Vocation Office E-Newsletter May 2022

laudare, benedicere, praedicare TO PRAISE, TO BLESS, TO PREACH

May 2022

M A Y 2022 1 / THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER 2/ 3 / Sts. Philip and James, Apostles 4 / Bl. Emily Bicchieri 5 / St. Vincent Ferrer 6/ 7/ 8 / FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER (Patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary over the Order of Preachers) 9/ 10 / St. Anontinus; St. Damien Joseph de Veuster 11 / 12 / Sts. Nereus and Achilleus; St. Pancras 13 / Our Lady of Fatima 14 / St. Matthias, Apostle 15 / FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER 16 / 17 / 18 / St. John I, Pope and Martyr 19 / 20 / St. Bernardine of Siena 21 / Bl. Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier; Sts. Christopher Magallanes and Companions 22 / SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER 23 / 24 / Translation of the Relics of Our Holy Father St. Dominic 25 / *In most dioceses in the United States, the Ascension is 26 / St. Philip Neri observed on the Seventh Sunday of Easter.

27 / St. Augustine of Canterbury 28 / Celebrations from the 29 / THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD* Dominican calendar 30 / appear in italics.

31 / Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

C

By: Sister Chiara, O.P. hrist is Risen, Alleluia! The time of our Lenten observance is over and we have entered into the season of joy which lasts for fifty days! How does the Church wish us to observe such a joyful season? It is easy to

know what to do during Lent. The Church puts before us the practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving and we ponder and deeply contemplate the central truth that Christ bears my sins. In doing so, we become convicted of our own guilt, experience an emotional response of contrition, and resolve to do something, to convert in some way.

However, so often we arrive at Easter, and having entered deeply into the Triduum and enjoyed the feasting of the Easter octave, we move on. Yet after Divine Mercy Sunday, the Church still gives us forty-two days of the Easter season to celebrate. How? What should we do to observe this glorious season of the Resurrection and enter fully into the joy and light of the Risen Christ?

In her liturgies for the Easter season, the Church proposes that to enter more deeply into this glorious season, we must gather and rest in the graces of Lent. It brings to mind the image of one who goes out to harvest flowers which have been carefully planted, cultivated and pruned. The labor of the gardener in cooperation with the Maker of creation, has yielded a harvest of flowers whose beauty draws the mind and heart of the beholder to contemplate the Beautiful One.

So too, it must be with we who have labored and toiled during the Lenten Season, disciplining our minds and bodies by careful and intentional cultivation of virtues and weeding out of vices. Regardless of the extent of our seeming success or failure, each one of us has received unimaginable transformative grace. Christ now lives in us in a new way.

Easter provides us a time to behold the work the Lord has done in our souls and to spend time with Him to continue the work already begun so that it may endure. To allow these graces to take root in our souls, we can take as our models the apostles who delighted just to be in the presence of the risen Christ.

Very little is recorded in Scripture about Jesus’ time on earth between the Resurrection and the Ascension. However, the evangelist John gives us a hint that Our Lord was not idle during those forty days. On the contrary, John says that “There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25).

What a glorious thing to ponder, all the miracles worked by Christ and all the moments spent with our Blessed Mother and the apostles during this hidden time!

What a glorious thing to ponder, all the miracles worked

by Christ and all the moments spent with our Blessed Mother and the apostles during this hidden time! We know from tradition that during those forty days, Jesus was with his apostles, teaching them and instructing them as they prepared for their great commission. He strengthened them, and the graces of their own personal transformations took root and blossomed into new life within their souls. We see this especially with Peter who, during our Lord’s passion, fulfilled Jesus' prophecy that Peter would deny him three times. Yet after the Resurrection, we read his three-fold profession of love for His Savior and witness his bold proclamation of the Gospel in the Acts of the Apostles. Whatever else occurred between Jesus and Peter before Christ ascended into Heaven, His chosen leader opened himself to the transformation Christ proposed to him. Even while the resurrected Jesus was in his midst, Peter remembered the passion and cross, for this new life within him would not be possible without a death to sin.

During this season, we like the apostles, must spend time with Our Lord in adoration, and prayer, in reading and praying with Scripture and in silence, so that the graces we received during Lent may take root in our hearts and continue to transform our lives. Like Peter, we must remember the cross and how we, too, must die to sin.

St. Paul teaches us: “If we have died with Christ, we believe that we are also to live him. We know that Christ, once raised from the dead, will never die again; death has no more power over him. His death was death to sin, once for all, his life is life for God. In the same way, you must consider yourselves dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:9-11).

May this Easter season be a time of rest in the transformative graces received during Lent so that “the renewal constantly at work within us may be the cause of our unending joy.” (Prayer over the offerings for the Easter Season).

Holy Week & Easter at the motherhouse

TOP / Three novices prepare for Mass.

MIDDLE LEFT / Father Chrismer blesses the palms for the Mass of Passion Sunday.

LEFT / The Blessed Sacrament is brought to the altar of repose in St. Dominic's Oratory on Holy Thursday night.

ABOVE RIGHT / A sister venerates the Cross on Good Friday.

nashvilledominican.org

Dominican

Pilgrimage

During April a group of sisters made a pilgrimage to Dominican sites in Kentucky and Ohio.

CENTER LEFT / Sisters received a blessing and venerated the relics of St. Margaret of Costello at St. Patrick's Church in Columbus, OH. LEFT / The Friars at St. Rose Priory in Springfield, KY welcomed the sisters.

BELOW / In Somerset, OH the sisters stopped to pray at the grave of Bishop James Whelan, the second bishop of the Diocese of Nashville. St. Cecilia Congregation was founded in 1860 at the request of Bishop Whelan.

BOTTOM / The pilgrims visited Holy Trinity Church in Somerset, OH. Four departed from here to found St. Cecilia's in 1860.

"Virgin Mother Mary, with trust we approach you.

We, your preachers, fly to you who believed in the words sent from heaven and pondered them in your heart.

We stand close around you, who are always present to the gathering of apostles..." from the Prayer of Dedication of the Order of Preachers to the Blessed Virgin Mary