Forget not the sorrows of thy mother with thine whole heart, That thine offering and thy blessing may be perfected. On the mountain of the sacrifice, as Mother she gave Her Son, as Bridge she offered herself together with Him; by her sufferings both as Bride and as Mother, she was the co-redemptress of the … Read more
Every year, in the lead up to the Feast of our Holy Father St Dominic on the 4th of August, the Sisters recite in common the prayer composed by Blessed Jordan of Saxony as a Novena. It is a long prayer, broken up over a week, so each day has a specific portion to be … Read more
O wounded heart, whence sprang The Church, the Saviour’s bride; Thou door of our salvation’s ark Set in its mystic side. Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus began in the Middle Ages, when the devotion to the Sacred Humanity of Our Lord gained in prominence, in the consideration of the Sacred Wounds He suffered … Read more
St Gregory the Great on the Ascension of Our Lord Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive; thou hast received men in gifts. (Ps 67:19). Ascending on high He has truly led captivity captive; for our mortality is swallowed up by the power of His immortality. Now He has given gifts to … Read more
Regina Caeli laetare, Alleluia! Quia quem meruisti portare, Alleluia! Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluia! Ora pro nobis Deum, Alleluia! The joyful tunes of the Regina Caeli now resound as we celebrate the Pasch. But here are some photographs and notes of the Sacred Triduum in the Dominican Rite. May God bless all of you who are … Read more
This week marks the beginning of the last two weeks of Lent, or Passiontide. The liturgy, already different for the time of Septuagesima and Lent, is marked by further changes: the Gloria is suppressed in the responsaries, and the beautiful antiphon In Pace is no longer chanted in Compline. The statues and the crucifixes are … Read more
Ductus est Jesus in desertum a Spiritu Sancto ut tentaretur a diabolo. The Church solemnly launches the Holy season of Lent with the Gospel of Our Lord’s temptation in the desert, taking up where she left off the story of our Redemption which started at Christmas with the birth of Our Lord and went up … Read more
This year, we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the Irish Dominican nuns to New Zealand – from which our little Congregation takes its origin. It was 7:30am, 18th February 1871, when the pioneering Dominicans arrived at Port Chalmers with the Reverend Doctor Moran, the newly appointed Bishop of Dunedin, who had travelled … Read more
It’s been quite a while since any news for posted – not because there was no activity – but rather because there was so much going on! Our annual retreat concluded on the Feast of the Epiphany, 6 January, with 6 Sisters renewing their vows for a further one year. Fr Albert, O.P. preached the … Read more
Gáudens gaudébo in Dómino, et exsultábit ánima méa in Déo méo: quia índuit me vestiméntis salútis, et induménto justítiae circúmdedit me, quasi spónsam ornátam monílibus súis. (Is 61: 10) I will joyfully rejoice in the Lord, and my soul will exult in my God, for He has clothed me with garments of salvation, and He … Read more
Purgatory is a supernatural reality that exceeds our reason. We know about it because God has revealed it to us, but it remains very mysterious. We will only understand what Purgatory really is after we die. Nevertheless, the Church asks us to look upon this mystery with the eye of faith and understanding. St Paul … Read more
Mother Francis Raphael Drane, in her celebrated book The Spirit of the Dominican Order Illustrated from the Lives of its Saints, begins the chapter on Dominican devotion to the Souls in Purgatory as such: There is an Italian proverb which says, “Be a Dominican when you die,” referring partly perhaps to the wonderfully happy deaths … Read more
