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!
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!
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.
We had a beautiful Thanksgiving holiday! Although the weather was cold and damp, our spirits were bright and cheerful. It was so good to be together with our sisters sharing a Thanksgiving meal–and almost all prepared by the sisters, too!
The day before–Hard at work preparing various dishes!
Sr. Mary Giuse made a delicious Vietnamese noodle dish while our kitchen helper Diana sliced pineapple.
Sr. Mary Thomas and Sr. Marie Augustine with dressing and dirty rice
Michelle chopping carrots in the bakery. (More on Michelle to come!)
Thanksgiving Day! Sr. Miriam checks out the dessert table.
Fruits and salads!
Sr. Mary Veronica gets some ice for her drink.
Looking over our groaning table.
Some sides and bread–as well as the gravy and cranberry sauce.
The community room was beautifully decorated by the novitiate.
Although we cooked and prepared almost all the food, most of it was given to us by our very generous benefactors. We are truly thankful and blessed to have so many wonderful people who support our life. We are praying hard for all of you!
We had our annual Fall Picnic this weekend! When we have a picnic, we still sing the entire Divine Office and pray the Rosary and keep our times of Eucharistic adoration–we just don’t work (except for doing some dishes). But that makes for a great holiday!
We always begin the picnic with an official flag raising. Sr. Mary Pauline thought she might try to pose as Lady Liberty!
It was such a beautiful, cool fall day, some of us decided to go for a long walk. On picnic days we are allowed to go outside the main part of the enclosure and wander through the wild woods. This year, things looked a little different! We recently had a company harvest some of our trees. We do this about every 15-20 years, and the company returns in the spring after they harvest to plant new trees. This was all good and necessary, but as we walked, parts of the forest now resembled a desert wasteland.
You can still see the tire marks from the machines that harvested the trees!
Some of the younger trees remained untouched.
Ah…this is more like it!
Postulant Sarah reclining on some rejected trees
And we joined her for this photo op!
Beyond the stack of downed trees, the woods appeared, wild and beautiful again
It was a fun and relaxing day for everyone, and so delightfully cool! We started this tradition of a fall picnic when we realized our summer picnic (held around the 4th of July) comes at a time when it is too hot to go outside and walk around or play games. Sometimes it’s still hot even in October, but this year the weather cooperated!
May you be blessed with abundant peace, this fall and always.
Sr. Mary Veronica of the Holy Face, O.P., recently celebrated 75 years of profession as a cloistered Dominican nun!
Sister Mary Veronica, herself
The celebration was so big it stretched over several days. Everything began on the evening of June 18, when we had a gift table for Sister.
Sister has always had a strong devotion to Our Lady of La Salette.
She received all kinds of unique and creative gifts, most handmade by the sisters.
Many of these she was able to give as gifts to her friends and relatives who attended the jubilee Mass the next day. Which was just perfect!
June 19 was the Mass itself, celebrated by Bishop Eduardo Nevares, auxiliary bishop of Phoenix AZ and a good friend of the community for many years. His concelebrants were Fr. Ian Bordenave, O.P., our chaplain, Fr. Denzil Vithanage, pastor of St Patrick’s parish here in Lufkin, and Fr. Ron Foshage, M.S., one of our confessors.
You can see a video Fr. Denzil made of the Jubilee Mass here!
Sr. Mary Veronica and Sr. Mary Margaret bringing up the gifts
Most of the community (with the priests and bishop) following Mass
On Saturday, June 24, we had our day of community celebration in honor of Sister’s jubilee.
Sister Mary Veronica greeted with her jubilee song, “Jubilate Deo”
The novitiate band: Sr. Maria Goretti on accordion, Sr. Mary Pauline on guitar, Sr. Marie Augustine playing the drums, MIchelle playing the cymbal, and Sr. Mary Christine on xylophone and bamboo.
It’s a soup pot! The novitiate also sang and danced to a fun song called, “We’re Swimming In The Same Soup” about getting along harmoniously–very appropriate for our multicultural and multiracial community!
Sr. Maria Cabrini shared some puns and jokes.
We never get tired of hearing Sr. Maria Goretti play the accordion!
After a talking meal and some time to rest, we returned in the afternoon for a treat and games.
Sr. Mary Jeremiah tries her luck!
To finish the day, we watched the movie “Hidden Figures” during evening recreation. This true story of Black women at NASA during the 1960s was inspiring and enjoyable. We finished it on Sunday evening. Then, we showed some old home movies on Monday night!
Whew! It’s been quite a time! But after all…how often does one celebrate her 75th jubilee? Here’s hoping you make it to your 80th–and even beyond!
It’s that time of year again! Today we’re beginning our annual community retreat, and we’ll be in retreat until June 14. We’re delighted to have Fr. James Sullivan, O.P. as our retreat master, and we look forward to everything he will say to help us grow in our spiritual lives!
You may be wondering–why “into the woods”? Don’t we usually describe retreats as a desert experience? This is much more common, but here in East Texas we’re short on deserts and long (or tall) on pine trees, so we decided to embrace our situation. And after all, the woods can be every bit as wild–if not more so–than the desert. We have all kinds of critters roaming our property, raccoons, opossums, foxes, snakes, bobcats–not to mention the numerous species of birds and some bats! So do keep us in prayer as we go out into the wilderness of the retreat woods, and know that we are all praying for you, too!
Dominican Life on Lotus Lane 