Dominican Life on Lotus Lane

We\’re almost at the end of our summer of visiting friars, because our new chaplain will be arriving next week! But in the meantime, we were happy to enjoy the celebration of Mass and great preaching by Fr. R.B. Williams, OP. Father is an old friend of our community (we won\’t say how old!) and it is always a pleasure to welcome him and renew our friendship with him. Some readers may remember that he gave us a community retreat back in 2010 (called \”Pictures at an Exhibition\”) which we all benefited from a great deal. We look forward to seeing Father again soon–actually, he\’ll be back for a weekend stay next month! If you would like to experience Father\’s preaching for yourself, check out his website: http://www.rbwords.com. He\’s available for parish missions and other preaching engagements!

After Fr. Austin Green, OP left us, we were delighted to welcome Fr. Thomas Condon, OP for a brief visit to our monastery!

Fr. Tom is the socius and vicar provincial of our province of St. Martin de Porres (also known as the southern province of Dominicans). That basically means he\’s the second in command to our provincial. We all enjoyed Fr. Tom\’s engaging homilies and his Tennessee accent (or lack thereof). Hopefully he will come back sometime soon and visit us again! Thanks, Fr. Tom and we keep you in our prayers!

You never know what a day will bring in the cloister…and on July 3, as we were in the midst of preparations for our annual 4th of July picnic, we were happily surprised with a huge amount of cherries! All hands were called on deck, and everyone got to work sorting, washing, cutting up and even cooking some of the cherries to make a delicious cherry sauce. We are always so grateful to people who remember us with donations, whether of money or food or anything else. As Dominican nuns, we are also mendicants (that\’s a fancy way of saying we beg for our needs) and we do not receive any stipends or regular support from Rome or our diocese. We are happy to accept anything that is given to us, and this summer alone we have received many welcome gifts of produce of various kinds. Blessed be God (and all our benefactors whom He inspires)!

Sr. Mary Lucy happily poses with some of the fruits of our cherry labors! Sister just turned 89 on the 4th of July, making her the oldest sister in our community. She also received a beautiful flag-decorated cake as a gift for her birthday celebration–and it was delicious, thanks so much for it!

We promised to let you know about some of our visiting friars, and finally we\’re able to do so! 

Our first visiting friar this summer was Fr. Marty Iott, OP, a great preacher and really nice man who stayed with us several days. We took a picture of him with some of the sisters but for some unknown reason the picture wouldn\’t show up on the computer–and hence, it won\’t appear here. Possibly a problem with our card? Anyway, he is supposed to return in July and we hope to get a picture of him then!

We do have a picture of our second visiting friar, Fr. Austin Green, OP.

 Father is 93 years old and still going strong! He celebrated Mass and had Benediction for us every day, and even joined us in the outside chapel for many hours of the Divine Office and for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Father is a wonderful preacher. We all enjoyed his humble and moving homilies. We did have to make some small adaptations in our chapel to make things easier for him, but Father has a range of motion many younger men (and women!) would envy. One thing will suffice: he can genuflect beautifully! Father is currently stationed at St. Anthony of Padua Priory in New Orleans, LA. If God wills, perhaps he will return some day! Thanks to Fr. Art Kirwin, OP who acted as his \”travel agent\” and Fr. Marty Iott, OP who picked Father Austin up at the airport and brought him to Lufkin. And thanks to Father Austin Green, for a great two weeks! We certainly enjoyed having you with us!

We got an email yesterday telling us that this site chose our blog as one of the top 100 blogs by Catholic nuns and sisters. A lot of thoughts ran through our minds…mostly curiosity and bewilderment…but we decided to check out the site and it looks OK. Actually, it looks like a pretty interesting site if you\’re interested in Catholic dating–which we aren\’t personally, but we have no objections to people dating–unless you\’re a young woman and you think God might be calling you to the cloister! But since they include a list of nun blogs on their website, they seem to be open to all kinds of vocations, which is great. By the way, if you want to see our blog on the list…open the link above and keep scrolling, scrolling, scrolling…we\’re #100. Seriously. But we\’re in some good company among the bloggers. There\’s a link to our blog and even a little screenshot. Thanks!

A: There are actually two answers to this question. First, the simple one. Our address is 1501 Lotus Lane so we are, in fact, living Dominican life on Lotus Lane. Now the more complicated one. Many years ago the sister who does most of the writing for this blog was assigned the task of creating and writing and printing a little newsletter for prospective vocations. Since she was in the novitiate at the time, she called it \”Novitiate News\”. Maybe not the most original title, but it got the point across. Fast forward a few years. The sister in question graduated from the novitiate but was asked to keep writing her little newsletter. Since she was out of the novitiate and no longer had full access what was happening there (those of you familiar with religious life know that the professed sisters and novitiate sisters lead very separate lives despite their close proximity otherwise), she decided to call the revised publication \”Life on Lotus Lane\”. In 2010, we started this blog and of course there was the question of what to call it. \”Life on Lotus Lane\” was suggested but rejected. But, someone queried, what if we call it \”Dominican Life on Lotus Lane\”? Somehow that name stuck. And it seems to be working. 

A: If there are, they are not on our property. We have tried to grow them, but conditions have never been favorable. We\’re not sure about the rest of Lotus Lane as it is actually a rather long street. Anything is possible.

You can leave a question in the comments section or email it to us. Our email address is on our website.