Reflections – Contemplatio
Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
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.
Feast of the Visitation
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 […]
Laudato Si’ Week
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 […]
Foundation Day & Diamond Jubilee Celebration
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.
Feast of Mary, Patroness of the Dominican Order
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!
Feast of St. Catherine of Siena
“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 […]
Feast of St. Mark, the Evangelist
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 wonder who Mark was and how tradition arrived at his designation as an Evangelist? Other Gospels are attributed […]
Happy Earth Day!
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, […]
