The community of Dominican Nuns of the Monastery of St Catherine of Siena, Drogheda began 2022 with the joyful occasion of Sr Léonie Marie Langley’s first profession on the 6th January, Solemnity of the Epiphany. It was even more joyful that her parents and sister were able to travel from the UK – they had not met for the past two years due to Covid19. Before joining the Dominican Nuns Sr Léonie Marie worked as a nurse in the UK and several times volunteered to serve on Mercy Ships to Africa in addition to missionary work in India and Haiti.

Immanuel, a name which means God is with us.
In Jesus we see our God made visible.

This is what Christ said on coming into the world. “You, who wanted no sacrifice or oblation, prepared a body for me. I am coming to do your will.” And this will was for us, you and me, to be made Holy by the offering of that body once and for all, for our salvation

O Rising Sun. You are the splendour of Eternal Light and the Sun of Justice.
O come and enlighten those who sit in darkness, those who dwell in the shadows of death.

At this time of year, and today as the shortest day of the year, it is wonderful how the Church puts on our lips this antiphon where we call on the Light of Christ to come and enlighten our darkness. My prayer during this Advent season is asking for the grace to acknowledge the times when we prefer darkness before true light, as the intercessions for Week One of Advent put it.

The fourth of the Advent antiphons evokes the coming of Jesus with a title referring to the great King David and the prophecy of Isaiah, who wrote:
‘I will put the key of the house of David on his shoulder; when it opens, no one will close; when it closes, no one will open it‘ (Is.22, 22)

How to understand this prophecy?

“O Root of Jesse
who stand for a sign for the people;
before whom kings are silent;
whom the nations bessech:
Come to deliver us, no longer delay.”

The image of Christ as the ‘Root of Jesse’ – a sign for the peoples; before whom kings fall silent and whom the peoples acclaim – evokes a variety of ideas and there is much that can be gleaned, so to speak, when this title is attributed to Him.

What does it mean for us to think of JESUS, to acknowledge Him, as the ‘root of Jesse’ and a ‘sign for the peoples’?

“O Adonai and leader of Israel,
you appeared to Moses in a burning bush
and you gave him the Law on Sinai.
O come and save us with your mighty power.”

In this antiphon we call on God by the name Adonai. The dictionary says that this word comes from the Cannanite and Hebrew word adon, which means - LORD. When God appeared to Moses, he called himself: I AM WHO I AM. (Ex 3:14). Out of reverence the Jews did not utter his name but substituted Adonai.

Young women are invited to join Dominican Nuns on Zoom as we reflect on the meaning of Advent and Christmas.

An exceptionally good answer, taken from
‘The Pastoral Letters of St Charles Borromeo,
is worthy of prayerful meditation,
and will hopefully increase
your amazement in the wonder
and mercy of God, and lead you
closer to Him as you live through
these days of Advent
(– you’ll find it in the Office of Readings today)

We are raffling this lovely hand-knit '12 Days of Christmas' Set (knitted characters from the famous song, "Twelve Days of Christmas").

Our good friend and Benefactor, Vivienne Lamont, knit the characters (all 78 of them) and kindly donated them to us to raffle to raise funds. We are very grateful for this, as we have had a lot of large maintenance expenses in 2021 - removing badly damaged/cracked exterior plaster on the chapel walls & replastering, replacing damaged windows, replacing the Monastery boilers.

From my point of view, God is the light that illuminates the darkness, even if it does not dissolve it, and a spark of divine light is within each of us. (Pope Francis)

For me the candles are more than decoration, they are a reminder of the wonderful acts of God’s love, of His constant presence in our life.

During my work with candles I realise that a lighted candle accompanies a person throughout his life.

Our Advent and Christmas Candles are now available to order through our Online Shop.

“Whether we realise it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours,
God thirsts that we may thirst for him." (CCC 2560)

Can you believe that God longs for you?

Young women (20 – 35 yrs) are invited to join Dominican Nuns on Zoom in a journey of discovery as we begin to reflect on various Monastic themes.

Christ Jesus is the image of the unseen God’. (Col 1:) While reflecting on this line of Scripture I was inspired to write this short reflection on a painting on the Holy Face of Jesus which I have just completed.

This is not the first picture of the Holy Face which I have painted but always while painting I ask myself what did Jesus really look like when he walked on this earth? Our paintings, no matter how beautiful, can only be a pale reflection of the beauty of the God Man – the Eternal Son of the Father. Each painting looks different – I’m sure that it also contains some small reflection of each artist!

The Divine Office ...
“is a gift, not a burden, and many are the graces
that flow from this source:
Grace to praise God;
to comfort our hearts;
to brighten our path;
to renew our strength;
and to edify and sanctify
the faithful”

Wishing and Praying a blessed feast of
Our Lady of Knock
to all of you
– may she unceasingly draw all of us
ever more deeply into the heart
of her Son, our Eucharistic Lord.



The following is part of the homily given by Pope St John Paul II on his visit to Knock in 1979 – a prayer as relevant today as it was when he made it ... possibly even more so. Also our prayer for Ireland and for you today:

Happy Feast of St Dominic!

During the our Novena to St Dominic (the 9 days leading up to his Feast Day on the 8th of August) we sing an English translation of the latin 'O Spem'; a prayer to St Dominic referring to his promise on his deathbed that he would continue to intercede for us in heaven.
Here is a short clip of us singing that prayer.

Dominic on his deathbed bequeathed to his brethren, as their rightful inheritance, his last will and testament saying: “have charity, guard humility and possess voluntary poverty.” This was the path which led him to holiness and he was and is inviting us his sons and daughters to imitate him as he imitated his Saviour, Christ Jesus.

After a long preaching tour in Northern Italy, brother Dominic falls gravely ill in Bologna. It is July 1221, and the town is so stifling, humid and hot that there is no hope of improvement for Dominic’s health. The decision is made to carry Dominic to a small Benedictine hermitage on the hillside outside Bologna.

As he feared being buried in the Benedictine monastery where he had stayed, he begged to be carried anew among his brethren. Once he was back in town and settled in one of the convent’s cells, he was asked whether he wished to be buried next to the relics of this or that saint. Dominic gave this superb answer: “God forbid that I be buried except under the feet of my brethren.”

As Dominicans we treasure what few writings Dominic has left us and those words of his of which there is a record, especially his last words. As Nuns of the Order we hold dear his letter to the nuns in Madrid, but there are two words in particular which should be written on our hearts and woven into the very fabric of our beings and it is on these two words that I would like to reflect this evening.

Today is the anniversary of the death of our first prioress - Mother Catherine Plunkett, a grand-niece of St Oliver Plunkett.

One hundred years ago last week, on the 28th June 1921, St Oliver’s head, which had been entrusted to the nuns of this community, was translated to its new home, the shrine in St Peter’s Church in Drogheda. The nuns were sorry to relinquish this precious relic, especially given the community’s close association with the beloved saint.

St. Paul said, “Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God.”

Blessed is she who believed (Lk 1:45)

In the parable of the sower, Saint Luke has left us these words of the Lord about the "good soil": "These are the ones who when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance" (Lk 8:15). In the context of Luke’s Gospel, this mention of an honest and good heart which hears and keeps the word is an implicit portrayal of the faith of the Virgin Mary.

Gathering today to celebrate the Liturgy and receive the Body and Blood of Christ will literally be for many a feast. After such a long period of forced fasting and deprivation, to receive the Food to sustain our life in Christ is akin to providing nourishment to famine victims.
I was privileged during the past two years to listen to many people who were grieving deeply and feeling bereft because they could not attend Holy Mass and receive the Eucharist.

On the Feast of Bl Diane and Bl Cecilia (two of the first nuns of the Order) we are hosting a Q&A session for young women who wish to know more about our contemplative monastic life.