Tag: community

A Prioress Feast Day in the Wilderness

This year, we celebrated our prioress Sr. Mary Rose’s feast day with a camping theme.

The day began with us singing to her to the tune of “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.”

Then we performed a skit about special Dominican saints going out to found a “Monastery in the Wilderness”.

St. Margaret of Hungary (Sr. Mary Pauline), St. Catherine of Siena (Sr. Mary Therese), and St. Rose of Lima (Sr. Mary Jeremiah) decided that they want to get out and explore God’s beautiful creation, so they came to Lufkin, TX, to form a new monastery.

The community then played games to complete tasks to establish the monastery.

Sr. Mary Christine and Sr. Mary Rose “straightened the camp paths” by sorting balls by color.

Next, the sisters solved clues to search for animals that had gotten lost around the monastery.

Sr. Mary Christine and Sr. Mary Rose with all the animals they rescued. The owl is reading the Summa!

The sisters then “cleared the campsite” by knocking over cups with pool noodles.

Who will clear their campsite first?

Time to go fishing! The sisters catch “fish” with hoops on string. Unfortunately, the fish attracted bears, so the sisters had to scare them away.

Sr. Mary Jeremiah scared bears away with cups.

The bears were “not really scared” of Sr. Mary Pauline and Sr. Mary Therese.

Finally, before sitting down to eat, the sisters had to catch the grasshoppers that had invaded the campsite.

Sr. Bernadette Marie catches “grasshoppers” that hop into her cup.

Look at all the patches the sisters earned!

After the games, we had a delicious fajita dinner in the community room, complete with S’mores!

To show our appreciation to our prioress for all that she does for us, we gave her many handmade gifts.

Some wilderness animals guard the presents.

The sisters love to make diamond art and scratch art.

There were also some paintings. These will be great for next year’s raffle!

Sr. Mary Rose enjoyed the yarnwork gifts…and her new little rabbit friend!

We all enjoyed our day in the wilderness. Thank you, Sr. Mary Rose, for all you do for us as our prioress.

Fourth of July Adventures at the Monastery

Every year we celebrate the Fourth of July with a day of food, fun, and festivities. This year a special gift added to our patriotic celebrations.

The day began with the Pledge of Allegiance and patriotic songs around the flagpole.

Even the angel got into a patriotic mood.

We got dressed up to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country.

Sr. Maria Rosario and Sr. Mary Pauline show their national pride.

Every year we like to take this picnic day to explore our beautful grounds. Usually we walk, but this year we were able to drive thanks to a special gift.

The Knights of Columbus recently gave our monastery an amazing golf cart, and we couldn’t wait to take it out and test it on our grounds. This sturdy vehicle held up over mud, gravel, and bramble, and we were able to take it all around our “back 40”.

Sr. Marie Augustine, Sr. Mary Pauline, Sr. Mary Therese, Sr. Mary Rose, and Sr. Mary Giuse enjoy a joyride in our new golf cart.

As usual, we had a wonderful community day. God bless America!

A Visit with the Promoter of Nuns, Fr. Cristobal Torres Iglesias

We were recently blessed with a visit from the Dominican Promoter of Nuns, Fr. Cristobal Torres Iglesias, O.P. In his role as the promoter, his job is to liase between the nuns and greater Dominican order. He lets the Master General know what’s going on with the nuns and gives us the help we need, so we were very excited to get to know him and let him get to know our community.

Fr. Cristobal prays in chapel with Sr. Maria Guadalupe and Sr. Maria Rosario

Fr. Cristobal was with us for a few days, so we let him come inside the cloister and experience our lives with us.

We met with him as a group several times, and he told us about his life and about the state of Dominican cloisters throughout the world.

Fr. Cristobal was very interested in the state of our monastery and our contemplative life. We also enjoyed hearing stories about his life and experiences with the Dominican order.

We also took him on a tour of our monastery and grounds.

We also had Fr. Cristobal come in to eat with us, and we were able to have more casual, informal conversations with him.

Fr. Cristobal has dinner with Sr. Mary Rose, Sr. Mary Margaret and Sr. Mary Therese in the community room

We greatly enjoyed our visit with Fr. Cristobal and look forward to seeing him again. We’re very blessed to have such a wonderful friar as our promoter.

Fr. Cristobal with a parting gift from the monastery

A Wonderland Tea Party for Mother’s Day

For Mother’s Day this year, the community celebrated with an Alice in Wonderland themed tea party. We had special tea and treats, Wonderland-themed games, and watched the Disney cartoon version of Alice in Wonderland in the evening.

In the (golden) afternoon, we gathered in the community room to enjoy a delicious tea party. After we got our treats, the Mad Hatter Twins (Sr. Mary Gabriel and Sr. Mary Therese) crowned our prioress, Sr. Mary Rose, as Queen.

Then we divided into three teams to play the Wonderland games.

Then the sisters enjoyed a variety of games that led us to the Wonderland Tea Party. For each game, we won stickers that we enjoyed displaying on our capes!

The first game was to find the key to unlock the door into Wonderland. Sisters from each team searched the community room, finding many small heart keys but only one large rose key.

Can you see the key hidden under the tea pot banner?

Sr. Bernadette Marie finally found the right key!

To get into Wonderland, the sisters had to follow the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole.

Sr. Mary Pauline throws the bean bag rabbit into the rabbit hole.

Sr. Maria Rosario was so close!

After going down the rabbit hole, the sisters had to pin the grin on the Cheshire Cat so he could give them directions to the tea party.

Sr. Mary Therese ties the blindfold on Sr. Mary Margaret.

Good try!

Sr. Mary Giuse gives Sr. Mary Rose directions for where to pin the grin.

Sr. Mary Pauline got very close!

Sr. Mary Jeremiah and Sr. Mary Therese give their best Cheshire Cat grins.

Once at the Wonderland Tea Party, the sisters played musical chairs to see who could get a seat at the table.

“The Unbirthday Song” was the soundtrack. Sr. Mary Giuse won!

We all had a wonderful time eating delicious tea treats, playing the Wonderland games, and collecting stickers. We also greatly enjoyed watching Alice in Wonderland after spending an afternoon in our own wonderland world. Happy Mother’s Day!

Tet Celebration for the Year of the Horse

Our monastery enjoys celebrating the Asian New Year, and this year our Vietnamese Sr. Mary Christine organized another wonderful Tet celebration, this year being the year of the horse.

The evening began with Sr. Mary Christine and Sr. Mary Giuse singing a song in Vietnamese.

Then we called up all our sisters born in the year of the horse and Sr. Mary Christine read the characteristics of “horses”. Some of them were accurate!

Sr. Mary Veronica, Sr. Mary Rose, Sr. Mary Magdalene, and Sr. Maria Guadalupe–all of our sisters born in the year of the horse!

We then divided into two teams, the white horses and the black horses, and played games with an equestrian theme. For the first game, a member of each team sat in a chair and stamped her feet to try to be the first to scrunch up a long sheet of newspaper.

Sr. Miriam pulls at the newspaper as fast as she can!

The next game was a horse race, where a member from each team blew through a straw to try to make her horse race across a table to get to the finish line (falling off the table) first.

Sr. Mary Giuse and Sr. Mary Therese start the horse race.

Sr. Mary Jeremiah and Sr. Mary Margaret blow their horses across the table.

Sr. Irma Marie and Sr. Bernadette Marie race to the finish line!

The third game was another horse race. A sister from each team sat in a chair and raced against the other, pulling her horse towards herself using toilet paper.

Sr. Mary Giuse and Sr. Mary Jeremiah each want their horse to win!

But in the end, we were all winners and got to choose prizes.

Sr. Mary Jeremiah, Sr. Mary Therese, and Sr. Marie Augustine with their Tet goodies.

As usual, we all enjoyed this celebration of Vietnamese culture. The music, food, and games are a fun way for us to celebrate the diversity of our monastery.

A Couple of Sisterly Visits to the Monastery

Recently, the Monastery has been blessed with special visits from two fellow women religious. We love hosting sisters from other places and listening to them share about their lives.

Sr. Anna Wray, a Dominican active sister, came to give us some talks on conflict management and how to get along with others in community life.

Sr. Anna Wray is a philosophy professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. She taught us about the philosophy of the human person, how people respond to conflict, and better ways to interact with each other when there is a conflict.

We enjoyed her talks and appreciated her realistic approach to problem-solving. It always helps us to get advice from someone who also lives in a religious community and understands the kinds of issues that arise from living with others in this special way.

We showed our appreciation to Sr. Anna by giving her some handmade gifts to remember us by.

We were also blessed with a visit from Sr. Maria of Jesus, the blood sister of our prioress Sr. Mary Rose.

Sr. Marie Augustine and Sr. Mary Rose listen as Sr. Maria of Jesus tells us about her life.

Sr. Maria of Jesus is also a cloistered nun, but she’s a Benedictine (hence her different habit). She’s a member of the Abbey of St. Walburga in Virginia Dale, CO. (Have you heard of Lilies of the Field? That story was inspired by this community.) St. Walburga is distinctive in that their main work is raising cattle, and we all enjoyed Sr. Maria telling us about her life on their farm.

We always enjoy hearing about how other women religious live. It helps us appreciate how we are all brides of Christ, but distinctive in the particular way that we have chosen to live our vocation.