Although Catherine lived over six hundred years ago, her times were not unlike our own. She lived during a tumultuous period in the Church’s history, when the Black Death decimated Europe. The feudal system was in ruins. Nation states were emerging, with tensions between England and France, Genoa and Venice. The Pope was residing in Avignon and the calibre of members of Religious Communities and that of the diocesan clergy left a lot to be desired.

With the world as it is these days, and knowing that St Catherine – having lived through a devastating plague – should be a good saint to turn to in a time of distress, I looked about in her ‘Dialogue’ to see what wisdom I might find. And the following – on Divine Providence – seemed to be an answer, so to speak: hopefully offering words of encouragement and of hope.

I want to quote a prayer of St Catherine, published in a helpful little book “From Holy Communion to the Blessed Trinity” by M.V. Bernadot O.P.

First a petition in St Catherine’s own words:

“O Eternal Trinity, our supreme love and true light enlighten me.”

O Eternal Trinity, All Powerful God, we are dead trees, whilst You are the Tree of life.

How does one enter into the Event that we call Holy Week single-mindedly and prayerfully?

With JESUS of course – but then again, so much is happening to Him that it is hard to hold to any one moment intensely, if you want to live all of them. It seems too much like floating on the surface without being immersed in the mystery.

This year, maybe a good word to sit with and to carry through the week might be: Truth.

Do you believe this?

The Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you
Rom 8.11

We see in today’s Gospel reading, the friends of Jesus dealing with anxiety, sickness and death, part of life’s experience for each and every person in our day.

Aren’t we all Lazarus?

Are there not parts in each one of us, in me, that are dead, infected by the viruses of sins?

We are now in our final stretch of Lent which is a relief because, personally, I find Lent difficult. I find the fasting hard, but I came across a quotation from the ‘Magnificat’ which I found encouraging.

Fasting is a form of self deprivation of and a longing for the food we really need. We fast in order to seek Him day after day, the better to know His ways. We fast to make space for Christ, so that He may fill our emptiness with His redeeming presence.

This Sunday’s Gospel, John 4:5-42, is about Jesus who made a journey to a Samaritan town (it is always He who makes first move toward us) and was waiting at the well for the arrival of the Samaritan woman. Her thirst and longing bring her towards Him, though she wasn’t aware of it.

Recently my friend, was encouraging me with these words:

Always watch the mind, what it is thinking about, and always bring it back to Him from wherever it wanders off.

We are now in the middle of the second week of Lent and I’m sure some of us have already broken our Lenten Resolutions (repeatedly!!) and are feeling very discouraged about it all and tempted to just give up the attempt and pick something easier.

But maybe we should view these not as failures but as something that can be beneficial. It’s a bit like distractions during prayer. You might feel, ‘oh, I didn’t pray at all, I had so many distractions,’ but each time you realised that you had been distracted and turned back to God that was something good; that was prayer. It can be the same with our Lenten Resolutions.

God made the sinless one into sin, our sin, my sin, that in him we might become the goodness of God. And yet since the beginning of creation we have been denying our sin, that sin for which He emptied himself of his divinity, became man and endured His passion and death. We have been covering our nakedness up, hiding our reality from God, from ourselves and from one another.

While praying my Lectio Divina for the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time the words that struck me were ‘Your light will shine like the dawn and your wound quickly healed over’.

The word ‘Light’ is repeated in the first reading, the psalm and the Gospel. Elsewhere, in St John’s Gospel, Jesus tells us ‘I am the light of the world.’ Turning to us, his disciples, He reminds us in today’s Gospel we too are the ‘light of the world.’

Consecrate them in the truth

Your word is truth.

Throughout the centuries the Holy Spirit has raised up many different forms of consecrated life – which can be compared to a plant, with many branches, which sinks its roots into the Gospel and brings forth abundant fruit in every season of the Church’s life. (cf VC 5).

When reflecting on our vocation as Dominican nuns and how we try to live the motto of our Order: TRUTH, I began to understand our consecration as being set apart for Truth.

We share with you some photos taken after Melanie our postulant received the habit on the Eve of Epiphany – she is now Sr Léonie Marie. She is pictured here with Sr Maria Breidge (our other novice) and some community sisters.

This icon, created by one of our sisters for St Peter's parish in Drogheda, is not a work of the imagination in which the artist tries to drag the onlooker inside an ideal family, but a theological teaching that exposes something of the Truth revealed in Jesus Christ. We do not enter into the icon, it is a sacred space delimitated by a red line all around it. It is the people, represented inside that space, that come to us. “The Kingdom of God is at hand!"

A short clip of our community singing the O Antiphon for the 23rd of December (the Dominican version).

O Immanuel ...

The time of waiting is coming to an end. Soon the mystery of the Incarnation will be re-enacted once more in our liturgical celebrations and especially in our hearts.

For the past few weeks the cry "Maranatha - Come Lord Jesus" has been our spoken and unspoken prayer. But there is another side to this longing desire.

A short clip of our community singing the O Antiphon for the 22nd of December (the Dominican version).

O King ...

Jesus is our King, our hearts are waiting for the joy and peace that he brings to each one of us so to pitch his royal tent within us. Are we ready to be part of the building of which Christ is the corner stone? Are we ready to be made one and alive, for Christ is the living stone on which we build our lives.

A short clip of our community singing the O Antiphon for the 21st of December (the Dominican version).

O Rising Sun ...

In this "O" Antiphon the three metaphors- the rising Sun, splendour of the eternal light and sun of justice -- all symbolise Christ, the Son of God, the promised Messiah whose birth as our Saviour we will celebrate in four days time.

Jesus calls Himself the 'Light of the World' in St. John's Gospel( 9:5)

A short clip of our community singing the O Antiphon for the 20th of December (the Dominican version).

O Key of David ...

In "The Prayer for the Church in Ireland" Pope Benedict opened with the words "God of our fathers, renew us in the faith which is our life and salvation". Our own St Catherine of Siena constantly prayed for and spoke of "the light of holy faith".

A short clip of our community singing the O Antiphon for the 19th of December (the Dominican version).

Jesse was the father of King David from whose royal line the future Messiah would be born. When we read the genealogy of Jesus most of the characters mentioned were not very praise worthy according to human standards. Yet God's infinite, all powerful wisdom, compassion and merciful love were at work throughout salvation history not allowing human failure, sin, malice nor indifference to interfere or thwart His divine plan.

A short clip of our community singing the O Antiphon for the 18th of December (the Dominican version).

O Lord ...

During this Advent Season, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ, we are surely filled anew with wonder at the depths of love that led our heavenly father with those same outstretched arms to send his only begotten Son as our Redeemer -- that Son who some 30 years later, stretched out his arms on the Cross in an immense act of love and died for our salvation.

A short clip of our community singing the O Antiphon for 17th of December (the Dominican version).

On the 16th of December we began our 9-day Novena for the great feast of Christmas, and for following seven days we accentuate that longing and find its expression most beautifully in the great Vesper antiphons for the Magnificat, called the "O" antiphons, because they all begin with 'O'. These antiphons will be used each evening before and after the Magnificat, and as the Gospel Acclamation at Mass, daily, for the 7 days before Christmas.

We started the month by hosting the AGM of the ‘Associated Monasteries of Ireland’ (representing those Orders that have only one monastery in Ireland, such as ourselves). The topic for this year’s meeting was ‘Interculturality in Monastic Communities’ by Sr Chinyeaka C. Ezeani MSHR. Her interesting and helpful presentation was much appreciated, given the growing diversity of our Communities.

A Reflection on the Rosary by one of our Sisters.

Disposed from childhood to praying the Rosary, it has grown with me over the years or perhaps it would be more true to say I’ve grown with it. A prayer for all seasons of life, it has been my mainstay. I think of the structure of the rosary, the saying of the beads as a kind of enclosure, creating and protecting a sacred space, a shelter, within which Mary and I meet with Jesus on a daily basis and she shows unto me the blessed fruit of her womb, JESUS.