Vocation Discernment Weekend For single women, (18 - 35), who are wondering if the Lord is inviting them to Dominican Monastic Contemplative Life

We held our Christmas Raffle on Tuesday --- and the winners are:

Vocation Discernment Weekend For single women, (20 -40), who are wondering if the Lord is inviting them to Dominican Monastic Contemplative Life

Vocation Discernment Weekend For single women, (20 -40), who are wondering if the Lord is inviting them to Dominican Monastic Contemplative Life

The rock from which we were hewn - Mother Catherine Plunkett, our foundress.

Fondly know as “The Siena” by the town’s people, the Monastery of saint Catherine of Siena has been part of Drogheda’s history for three hundred years. On this day 300 years ago we received official recognition from the master of the Order.
From our first beginnings in 1722 in a humble mud cabin on the banks of the Boyne to our present location in the Twenties our praying presence has enfolded the town and radiated the presence of God to the very ends of the earth. It is this consistent praying presence that we would like to honour and give thanks for, in this celebration of our third centenary.

On this day in 1722 (300 years ago), our Monastery in Drogheda was officially recognised and established by the Master of the Dominican Order at that time. Below is a copy of the English translation of his letter (together with a photo of the original letter from our Archives).

On the 11th of February, Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, we had the great joy of celebrating our Sr Natallia’s Silver Jubilee of Profession. It was a wonderful day, acknowledging and thanking God for her presence in our Community and the beautiful gift of 25 years dedicated to the Lord, first in the Dominican Monastery in Krakow and then here in our Monastery in Drogheda for the last 16 years. Below are some photos from the day.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

To mark this year's 'World Day for Consecrated Life' (2nd February), we decided to share this Vocation Story from one of our Sisters.

“There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised in the Gospel by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and speak to others of our friendship with Him.” Pope Benedict XVI.

One can say the same about a vocation to religious life and it is this which prompts me to share my own vocation story!

Wishing you all every blessing this Christmas and in the coming year.

We drew the winning ticket for our 'Noah's Ark' Raffle yesterday evening. The winning ticket, which was drawn by our Novice, Sr Leonie, and announced by our Prioress, Sr Mairéad, belonged to Helen McArdle, who is delighted with her prize. We would like to thank everyone who contributed to our Raffle, which raised €630.

We now have beautiful Christmas Candles for sale in our Online Shop. Also, some handmade 'quilling' Christmas CardsIn addition to our more standard, printed Christmas Cards.

Our 'kitchen sister' carved a very nice pumpkin head and, as you can see from the photos below, we had a lot of fun with it. But because today (November 1st) is the Feast of All Saints, I was also thinking about what Vatican II speaks of as, "the universal call to holiness". This feast is a reminder that we are all destined to become Saints, to share in the divine life of the Trinity.

On the 7th October our community rejoiced and celebrated with Sr Maria Breidge as she made her first Profession as a Dominican Nun. Due to Covid 19 restrictions her family and friends from County Donegal were unable to be with us and many of our Dominican brethren and sisters – who would normally join us – could not be present. Fr Gerard Dunne, vicar of the Master of the Order for our monastery, officiated at the ceremony, assisted by Fr Paul Clayton-Lea, our good and loyal friend from the diocese.

This is the time of the year when we are usually planning our Vocation Weekends for the Autumn/Winter. Unfortunately due to COVID-19 we are unable to host any Vocation Discernment Weekends for the present. If, however, you are interested in exploring more about our way of life we would be happy to answer your questions or accompany you via (Zoom etc). Depending of the level of interest we could organize a virtual Vocation Weekend with Conferences (Questions and Answers) via Zoom (or Googlemeet).

We are raffling this lovely hand-knit 'Noah's Ark Set' as part of our ongoing fundraising efforts in respect of our Funding Appeal to recover the costs incurred in replacing the Monastery Roof (in 2019) and necessary work on our heating system (including replacing the 230kw central heating boiler in 2020).

The raffle tickets are €5 each and the draw will be held on the Feast of Christ the King (22nd November; in time to make a nice Christmas present for someone).

Those of you who admired our art and crafts display on the 15th of August will be pleased to know that most of those items are now available for sale through our online shop. We have kept some of the items to use as gifts etc. If, however, there is something that you particularly wanted and you can't see it in our shop, please don't hesitate to contact us and we will try to facilitate you.

As some of you may be aware by now, as part of our celebration of the Feast of the Assumption we have our annual 'art & craft display', where we all get to see and admire what our sisters have been working on over the past year. Enjoy the pics😊