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Posts tagged prayer
Our Lady's Message: Prayer and Penance

During these times, it is good to once again remember what we have been told repeatedly by our Lady when she has appeared in our troubled past – as followers of Christ, we are called to undertake penance and prayer. The specific prayer recommended time and again by Our Lady is the Holy Rosary. But what about penance, the other side of this coin? If all is mercy and we are forgiven, why does God require penance?

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Ashes, Dust and Love

Penance. Suffering. Ashes and dust. It’s that time of liturgical year again. So what is the season about? Is it merely to inflict pain and punishment, to make us feel bad about ourselves and our sins? To bring gloom and doom down on us as we are reminded “you are dust, and to dust you shall return”? Certainly if we were a people without faith in a God of mercy and love, without hope for life with Him in heaven, then Lent would indeed be very dark. But we are ultimately an Easter people…

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Beautiful Preaching: Fra Angelico, the Arts and Iconography

Fra Angelico was an examplar Dominican preacher - he sought the face of God in contemplation, gave Christ his entire being and became an instrument in His hand to preach the Gospel and draw people to Himself through the beauty of his paintings and frescoes. This too is the way for the nuns of the Order of Preachers. Our community has, from its beginning, had a tradition in the visual and musical arts, which has blossomed through the course of time in various ways: producing vestments and ecclesiastical linens, Gothic calligraphy and illuminating manuscripts, fine artwork, photography and digital design, and most recently iconography.

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War, Peace, and the Rosary

Every morning when a Dominican dons the habit, he or she is reminded of the fact that he or she is in the middle of a war. The habit hasn’t changed much since it was given to Saint Dominic and the first friars and nuns of the Order of Preachers – white tunic and scapular with a belt, black cappa (and veil for the sisters). But conspicuously attached to the belt where a medieval knight would have slung a sword, is a rosary.

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May They Rest in Peace: Anniversary of Deceased Friends and Benefactors of the Order of Preachers

Gratitude towards benefactors is a natural virtue, but the grace of Christianity perfects its interior principle and makes its effects more lasting.  When our friends, employees and benefactors have passed into eternal life, gratitude follows them beyond the tomb and assists them by numerous prayers. 

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How We Spent Our Summer Vacation, Part 5: The Labor Day Week Finale!

Each year around Labor Day, we have the privilege and joy of extending hospitality to one of our Dominican friars, Father Luke Buckles, O.P., before he returns to the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in Rome, where he is a professor of theology. This year, as part of his visit, we were treated to a two-session seminar on Dominican and Carmelite mystics.

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