Tag: community

Christmas at the Monastery

Christmas at the monastery was fun, festive, and very busy. Our celebrations lasted for days and we had many special events and visitors.

We always enjoy decorating our monastery to get ourselves in the festive mood, and keep the decorations up as long as possible.

Our sacristan, Sr. Carmen Gloria, is particularly creative with the decorations in the chapel. The creche gets special attention to call everyone over to adore the baby Jesus.

Every year, the magi start at one corner of the chapel, but eventually make their way over to the Holy Family in time for Epiphany.

Christmas wreaths make the chapel particularly festive.

Right before Christmas, we had a visit from jolly old St. Nicholas and one of his elves (the Healys, good friends of the monastery), who brought along some friends

Dr. Price and Dr. Fidone with Bella

They brought along their new puppy Bella, a beautiful chocolate Newfoundland dog, who was given special permission to come over to the nuns’ side of the parlor and quickly made friends with everyone.

Bella takes a nap.

On Christmas Eve, we had our usual midnight mass, then sang Christmas carols on our way to the refectory for our traditional midnight breakfast.

The refectory looked so beautiful with all of the foliage and Christmas lights. The novitiate did a wonderful job decorating!

Sr. Mary Pauline, Sr. Mary Christine, and Sr. Marie Augustine with the beautiful refectory Christmas creche.

On Christmas day, we spent all afternoon opening presents from our generous benefactors. There were group gifts to the whole community, and we also each got many gift bags full of treats for ourselves.

On New Year’s morning, we had our usual Big Chapter, in which we each get a card with a saint patron and a special cause to pray for during the upcoming year.

Then we give each other the kiss of peace to welcome in another year at the monastery.

In the evening, we go around the monastery Christmas caroling, which gives us a chance to see all of the Christmas decorations in the various departments throughout the monastery.

Sr. Mary Pauline and Sr. Mary Christine with their beautifully decorated novitiate Christmas tree

Christmas caroling in the outside lobby

We love going outside and seeing all the beautiful Christmas lights our workmen have put up for Christmas.

We made sure to go over and sing to our patron, the Infant Jesus!

On Epiphany, we have our big Christmas feast day, where we play games and recreate together all day.

This year, the novitiate was in charge of the evening’s activities, and divided us up into three teams and had us play star-related games.

In the end, everyone was a winner and we all got gift bags, including some special “star bread” baked by the novitiate.

Christmas is a special time for us, when we reflect on the closing year and look forward to the next. It’s a time not just for our community to come together, but also for us to visit with our special friends and benefactors who are so generous and make our lives here possible. Thanks be to the Infant Jesus!

The Novitiate Celebrates St. Louis Bertrand!

The novitiate recently celebrated the feast day of St. Louis Bertrand, the Dominican patron saint of novices. On his official feast day, October 9, our novice mistress, Sr. Mary Christine, led the prayers during the Liturgy of the Hours throughout the day. Then the novitiate had special activities on Friday and Saturday to celebrate their small community within our monastery and to thank God for the gift of our novices who are in formation to join our order.

The novitiate opens gifts from the community.

They spent much of the day playing outdoor games such as tennis, and then came inside to play table games like the monastery favorite, Sequence.

For supper, the novitiate had a special meal of barbecue. Then they played instruments and sang songs.

Our novitiate is forming quite a band!

The community was happy to let the novices have some free time to celebrate their special day. We’re very excited when new women want to join our community, and we look forward to see what God has planned for them!

Honoring Our Mothers–Updated

Sunday was the solemnity of the Ascension here in Texas…and it was also Mother’s Day! We had festive meals and games in the evening to celebrate these two events. We started with Mass of the Ascension in the morning, had a delicious meal in the community room for lunch, enjoyed some free time during the afternoon, sang Solemn Vespers of the Ascension, and had yummy sandwiches and chips for dinner. After that, we went back to the community room to play games!

Sr. Mary Margaret, our “mother prioress”, and Sr. Mary Rose holding the card she designed for Sister. We each promised to offer three days of prayer for Sr. Mary Margaret’s intentions.

Sr. Mary Pauline, Sr. Mary Giuse, Sr. Mary Jeremiah, and Michelle seated at one of the decorated tables in the community room.

Sr. Mary Christine and Sr. Carmen Gloria

Sr. Mary Therese, Sr. Maria Cabrini, and Sr. Mary Thomas

Sr. Maria, Sr. Miriam, Sr. Mary Giuse, Sr. Mary Jeremiah, and Sr. Marie Augustine–ready to play games!

Sr. Maria Cabrini, Sr. Bernadette Marie, Sr. Mary Margaret, and Sr. Carmen Gloria–another team for games

Spending some free time working a puzz

Michelle and Sr. Mary Pauline with the novitiate turtles, Jerome and Anthony

At the end of the day, we had our May procession (inside, because of the rain), singing the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

One more picture! The novitiate honored their directress with a lovely card and two plants.

It was a beautiful day, filled with many thoughts of Our Lord’s ascension into Heaven, and many prayers for all out mothers (and those who have been like mothers to us), both living and deceased. We keep all of you in prayer as we continue our May devotions this month!

A Class with Fr. Gavin Vaverek, JCL

Father Gavin Vaverek, pastor of Our Lady of Victory parish in Paris, TX, recently came and gave us a class on Lent. Father gives us classes on a variety of topics whenever he has time, and we always enjoy his great presentations and his witty remarks. In this class, Father encouraged us to “begin with the end in mind” when it comes to Lent, looking forward to the Triduum and Easter. He covered the main aspects of Lent–prayer, fasting, and almsgiving–encouraging us to use Lent as a time to grow in our Christian life and to keep up our good Lenten habits through Easter and beyond. Most of all, Father reminded us, Lent is a opportunity to grow in love and to share in the life of Christ. We had heard some of this before, of course–but it was a wonderful help to renew us in our Lenten practices, which can become mere form if we are not careful. And we can always learn something new about the spiritual life! Thank you, Fr. Gavin, for taking time out of your busy parish schedule and making the long trip from Paris (Texas, that is) to Lufkin! You are always welcome!

The community listens attentively to Fr. Gavin’s presentation. He’s a wonderful lecturer!

Sr. Mary Ann’s 60th Jubilee

Recently, we were delighted to welcome Sr. Mary Ann from our monastery in Trinidad for a short visit. During her stay with us, we celebrated her 60th jubilee–again! She had a big celebration in Trinidad this past fall, but a 60th jubilee is worth celebrating more than once.

Sr. Mary Ann renewing her vows.

Taking the gifts up to Fr. R.B.Williams, O.P., our chaplain.

Big smile for the camera!

Fr. R.B. celebrating Mass, assisted by Deacon Jesus Reyes. Check out our beautiful tree and creche!

Receiving a blessing from Fr. R.B. at the end of Mass.

Posing in the hallway after Mass.

We have had a long and beautiful relationship with the Dominican monastery in Trinidad, which has only become closer as the two nuns left there have “joined” our monastery. They will remain in their own country, but we will be giving our assistance and help as needed. We thank God for His ever-providential care of us!

Christ is in our midst

In the Eastern Orthodox church, the phrase, “Christ is in our midst” is used as part of the dismissal in Ordinary Time. As we finally post our Christmas season blog, we rejoice that although Ordinary Time has begun, we still live in the radiant light of Christ’s birth–Emmanuel, “God-with-us”.

Our Christmas season this year seemed extraordinarily busy. Maybe it was because of the short Advent season! But in fact a lot has happened. We have had many guests, many community celebrations, and a visit from one of our sisters in Trinidad. We’ll post more about her soon.

On St. Nicholas Day (we celebrated on December 7) St. Nicholas himself came bearing gifts for all the good nuns. Here we have the four sisters who met St. Nicholas for the first time, proudly wearing their hand crocheted scarves.

The aunt of one of our sisters sent an Advent calendar! Although it was not religious in any way, we enjoyed seeing each door open, marking the days from December 1 to December 24.

One of our traditions is to have creches set up in the various departments where sisters work. Although we try to preserve the memory of Christ always, and we have crucifixes up everywhere, the creche scenes are a reminder of Christ’s humble birth in Bethlehem, and encouragement for us to be more simple, humble, and childlike.

The Guild department, where we send letters and make enrollments

The library

The community room. Sister’s theme this year was light and darkness.

The infirmary

The kitchen.

The refectory. Thanks to our hardworking novitiate–they clean the refectory, and so they get to decorate it, too!

They also decorated the walls and tables. The novitiate had an angel theme this year, with angels on the walls and angels on the tables. All handmade!

Even the copy machine room had a little creche!

The statue of Our Lady in the hallway

We hope to bring you some pictures of the chapel soon too–it looked amazing!

On December 28, Holy Innocents Day, we celebrated the novitiate (and our two newer sisters, Sr. Carmen Gloria and Sr. Maria). We played fun games and our four newest sisters each got prizes. We are so happy they are with us!

We played “Pin the Star on Dominic’s Forehead”

We also played a fun cup and ball game. Our postulant Michelle was the clear winner of this game!

Sr. Maria, Sr. Mary Pauline, and Michelle with their prizes

Then came Epiphany on January 6! The novitiate hosted the professed in the novitiate building. In the morning, we played a lot of fun games. In the afternoon, we had a tea party and Christmas karaoke.

Popping balloons for prizes in the novitiate courtyard.

One of our games! We had to wear this basket and try to put bows into it with a spatula–harder than it sounds!

Enjoying afternoon tea and cookies.

“Glooooooooooooooria!”

In the evening, the novitiate sisters put on a delightful play for us–“The Fourth Wise Man”. They all did a great job with their parts and the scenery and stage props were very imaginative.

And, we had guests and free days and all kinds of other things! Thank you to all our benefactors who helped to make our Christmas season so beautiful, especially our faithful Knights of Columbus who always cook Christmas dinner for us. May all of you be blessed most abundantly in this New Year 2024!

Sr. Mary Christine’s Feast Day!

Although we always celebrate feast days here at the Monastery, there are only two days that get an extra special celebration–the feast days of the prioress and the novice directress. And Sr. Mary Christine celebrated her feast day on November 26. The novitiate invited the prioress, the vocation directress, Sr. Maria (our transfer, recently of the novitiate), and the sisters who teach in the novitiate to this fun celebration.

The whole group! Back row: Sr. Mary Margaret, Sr. Mary Pauline, Sr. Mary Christine, Michelle. Front row: Sr. Mary Rose, Sr. Mary Jeremiah, Sr. Mary Thomas, Sr. Marie Augustine, and Sr. Maria.

The novitiate put on a charming play about their life, and then we played some fun games. We ate dinner in the novitiate community room–a festive meal with talking and Cokes.

Sr. Mary Christine demonstrating one of her many talents.

After dinner, we all watched joyfully as Sr. Mary Christine opened her many gifts.

A lovely scarf hand-knitted by Sr. Mary Therese.

New book for the novitiate!

Possibly Sr. Mary Christine’s favorite gifts–a persimmon tree and an Asian pear tree! Sister is very good with plants, as you can see in these pictures!

In the afternoon we enjoyed a fun, family-friendly movie and then had a special supper in the novitiate. After supper, we played some more games.

Tossing beanbags–always harder than it looks. And check out the great decorations! We especially liked the disco ball!

As the bell rang for Compline, we had to end our party. What a beautiful day of sisterly sharing it was! Thanks to all the novitiate sisters who did such a wonderful job making the day awesome.

Sr. Mary Christine and her companions with gifts.