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Dominican Sisters of Mary

Mother of the Eucharist

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Holy Week: The Divine Drama

Palm Sunday is the first act of the Paschal Mystery (Jesus’ Passion, Death, and Resurrection). Today, Christ processed through the Jewish crowd, who would betray him in only a few days’ time. Today, at Mass, we accompany the priest who, in the Person of Christ, processes towards the altar of sacrifice—toward the Cross and our redemption, traveling the betrayal, denial, and desertion of the Via Crucis.  Then, in the final act, our Lord’s mercy and love conquer death!

 

The palms we hold today symbolize that great drama. They are an ancient symbol of victory, but also remind us of our death and our fickle—and fallen—human nature.  Almost forty days ago, ashes were used to trace the Cross on our foreheads: ashes made from last year’s palms, raised high for Christ’s triumphal return. We heard the words “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” and “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” The Gospel is the good news that Christ rose from the dead and conquered death. His death is our victory!

 

Entering into the liturgical drama of the Triduum, we pray especially for our priests on Holy Thursday, when the Priesthood was instituted, and for all the faithful, that charity may prevail in our lives. On Good Friday, we give thanks for the graces of our redemption, that we may pattern our lives after Jesus and with faith embrace the Cross. Finally, on Holy Saturday, we wait outside the tomb with hope and expectation, knowing that the apostles are trustworthy, the Scriptures are true, and Jesus is ALIVE!

 

As we participate in Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection this Holy Week, may we recognize God’s gift of abundant mercy and offer a fitting response. Be assured that you are kept in our prayers!

Lent: An Encounter with the Divine Lover

This year, Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day. Paradoxical? Perhaps to some. Inconvenient? For many Catholics, certainly (sweethearts and school teachers alike). However, one could also draw profound meaning from this providential collision of observances.

We love because God loved us first.
(cf. 1 John 4:19)

While the secular world exchanges heart-shaped boxes in hues of reds and pinks, we will receive ashes symbolizing a “love stronger than death.” On the same day that roses will descend on sweethearts everywhere, our sanctuaries will be stripped of all flowers. Many will celebrate with sumptuous dinners and romantic music while we are treated to fasting and abstinence; Parce Domine (Spare us, Lord) is our love song, and the Sacrament of Love is our feast, a foretaste of the heavenly wedding banquet. He alone truly and completely satisfies our deepest hunger, our deepest longing, and our deepest desires.
As Catholic Christians, we strive to encounter Christ’s love and longing not just for a day, but for a season. This year, we might compare Lent to a forty-day observance of Valentine’s Day. It is a journey of love into the heart of Christ and His Passion—a journey that is a response to His unquenchable love for each one of us. In doing so, we celebrate a different kind of Passion—a love that transcends this world and our earthly years. He desires that each one of His adopted sons and daughters can say with utmost conviction: “For God so loved (your name), that He sent His only Son”. His personal love for you is expressed on the cross—its intensity and completeness is revealed in the intensity and completeness of His suffering. He is the Divine Lover.

In lieu of roses and chocolates, send up prayers for a fruitful Lenten journey to the heart of Christ, our Divine Lover.

Be assured of our daily prayers for a grace-filled Lenten journey into to the very heart of our Blessed Savior, Jesus Christ.

To order a Lenten Journal, please click here.

Our Lady of Fatima

Pray the Rosary, every day, in order to bring peace to the world.

Our Lady of Fatima, May 13, 1917

Today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Fatima with special solemnity, as we mark the 100th anniversary of her first apparition to three shepherd children in a small town in Portugal.

Over the course of Mary’s six monthly apparitions in 1917, she instructed Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco to pray the Rosary daily for peace, and to make sacrifices for sinners, saying that “many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them.” They took her advice seriously, finding many ways to offer sacrifices out of love for Our Lord and for all of His people. Today, during his visit to Fatima, Pope Francis will recognize their heroic virtue by canonizing Jacinta and Francisco. (Their cousin Lucia’s cause for beatification was recently opened.)

We ourselves may not be able to travel to Fatima during this momentous year, but we can listen to Our Lady’s requests. Saint John Paul II tells us that “the message of Fatima is, in its basic nucleus, a call to conversion and repentance as in the Gospel.” This call is an expression of Mary’s deep love for all of us, her children. As our mother, she desires that all of us should draw close to her Son, and she asks us to pray her own prayer, the Rosary, to obtain this grace. Only in this way will we be able to obtain the peace so needed by our world.

Let us imitate Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia, the three shepherd children of Fatima, and accept all of our own sufferings out of love. We pray for all sinners, including ourselves, as we say the prayer Our Lady of Fatima asked to be added after each mystery of the Rosary: “Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fire of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are most in need of Thy mercy.”

Please keep us, the Dominican Sisters of Mary, in your prayers, as we celebrate our community feast day today as well, the feast of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament.  Enjoy this short video of our Fatima Procession.

 

 

Lenten Freedom

At the beginning of this Lenten season, it is good for us to reflect a moment upon the purpose of our Lenten observances. As we take on the traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we can often be drawn into thinking about Lent in terms of “giving up” without really asking ourselves the question of “Why?”

Our Lenten practices are meant to help free us from our little attachments, which keep us from freely responding to God’s call in our lives. Later this month, we will celebrate two solemnities, St. Joseph and the Annunciation. Both Mary and Joseph are excellent models of this Lenten spirit. Both were completely ready and willing to embrace God’s plan for their lives. At the word of an angel, Mary gave her consent to bear the Son of God, and Joseph took Mary as his wife. Sometimes these events seem so distant from our own experience that, while we know the stories and can see the marvelous love of God at work, we fail to see the application in our own lives.

Mary and Joseph were able to embrace God’s will because they were free. There was nothing in their lives which stood in the way of their relationship with God. It is this freedom, the freedom that opens us to embrace God’s will with joy, which is the goal of our Lenten journey. Sin keeps us from this freedom, making us believe that we must cling to the little things of this world in order to be happy. The practices we adopt during Lent help us detach from our sin and recognize that the desire and hunger we so often feel can never be fully sated by food or possessions. Lent asks us to allow ourselves to feel hunger without completely satisfying it, so that we can realize the real object of our hunger – God himself.

Let us unite in prayer during this holy season of Lent, asking our Lord to grant us the graces we need to journey towards true freedom. May we never lose sight of the purpose of our Lenten practices, and so embrace Easter with the joy of those whose hearts have been made pure.

God bless,
The Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist

Celebrating 20 Years!

Rejoice with the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist as we celebrate our 20th anniversary!

Today we rejoice as we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist! On February 9, 1997, the first seed of the community was established as our four foundresses – Mother Assumpta, Sr. Mary Samuel, Sr. Joseph Andrew, and Sr. John Dominic – made their vows. In his homily on that occasion, John Cardinal O’Connor of New York reminded the sisters of the call of Abraham and his response of faith.

“Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’” (Genesis 12:1)

HISTORY - Cardinal O'Connor bw
Pictured above: Mother Assumpta, Sr. Joseph Andrew, John Cardinal O’Connor, Sr. John Dominic, and Sr. Mary Samuel.

Like Abraham, our foundresses left a life they loved to give new expression to St. Dominic’s zeal for souls in our own time. In response to St. John Paul II’s call for the New Evangelization, these four sisters sought to spread the witness of religious life according to the Pope’s words in his apostolic exhortation Vita Consecrata:  “The Spirit, who at different times has inspired numerous forms of consecrated life, does not cease to assist the Church . . . by giving new charisms to men and women of our own day so that they can start institutions responding to the challenges of our times.”

God said to Abraham, “’Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’” (Gen 15:5)

As our foundresses made their vows that day, they did not know that God would send them many vocations. However, they trusted that their work would bear fruit if it was God’s will, and in these 20 years we have grown to over 125 sisters, who have in turn been able to touch thousands of students and their families through our teaching apostolate!

As Pope Francis encouraged all religious during the Year for Consecrated Life, we look to our past with gratitude, first to God, for His guidance, protection, and blessings, and secondly for our foundresses, who trusted in God’s wisdom and guidance. We seek to live the present with passion, burning with zeal for souls. Lastly, we embrace the future with hope, trusting in the Lord’s continuing plan for our community. We ask you to join us in prayerful thanksgiving for the graces we, as a community, have received and to pray for a continued outpouring of the Holy Spirit as we strive to follow His promptings.