Tag: Lufkin TX

A Jubilee 75 Years In The Making

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!

A Triple Blessing

We were so blessed (in many ways) to have a visit from three newly ordained Dominican priests–Father Gregory Dunn, O.P. from our own province of St. Martin de Porres and Father Jordan Joseph DeGuire, O.P. and Father Peter Martyr Lewitzke, O.P. from the province of St. Albert the Great. Father Greg was ordained on June 10, and Father Jordan and Father Peter Martyr were ordained on May 20. The two Central Province priests came to Houston to see their classmate Fr. Greg ordained, and then they made a little “tour” of Texas, which happily included our monastery.

Fr. Peter Martyr, O.P., Father Gregory, O.P., and Father Jordan, O.P.

We had a lovely parlor visit with them on the feast of the Sacred Heart (June 16) and then Father Greg celebrated Mass for us on the memorial of the Immaculate Heart, with Fr. Peter Martyr, Fr. Jordan, and our chaplain Fr. Ian concelebrating.

After Mass, each priest gave us a “first blessing”! What a joy!

Everyone who came to Mass had a blessing, too!

As we said above–we are blessed in so many ways by these new young priests in our midst. We are sure that many people will be uplifted and inspired by their gift of self to God through their vocations, by their desire to serve the people of God, and their love for preaching the truth! We are praying for you, Fathers! Please keep us in prayer, too!

Annual Retreat 2023

We came out of retreat this morning! Out of the woods, and back into the clearings of civilization (or something).

We had a fantastic retreat preached by Fr. James M. Sullivan, O.P., currently stationed at St. Pius V Church in Providence, RI. Father jokingly said the theme of the retreat would be, “All I Ever Needed To Know I Learned in the Novitiate”, and it truly was a most excellent review of the basic principles and foundations of Dominican life. There were conferences on the evangelical counsels (poverty, chastity, and obedience), the theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity) and trust in God. Father also gave wonderful homilies every morning. We’re so glad we recorded everything and can listen again some time!

Father giving a conference in our chapel

Father is very animated, so it was a challenge to get pictures during his conferences. So…

…he allowed one of the sisters to snap his picture during a session of private direction.

Thank you for everything, Father Sullivan! We hope to see you again some day!

Into the Woods

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!

Happy Anniversary!

Our blog is officially a teenager today!

It’s hard to believe we’ve been blogging for 13 years now! We started out on Blogger, then moved over here to WordPress a few years ago. We moved all our Blogger posts to this blog so you can still check them out if you want to!

We hope you enjoy our content. We like to share a little of our Dominican monastic life with the world, and we’ll continue to do so.

Thanks to everyone who has helped us and supported us over the years! We couldn’t do it without you. Please keep us in your prayers and know that we keep all of you in our prayers, too.

A Visit from Fr. Vincent Davila, O.P.

Readers of this blog may remember that Fr. Vincent gave us our annual retreat back in June 2021. We had not seen him since (due to COVID and such), so we were all happy when we learned Fr. Ian asked Fr. Vincent to be our “replacement chaplain” while he was on vacation. Father arrived during our Pentecost retreat and will stay with us until Monday, June 5–that’s when our 2023 retreat master, Fr. James Sullivan, O.P., arrives! We’ll just let you know right now–we have a very busy month coming up!

We enjoyed some recreation with Father in the parlor on Pentecost Sunday. Father told us about the progress he has made on his dissertation. Our monastery seems to be a good place for friars to work on dissertations, articles, and the like–must be the peaceful, quiet atmosphere! The discussion took an unexpected but welcome turn onto the topic of the particular judgment (which happens when you die) and the Last Judgment (which comes at the end of time). We also joked with him, laughing a great deal. A most enjoyable evening!

Thank you so much for spending this time with us, Father Vincent! We enjoy your homilies, and look forward to hopefully reading your dissertation one day if/when you turn it into a book. We keep you in our prayers!

Welcoming St. Dominic

We recently acquired a new image of St. Dominic for our chapel! This bas-relief was carved by Sr. Mary Magdalen, O.P. of Queen of Peace Monastery in Squamish, B.C., Canada. We installed it on the memorial of the Translation of St. Dominic, fittingly enough…that’s May 24, commemorating the day when the friars moved St. Dominic’s body to a new tomb.

Removing St. Dominic from the wrappings he was mailed in…

On display for all to see and admire!

Fr. Ian praying over the new image…

…blessing the new image…

…and incensing the new image!

Although the wood St. Dominic is carved from harmonizes beautifully with the other wooden furnishings in our chapel, we are probably going to get some kind of darker background so he is more easily seen against the white wall. We are very pleased with this new St. Dominic and love the fact that he is praying with us–his book open for the Liturgy of the Hours. This is so typical of St. Dominic, who loved the liturgy and used to encourage the brothers to sing it loudly and bravely! Thank you so much, Sr. Mary Magdalen, for another wonderful design for our chapel. She also created our tabernacle doors and part of our candlesticks!

St. Dominic, pray for us!