Dominican Life on Lotus Lane

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…

The second of the Four Last Things we are considering this Advent season is Judgment. Here we will discuss the Last Judgment, which will come at the end of time, and also the particular judgment, which happens to each of us at the moment of our death. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, \”Every man receives his eternal recompense in his immortal soul from the moment of his death in a particular judgment by Christ, the judge of the living and the dead.\” (CCC 1051) When a person dies, Christ immediately judges him or her and assigns a place in Hell, Heaven, or Purgatory. Of course if you end up in Purgatory, you know you will eventually get to heaven. 

The Last Judgment is something else entirely. First comes the general resurrection–when all the dead rise from the grave–followed by Christ coming in glory. The Gospel of Matthew tells us, \”Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at his left…And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.\” (Matthew 25:32, 46) It\’s an extremely frightening concept…but a comforting one, as well. The Catechism tells us, \”We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvelous ways by which his Providence led everything towards its final end. The Last Judgment will reveal that God\’s justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures and that God\’s love is stronger than death.\” (CCC 1040)

We are often critical of those who judge others (of course we overlook the fact that in criticizing we are judging them too!). Add to this Pope Francis\’ repeated statements about looking to God\’s mercy rather than His judgment, and the whole concept gets even more confusing. How does God\’s judgment happen, anyway? The best we can do is simply trust in God–His mercy and His judgment–and do our best to choose Him now so that we may be happy with Him forever.