News - Stone Dominican Sisters

Murmuring in the Wilderness

by Sr Rose Rolliing o.p.

[The sisters of st Catherine's Cambridge are giving a reflection each week at Vespers. This week Sr Rose reflects on the topic of complaining.]

Do everything without complaining and arguing, that you may be innocent and pure, as God’s perfect children.

One of the most transformative experiences of my life was spending a year as part of a Catholic charismatic lay community. To consecrate the year ahead, I was invited to receive prayer ministry, and asked: what do you want God to do for you this year? What is it that you seek? I responded very intuitively by saying: “I want God to break something inside of me”. I didn’t know what that something was, but I did know that I wasn’t ok with God, and I wasn’t ok in myself, and with some incredulity, I began asking the Lord to help me re-surrender.

Five months later, I found myself in crisis. Surprised and confused by the turn of events, I started complaining: “what is going on, where is God?” The mentor who was accompanying me through this process rebuked me amidst one of my griping sessions and said: “you have been praying for God to act in your life, and now that He’s doing it, you complain”! Her words changed my whole perspective – where I

Read more …Murmuring in the Wilderness

The Holy Preaching 1. The Eight evil thoughts: Introducing the Mental Scaffold

by Sr Rose Rolling o.p.

What is the Holy Preaching?

The first community that St Dominic set up in the newly formed Order of Preachers was not of itinerant friars but of enclosed nuns. He gave this first community the rather affectionate name of the Holy Preaching of Prouille, Prouille being the village in France where the monastery was located. This community lived in the middle of a spiritual wasteland, at a time of schism inside the church and great social division outside it. But this reality did not faze St Dominic, indeed, it was precisely in this environment that he saw the need for a community which would witness to the beauty and truth of Christ in both word and deed.

The Holy Preaching was, if you like, St Dominic’s answer to the very contemporary ecclesial question of synodality. Dominic recognised that our preaching to the non-Christian world must be founded on how we as Christians love each other. There are countless ways of preaching, but love is

By way of Christ’s suffering humanity to his divinity

Reflection for Vespers on Wednesday 1^st Week of Lent - Phil 2:12b

by Sr M. Pauline Burling o.p.

“Keep on working, with fear and trembling, to complete your salvation, for God is always at work in you to make you willing and able to obey his own purpose.”

Our Breviary uses the TEV [Today’s English Version] but if we take the same sentence from the RSV it reads as follows:

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

The first part of the sentence especially in the RSV version “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;” smacks of much hard work but also of Pelagianism which our senior brethren could discuss competently...

Instead, I intend to go to our Brother Henry Suso, whose life can illustrate aspects of the struggle involved in a correct interpretation of the whole sentence, that is, the part we do and God’s doings in us as we continue walking in the footsteps of Christ. I believe Henry’s efforts can give us some light as to what we mean by the spiritual quest even if he lived in the 14^th

The Holy Preaching

The Dominican Sisters are excited to announce the launch of a new initiative: ‘The Holy Preaching’. This will be a monthly gathering consisting of a short talk, refreshments and prayer. The first series of talks will be looking at The Eight Evil Thoughts and the Healing of the Modern Mind.

All welcome!

For more information or to join our mailing list, please contact Sr Rose: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

A Lenten Day of Recollection

Ladies! are you in need of a day of prayer and reflection to prepare for Holy Week? If so, contact us via the website or contact Sr angeal directly, using the email address given on the poster.