomas Aquinas).

But back to the feast day celebration! We began with a lovely bilingual musical setting of \”Lord, Make Me An Instrument of Your Peace\” and moved on to a series of skits and readings of various kinds that illustrated each petition in the prayer: love, peace, pardon, faith, hope, light, joy, etc.

We\’re approaching the halfway point of Advent and some of us may be feeling like the foolish virgins pictured above…the oil has run out, and there seems to be no hope of getting more in time for the Bridegroom\’s arrival. It\’s easy to get like this. Advent is a relatively short season, and it\’s difficult to carve out time to wait patiently, to meditate on the Lord\’s coming. It can even become a prime moment for a really intense bout of self-pity. Here I am, trying to keep a good Advent while the world celebrates Christmas from Thanksgiving (or Halloween!) onward. Here I am, trying to share my experience of Advent with the world and no one gets it. Here I am, meditating on the coming of Christ incarnate in our world (not to mention meditating on the four last things!) and all around me it\’s like a big happy party that I haven\’t been invited to. Poor me!

These problems are microscopic compared to all the truly horrific things happening in the world…shootings, refugee crises, world hunger, terrorism. But at the same time they are still meaningful. Just because something is incredibly trivial doesn\’t mean it hurts less. Sometimes it\’s the little things that hurt the most. The thing to remember is that these hurts and slights and pains are not the end of the story. We may not be able to change the world, but we can change ourselves by cooperating and accepting and being open to God\’s grace. There is still time, this Advent season, to buy more oil and prepare for the coming of Christ. There is still time to awaken from the drowsiness of self-pity and unreasonable depression and go out to meet Christ with joy. There is still time to help others, to spread the Good News through our small and everyday acts of love, to pray for all those people suffering so terribly in so many parts of this world and to support them through prayers and material donations, etc. There is still time! We are only halfway through Advent…