Tag: Lufkin TX

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!

Mission Rosaries for the Beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen

The monastery has worked very hard to make 1,000 mission rosaries for the beatification ceremony of Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

The beatification will take place on September 24 in St. Louis, MO, and organizers have called on the faithful to make rosaries for those participating in the celebrations. It’s particularly fitting that they be mission rosaries, because Sheen designed the World Mission Rosary in 1951 while he was National Director for the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. These beautiful rosaries have a different color for each decade, representing different continents of the world.

Sr. Mary Pauline, Sr. Mary Jeremiah, and Sr. Mary Christine with the finished rosaries.

May Our Lady of the Rosary bless all those who participate in the beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen!

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 Spiritual Retreat with Fr. Don Georgen, O.P.

This May we were blessed to have Fr. Don Goergen, O.P., give us a retreat on Dominican spirituality.

Fr. Don Georgen, O.P.

This year for our annual retreat we invited Fr. Don Georgen, a Dominican friar of the Central Province, to give us some conferences. Right now he’s the chaplain at our sister Dominican Monastery of Mary the Queen in Girard, IL. He gave us some very interesting talks on spirituality and contemplative life and we greatly enjoyed our time with him.

May Crowing for the Queen of Heaven

Every year for the entire month of May we have a daily procession out to our statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

We sing the litany and pray for her intercession.

At the end of the month, we have a special May crowning, in which we crown Mary with a fresh floral crown and sing a special song to her.

This year, Sr. Mary Christine made the crown and Sr. Mary Veronica, our oldest nun, crowned the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Blessed Virign Mary is very important to us in our lives as cloistered nuns, and we like to honor her with this special tradition.