Sister Margaret Carey delivered this reflection for the Sisters, Associates, and gathered faith community at Dominican Convent for the Feast of the Transfiguration. The Entrance Antiphon for today is: “In a resplendent cloud, the Holy Spirit appeared. The Father’s voice was heard: ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to […]
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We celebrate James in mid-summer, so I do feel like a haze has to lift for me to get started. Maybe, it was a hazy, early summer morning when Jesus called his first disciples and found James and his brother John with their father, Zebedee, fixing their fishing nets. (Mark 1:18) Many had probably heard something about him, but they were not expecting, after a long evening of fishing, to be called right then. But yes, he calls them to just leave their nets and follow him. And they did!
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Saint Mary Magdalene, first to share the good news of Christ’s resurrection with the apostles, is held as the Patroness of the Dominican Order, the Order of Preachers. Sister Catherine Patrice brings us this same good news today as she reflects on Saint Mary Magdalene. Sister Catherine Patrice ministers in retreat work and spiritual direction.
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Saint Kateri in front of Santa Fe Cathedral Sisters Helen Regina, Durso, Christine (Chris) Ferrar and Nora McCarthy served the Indigenous Peoples of the Nakoda and Aaniiih Nations at the St. Paul’s Mission Grade School in Hays, MT for 40 years. We invite you to listen to them reflect on St. Kateri Tekakwitha. https://sparkill.org/wp-content/uploads/Saint-Kateri.mp3
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Sister Helen Robert Boyd shared the following reflection with the Sisters and Associates at liturgy on June 29th. Today we celebrate two giants of early Christianity, Peter and Paul. Both are held in the highest esteem by the Church as can be seen by the prominent positions that their statues hold in St. Peter’s Square
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Some liturgical feast days are very familiar to us, and most certainly our feast today is one of them. How significant do you think it is for today’s Catholic people? Our first response might be that it has little or no significance to them. But we need to explore more deeply.
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The Visitation by Jacopo Pontormo Sister Mary Dunning shared this reflection at liturgy for today’s feast based on Luke 1:39-56. Today’s gospel is filled with impossibilities. Two obscure women meet in a remote village of a conquered, humiliated land. Mary and Elizabeth are Palestinian Jews, citizens of a land crushed under decades of the imperial
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The first chapter of Genesis ends with these words: “God looked at everything God had made and found it to be very good. Evening came and morning followed the sixth day.” Billions of years thereafter the first astronauts experienced the same vision when they looked upon this beautiful swirling blue marble from their small cockpit
The following reflection was delivered by Sister Irene Ellis to the Sisters and Associates at the Foundation Day/Diamond Jubilee Mass on May 7, 2023. Sister Irene Ellis, current Prioress, relates how the spirit of our Founder, Mother Mary Catherine Antoninus Thorpe, is alive and well today. As our early co-founders were congregational cornerstones, we are called to be living stones.
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Sister Margaret Palliser shared this reflection with the Sisters and Associates at Dominican Convent on May 8, the Feast of Mary’s Patronage of the Dominican Order. On this Feast of the Patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Dominican Order. Today we crown Mary our Mother as our Queen. Ours is a simple ritual, a far cry from the pomp and circumstance of the crowning of Charles III two days ago!
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“Although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to the childlike.” These opening words from today’s Gospel caught my attention…. the childlike. That’s childlike, not childish—two very different ways of being for sure. Catherine, I believe, was childlike. She was a woman whose childlike qualities served her
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This icon of St. Mark the Evangelist is found at St. Mark Parish in Phoenix. (Ambria Hammel/CATHOLIC SUN) How often do we hear the very familiar words announcing the Gospel according to Mark? Mark’s Gospel was probably written between 65-70 CE and provided both Matthew and Luke with sources for their Gospels. Do we ever
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I commute to work via the Palisades Parkway (aka the Indianapolis 500 of NY State). The ride never fails to get my heart racing, test my automotive skills, and have me thank God that I have made it through another commute and lived to see another day. Curiously, at one point about a month ago,
“Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him. 11 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew,
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Sister Lillian McNamara shares a Good Friday prayer and image from Saugerties. We thank her for this beautiful meditation from the foot of the cross.
Wash one another’s feet. After Supper Jesus and his disciples walked to the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus said to them: “The sorrow in my heart is so great that it almost crushes me. Stay here and keep watch with me.” (Matthew 26:38) Jesus asks his disciples for the simple gift of their presence, their accompaniment.
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Holy Week Reflection: Walking the Way of the Cross by David L. Coppola. First Published in Living With Christ, 2017.
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We invite you to see through the creative eyes of our poets! Poem by Sister Joan Dolores Willemse (d.1969)
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Passion (Palm) Sunday is the day on which we celebrate and remember Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem on a donkey. He was honored as a king while palm branches and olive branches were waved before him. The crowds were excited and shouted, “Hosanna!” How did we learn about this procession? Some research on the web
Reflections on the Annunciation by Pauline Blandina, OP Mary, daughter of Anne and Joachim, was going about her daily routine when she became aware of a presence and of a request that was being made of her. Did she realize that this request through the Angel Gabriel was from God the Father? Certainly, she was
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Happy Feast Day dear sisters and brothers, especially to Sr. Miriam Joseph on her first feast day in heaven! What can we say about this Patron of the Universal Church? We have a conundrum today because how did a carpenter from Nazareth rise to such an auspicious status? Especially one who could be described as
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“‘I do believe, Lord’, and he worshipped him.” John 9:38 I go to Mass on Sundays. I watch YouTube videos with sermons that examine Bible verses when I thirst for scripture. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning and right before I close my eyes is open my lavender-colored Bible
There must be something about being green—just look around! But beyond the shamrocks and harps can we, using a slightly green lens, explore how Celtic Christianity Spirituality is echoed in Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ encyclical? Doing some web searching I found a paper by Kevin Vaughn titled: The Imagination of Interconnection: Laudato Si’ and Celtic
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Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the 40-day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that prepares us to celebrate the Resurrection. Those attending mass on this day will have their foreheads marked with ashes as a sign of repentance. Some might question us when they see the cross on our foreheads, “Did you remember to
Today, February 8, we commemorate the Feast Day of St. Josephine Bakhita, patron saint of freedom for persons victimized by human trafficking. At 7 years of age, she was kidnapped from her small village in the Darfur region of Sudan and sold into slavery. Like other slaves, Josephine was badly beaten, abused, and sold multiple
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Sometime last year I was surfing the internet and I came upon an article titled: “A Thomistic Approach to the Moral Evils of Racism,” by Therese Scarpelli Cory, Associate Professor of Thomistic Studies at Notre Dame. The title interested me, and I scanned the article and put it away to read at a later time.
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When we hear the sentence from the eighteenth chapter of the Book of Wisdom, “When all was in quiet stillness and the night was during its course,” just the sound of these words takes us beyond ourselves. Where do we go? We travel into a deep and safe silence that belongs to Christmas Eve. There
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Since ancient times, humanity has held various versions of belief in the existence of a god or gods. The oldest civilizations in Mesopotamia, the land between the two rivers of the Euphrates and Tigris, built exotic temples to placate the gods by offering them gifts of food, and in some cases, human sacrifice. The purpose
The following is Lillian’s Advent Vesper reflection for the Sisters in Dominican Convent. My beloved Sisters, It is an honor to celebrate Advent and share my personal reflection with you today on the reading from James 5:7-10. I am overwhelmed with feelings of warmth and love as I read through each verse of this reading.
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During these past few weeks, I’ve spent more time than usual with our Blessed Mother as I worked to prepare these reflections. I must admit, it has been an unexpectedly good way to enter more deeply into this beautiful Advent season!In exploring a bit of history of this feast, I discovered that there are differences
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