Monday, July 31, 2017

Novena to St Dominic - Day 2


St Dominic - God's obedient Son

Raymond of Capua, Catherine’s confessor and friend, records an extraordinary vision in which Catherin sees the Father begetting the Son. Then the Father speaks of Dominic:
Dearest daughter, I am the Father of these two sons; of the One by natural generation; of the other, by loving and affectionate adoption … This Son who is mine by natural and eternal generation, was most perfectly obedient to me  in all things, even unto death, in the human nature which he assumed. So too, Dominic, this son of mine by adoption, shaped every act he did, from his infancy till the last day of his life, by obedience to my commandments. Never once did he disobey a command of mine … and he preached not only in his own person, but through others also; not only in his own lifetime, but through those who followed him. Through these followers the voice of Dominic’s preaching is heard today, and will continue to be heard. For just as my Son by nature sent his disciples to preach, so did Dominic, my adopted son, send out his friars … just as my Son by nature is my very Word, so this adopted son is the herald and bearer of my Word. And so my special gift to him and his friars is understanding of the words I have spoken, and the grace of never swerving from them.

Saturday, July 22, 2017

Our New Roof

BEFORE
The work on our Chapel roof was completed during the week and the sisters are delighted to be able to resume praying the daily Office and Mass in the Chapel after two and a half weeks of being relegated to our Conference Room, which was a bit on the squashed side.


Our thanks to the workmen for getting the job done so quickly, and to God for the good weather during the last three weeks, which helped a lot.

AFTER
This was something of a ‘rush job.’ We had quite a few leaks over the last year (which were manageable with cloths and buckets, and ‘patching’ of the roof) and were planning to re-do the roof in the autumn. Then the leaks got much worse, with a number appearing over the altar, which made the need to repair the roof rather urgent. Luckily the roofers were able to start work a few days after that and we now have a leak free roof.

As you can imagine this has been a costly undertaking so we would be grateful for any contribution, however small, to help offset the expense involved.