{"id":4963,"date":"2012-08-12T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-12T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opsisters.org.nz\/preview\/2012\/08\/12\/to-this-all-gladsome-feast-attend\/"},"modified":"2023-05-10T02:26:18","modified_gmt":"2023-05-10T02:26:18","slug":"to-this-all-gladsome-feast-attend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opsisters.org.nz\/preview\/2012\/08\/12\/to-this-all-gladsome-feast-attend\/","title":{"rendered":"To this all-gladsome feast attend!"},"content":{"rendered":"
When
\nall the nuns were sleeping<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
And
\nthe sun had gone to bed;<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Up
\njumped a postulant<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
And
\nthis is what she said\u2026<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\n(Or
\nrather, what she thought \u2013 because the Great Silence was on)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s
\ntoday! It\u2019s today! It\u2019s today! It\u2019s today! It\u2019s today! It\u2019s today! It\u2019s today!\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\n
<\/a><\/div>\n

Such
\nchildishness, you may be thinking. I agree. But you see, that\u2019s just one of the
\nnicest things about being a postulant in a religious community \u2013 you\u2019re one of
\nthe community\u2019s babies, and for us, things like St Dominic\u2019s Day are just as exciting
\nas Christmas to a 4-year-old.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

And
\nwe had plenty of right to be excited, too. I mean, one\u2019s Holy Father\u2019s Feast
\nDay only comes around once a year, and one must celebrate it properly. Now,
\ndoing something properly, as you all know I\u2019m sure, involves extensive
\npreparation. This we did, commencing about a week and a half in advance,
\nbecause there was so much to be done. There was a meal to be planned,
\ndecorations to be thought out, a Sung Mass in the Convent to practice for, and
\nthe entertainment for the day needed rehearsing (more on that later).<\/span><\/div>\n
Preparations
\nreached fever pitch the day before Saturday, the 4th<\/sup> of August, for
\nwe had to squeeze in an enormous amount of things in readiness for the next day.
\nThere were last-minute rehearsals of St Dominic\u2019s Mass, frenzied cutting and
\ndrawing and pinning on mysterious pieces of cardboard and draught-preventers
\n(Mother Micaela was quite mystified as to what was going to become of them in
\nparticular), desperate attempts to get all the flowers done in time, and to top
\nit all off, we had to put in a turbo-charged effort to get our house duties
\ndone in amongst all this, because there was no way anybody was going to be
\nallowed to do something as mundane as cleaning<\/b> on the Saturday.<\/span><\/div>\n
Somehow,
\nI don\u2019t know quite how, all of this managed to be crammed into Friday. We managed
\nto get to sleep after all the circulating adrenaline and cortisol had settled
\ndown, and this now brings me to where I was at the start of these ramblings
\nwith that one pervading thought on waking \u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s today!\u201d I hope I have now
\njustified the childishness a little.<\/span><\/div>\n
But,
\nyou may ask, did things live up to expectation? We all know that sometimes the
\nbuild-up can be more than the event itself \u2013 I\u2019m guessing (but I don\u2019t know for
\nsure, seeing as we don\u2019t have TVs or radios or newspapers or worldly things
\nlike that around here, of course!) that some of the Olympians in London are
\nfeeling like that right now. However, this was most assuredly not the case this
\n4th<\/sup> of August, because the day more than lived up to expectations,
\nand the effort involved in the build-up only served to augment the enjoyment of
\nthe day. I speak from my own perspective here, but knowing that the
\nflower-arrangers were hurrying about looking both frantic and furtive the
\nevening before, but not knowing exactly what they were constructing, while I
\nwas hurrying about myself, only made the vision of the Chapel and convent full
\nof gorgeous posies (with a bona fide garland around St Dominic\u2019s statue!) all
\nthe more lovely upon encountering them in the morning. It gave that really
\nsatisfying feeling of \u201cso that\u2019s<\/b> what they were up to!\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n
After
\nOffice and meditation, we quickly rearranged the furniture in the Chapel
\nbecause something very special was planned for Mass \u2013 a Conventual Sung Mass!
\nIncredibly, the attempt to fit a keyboard into our little Chapel was successful,
\nand shortly afterwards Fr Delsorte processed into the strains of \u201cHail, St
\nDominic\u201d. Next, Sr Raymond\u2019s hard work in the past week or so was shown to pay
\ndividends; we sang the Proper confidently and followed the Ceremonial with all
\nof the beautiful Dominican inclinations just as she had taught us. Father
\npreached us a lovely sermon on how we can imitate St Dominic in our lives, and
\nthese thoughts were reinforced in our minds as we sang the triumphant \u201cSing The
\nMighty Champion\u2019s Praises\u201d as a recessional to conclude Holy Mass. I have to
\nsay I am really looking forward to our next Conventual Sung Mass \u2013 it really
\nwas something<\/b>.<\/span><\/div>\n

Our
\nnext item for the day was another extra-special occurrence: a hot brunch! The
\nkitchen was thrown open to all comers, and pretty much everyone came to help
\nprepare the feast. Bacon, eggs, beans, French toast, fresh salsa,
\ncrumpets\u2026after a whirlwind effort, something worthy of an Enid Blyton Famous
\nFive repast was before us. It wasn\u2019t before us for long, though, because by
\nthat stage we were a bit beyond peckish and we proceeded to relieve the serving
\nbowls of their burdens. A kind gesture, really, if you think about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

After
\nclearing up, we said Sext, and then proceeded to ready ourselves for the
\nmuch-awaited entertainment of the day. This entertainment was to be put on by
\nthe novices and postulants for the amusement of the Professed Sisters, and as a
\nresult, an atmosphere of furtiveness and secrecy hung over the convent in the
\ndays preceding. Some last-minute assembly of props and costumes was required,
\nso the suspense was prolonged, but the performers were ready at last! The Play,
\nso long awaited, finally came to life! What it was actually about is a bit
\ncomplicated, so that will be posted as a separate item on the blog, but the
\npr\u00e9cis is that Alice in Wonderland fell down another hole into a world made up
\nof magical Lands populated by various problematic characters and she had to
\nfind her way out again. This will be expanded on in another post, but suffice
\nit to say here that the West End and Broadway\u2019s losses are very much our
\nConvent\u2019s gain. <\/span><\/div>\n
It took a while for our elevated spirits to return to something like normal
\nafterwards; laughing that much tends to have a bit of a lasting effect, at
\nleast in my experience. We worked off our surplus energy with a delightful
\nafternoon of walking and good conversation and a bit of skipping \u2013 but don\u2019t expect
\nus to do Double-Dutch; some people only narrowly avoided ending up in a
\nhospital with multiple traumatic injuries.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
All too soon, the evening was upon us, but some angelic Sisters still found some energy to whip up a scrumptious dinner. By this stage, the excitement of the day found us in the happy stage of savouring it at a leisurely pace with <\/a>all the day\u2019s moments to look back on. <\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
And
\nthen \u2013 the bell went, enveloping the Convent in the Great Silence once again.
\nFourteen happy souls went to sleep that night, secure in the knowledge that their
\nHoly Father St Dominic and Our Blessed Lady continue to watch over them,
\nwinning for them a multitude of favours, not least of all the gift of joy.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When all the nuns were sleeping And the sun had gone to bed; Up jumped a postulant And this is what she said\u2026 (Or rather, what she thought \u2013 because the Great Silence was on) \u201cIt\u2019s today! It\u2019s today! It\u2019s today! It\u2019s today! It\u2019s today! It\u2019s today! It\u2019s today!\u201d Such childishness, you may be thinking. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-convent-life","infinite-scroll-item","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opsisters.org.nz\/preview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opsisters.org.nz\/preview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opsisters.org.nz\/preview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opsisters.org.nz\/preview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opsisters.org.nz\/preview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4963"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/opsisters.org.nz\/preview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5225,"href":"https:\/\/opsisters.org.nz\/preview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4963\/revisions\/5225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opsisters.org.nz\/preview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opsisters.org.nz\/preview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opsisters.org.nz\/preview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}