by Sr Jadwiga Swiatecka o.p.
The founding of the Order is rooted in St.Dominic's encounter, in his travels through Southern France, with the Albigensian heresy, and his perception that there was no preaching at that time and in that area adequate to expose and outweigh its central tenets. The Albigensians believed that all matter was essentially evil, and that only that which is spiritual comes from God (a dualism which has continued to infect Christianity down the ages).
Report on 'Young Sisters of the Order of Preachers' 2020
by Sr Chiara Mary Tessaris
Young Sisters of the Order of Preachers (YSOP) is a yearly meeting that brings together young Dominican sisters across Europe and includes novices and sisters with less than 20 years of professed life. Dominican Sisters Europe (DSE) is a branch of the Dominican Sisters International (DSI) movement. DSI was founded in May 1995 to faciliate worldwide collaboration between the Dominican sisters of apostolic life in their preaching mission. This year the English Congregation of St.Caherine of Siena (Stone) sent Sr Chiara Mary to the annual YOSP meeting which took place in Riga, Latvia the 3rd to the 5th of January.
by Sr Tamsin Mary Geach o.p.
In the readings for Sunday we shall hear about the promised ‘Servant King’ Who is faithful and will bring true justice, Whom ‘The islands’ are waiting for (I suppose that must be us!), the ’covenant of the people and light of the nations,’ Who will ‘open the eyes of the blind, and free captives from prison’(Isa.42 vv1-7), Who will ‘Bless His people with peace.’ This God of ours, Who has been incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ, ‘has no favourites’ but ‘Is the Lord of all men’ Acts 10, 34 ff)
In the Gospel we see the first act of public witness of Our Lord’s adult life: ‘Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John.’ So what is this baptism, and what is its significance for us?
Read more …Hope, alignment, waiting for the Lord: The place of baptism
A St. Thomas Aquinas Study Weekend will be held at St. Dominic's Convent, Station Road, Stone Staffs ST15 8EN, January 31 - February 2, 2020. The topic of the weekend will be "Our Participation in the Trinitarian Life," presented by Sr. Mary Magdalene, O.P. There will be opportunities for Mass and prayer with the sisters, as well as discussion and some meals together (either at the convent or a local restaurant). The cost of the weekend is £160; Students £100; (Senior concessions possible upon request). The weekend begins Friday evening with an introduction at 8 pm. There will be two talks on Saturday and one on Sunday morning. If interested, contact Sr. Valery Walker, O.P., Tel. 01785 812091 or Email: valeryewalker
A talk given for the Advent Day of recollection by Sr Ann Catherine Swailes
One of the most wonderful things about being human is surely the gift of language, and it's one that perhaps we rather often take for granted. I regularly Skype with a dear friend and former colleague now living in the mid-west of the United States, and I'm in awe of the technology that makes it possible for us to converse as we used to do when we were sitting next to each other in my office in Cambridge. And yet, in a certain sense, the physical distance between us is irrelevant. The very fact that human language can do the job it does at all, that the noises we make with our mouths or the marks we make with ink on paper can communicate such complex concepts and desires, is the real miracle wherever we are. And perhaps it's one we only really notice on those occasions when it doesn't work. I was once working as an au pair for a German family, and was bewildered when the lady of the house told me one morning that we were going to have mice for supper. I spent the day in some trepidation, but at the evening meal nothing more challenging than sweetcorn appeared on the table - for which the German word, is indeed Maiss, clearly, when I was capable of thinking calmly about it, related to the English “maize”. On another occasion, I was utterly baffled by a friend's telling me that there were several labour wards in her part of town, until I realised she was talking, not, as I'd initially assumed, about hospital maternity units, but about voting patterns in local elections.