Dialogue of night and day

When my youngest niece saw me
for first time in our Dominican habit ,
she stared at me and asked...

Do you always have dreams in white and black? Do We?

I love this question, children always look more deeply than we do.

I think that all of us privileged to belong to St. Dominic’s family have a great love for the hymn that concludes our Liturgy at nightfall – “The O Lumen”- after joyfully praising our father Dominic as LIGHT of the Church and Doctor of TRUTH, we move on to highlight him as ROSE OF PATIENCE.

There are so many facets associated with this vibrant virtue of patience –but we may ask why “Rose of patience” – what is the connection?

In recent weeks I have been asking myself what does it mean when we say “I give my life to the Lord”? Yes I’m sure that we all want to give Him our ALL – after all this was the guiding light which led us to the monastery. But how do I give my ALL? If I focus my attention on my giving I can become very discouraged and perhaps there is a danger that I can become oblivious to what the Lord wants to give me? Ultimately the Lord is seeking our hearts to possess them in such a way that He can pray his prayer and radiate His love in and through us. Once He has our hearts we can trust Him to do that rest

As we continue our short reflections on St Dominic in our Novena, I would like to say a word on St Dominic and Prayer. The following lines from the psalms are significant:
"I have called to you Lord: hasten to help me! Hear my voice when I cry to you;
Lord let my prayer rise before you like incense,
The raising of my hands like an evening oblation." (Ps 14:1-2)
This sums up for me so well St Dominic's prayer.

As we continue our Novena to St Dominic, I would like to share an extract from the book "15 Days with St Dominic" by Alain Quilici O.P.

It was from the gospel that Saint Dominic drew the ardor for his preaching. He had received it from his predecessors, tranmitted it to his brothers and sisters, and practiced it through lectio divina. The tireless preacher of the gospel was also a fervent reader of the gospels. For there was but one Word of God. That same one that must be proclaimed from the roof-tops must also be sung in choir, read and meditated in prayer, contemplated in preaching, and shared in fraternal life.

Here we are again, at the beginning of another novena to St Dominic, in anticipation of his feast, with whom we have, so to speak, ‘thrown in our lot.’

What have we done and what does it all mean?
What can we ask of St Dominic, as we daily take up the task of fidelity, of perseverance and of trust in the love and mercy of God?
... This Order of Preachers could be very much likened to a potter’s house, in which we present ourselves to the LORD, under the protection and through the unfailing, ceaseless intercession of St Dominic.

We share with you the good news that Sr Maria Breidge has been accepted by our community to make her first Profession. The following is a reflection by our prioress, Sr Mairéad, for the occasion. References to the Scripture Readings are for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A.

One of our sisters received the following quote which from a friend some time ago regarding the temptation to respond to the needs of our world during this Pandemic of Covid 19 – yes there is a great need for nurses, doctors, social workers, carers of every kind. So why do you, Dominican Nuns, continue to be heedless to the cry of broken humankind at this time? Why are you not out doing something useful?

Edith Stein (now St Benedicta of the Cross) was faced with the same dilemma at the beginning of World War II – she had been a Red Cross nurse in World War 1 and so was obviously recalling that time. Now a Carmelite Nun, here is how she responds and encourages her sisters:

Check out our new look website, complete with Online Shop!
All our own work – both the website and the products in the Shop.

In late February we discovered a Website creation software programme (Incomedia Website X5 Evo) that seemed to be just what we needed to work on our website. We had for some time thought that we needed to ‘freshen-up’ our website (and we wanted to add an Online Shop) so this seemed ‘God-sent’.