The Solemnity of the Epiphany

God is at home, observed thirteenth-century mystic Meister Eckhart. We are in the far country.

Epiphany

The Magi set out because of a deep desire which promoted them to leave everything and begin a journey. It was as though they had always been waiting for that star . . . Pope Benedict XVI

Click to READ the Holy Father's Epiphany Homily

Click to WATCH the live video of the Solemnity of the Epiphany celebrated in the Vatican.  (click on audio and choose audio_eng)

Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God.

Mary, Mother of the New Creation

Homily by fr. Brian J. Pierce, OP promoter of the Dominican Nuns

 The Bible begins with the words, “In the beginning.” Today, January 1^st, we also find ourselves “in the beginning.”  Life is full of beginnings. Maybe we remember beginning our first day of school, or our first job or our first kiss!  Last week, on Christmas Eve, I helped my mother prepare a turkey to be baked in the oven.  And then I assisted her as she combined many ingredients together to make a pecan pie – from scratch, from the beginning.  Each time Mom began by gathering all the ingredients together, and one by one she created something that was beautiful and delicious. When God made the heavens and the earth “in the beginning,” God was also making something beautiful and delicious.

When a composer sits down to compose music he or she begins with a blank sheet of paper, a pencil, and musical notes that are collected, joined together and ordered to form music – beautiful music. An author or a poet does the same with words, just like a potter or a painter works with clay or different colors of paint. “In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth… In the beginning God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”

Each year, in the springtime, farmers and gardeners till the earth in order to plant seeds to bring forth new life that will nourish us. Every spring is “a new beginning.” The cycle of planting, germination, flowering, harvest and eating is the cycle of life and death and new life. Every year we begin a new, and in this way we participate in God’s eternal cycle of life. 

Every time we hear the words, “I forgive you” or “I am sorry, or “I absolve you of all your sins,” we celebrate a new beginning.  In the past months we have seen a number of Arab countries struggling to know what it means to begin anew.

The Holy Family of Jesus Mary and Joseph

Detail of the apse mosaic in the St Joseph's chapel of Westminster Cathedral. It was installed in 2003, and the designer is Christopher Hobbs who worked with mosaic artist, Tessa Hunkin.

"When they had done everything the Law of the Lord required, they went back to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. Meanwhile the child grew to maturity, and he was filled with wisdom; and God’s favour was with him." - Luke 2:40.

Today, as the church celebrates this great feast of the Holy Family, we are reminded that the family, my family and your family is the fundamental project and pursuit of the human person. It is the place in which human life begins, is nurtured, and is cherished. In the family, the human person learns to love by being loved, and learns that each person has an incalculable dignity that must be respected and affirmed in small or great ways each day.

In the family, man and woman, husband and wife, mother and father, live a gift of self to each other, and, as an expression of this gift, welcome new life that is entrusted to them. When we were children, we were supposed to experience from our mother and father, the full range of complimentary human experiences and emotions, learning naturally that the human person is a being that comes from love, that must live in and longs for an experience of love, and for which the pursuit of an eternal, transcendent love is the ultimate desire.

In this experience of the human person as male and female, and as coming from and going to love, the family finds its role as the cradle and school of humanity.

Through the eyes of faith, the family mirrors the great mystery of the of love which is the Trinity. God is an eternal communion of love, a communion of three divine persons. The family is a unique institution, Civic and Religious life rely on the family  to develop future citizens and saints. These citizens and saints, nurtured within the family, are in turn, called upon to assist and defend the family in its great task, which is the generation and formation of LIFE! 

A Blessed Christmas to all!

Painting by Sr. Mary Grace Thul, OP

Dear Friends,

May peace and joy be yours this Christmas!

St. Luke describes the birth of Jesus announced to the shepherds in this way:

“Do not be afraid; I have good news for you of great joy that will be for all the people.

Today in the city of David a Savior has been born to you who is Christ the Lord …

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those on whom his

favor rests” (Luke 2:10, 14). Peace and joy are the gifts Jesus brings to us

by his incarnation to the extent we are open to receive them and pass them on to others.

In the world today there is an absence of that joy and peace.

There is exploitation, greed, fear, and turmoil leading to senseless hatred and war.

These are often the result of gross material inequality, but also fear of the other who is different.

In our own individual, small way we can learn to reach out to others in trust and

self-giving love and   so receive within ourselves an increase of God’s gifts of peace and joy.

We, your Dominican sisters, pray each day that these precious gifts may grow

in our own hearts, in the hearts of all our devoted friends, and in all humankind

that the world may come to know God’s great gift of its Savior Jesus Christ.

A novena of Masses will be celebrated for your intentions in St. Thomas University

in Rome during this season.

Montesinos 500th Anniversary

To commemorate the 500th Anniversary of Dominican Preaching in the Americas, the brothers (friars) of the whole Dominican Order were petitioned to preach or read in all the churches connected with the Order the sermon preached by Antonio de Montesinos on Española on the 4th Sunday of advent 1511, so that it might be a collective commemoration of this act, which defended human dignity in the name of the Church. 

Bro. Bruno Cadoré, OP, the master of the Order shares with us a reflection on this event in our Dominican history.

The indignation and popular uprisings have been in recent months and are still news in several countries. In some cases, the determination to get rid of authoritarian regimes that claimed. In others, certain logical groups that question, especially economic ones, that seem to want to rule the world despite the differences themselves accrue between men and engender serious concerns, particularly for the young. In either case, are too often forgotten voices that are heard, remembering that human beings want to be protagonists of their own history and aspires to freedom and justice. This opens new horizons of hope for a livable and sustainable world for all (click on the link to read more).  http://curia.op.org/en/index.php/eng/component/content/article/726-five-hundred-years-ago
Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez, Dominican Republic, stressed the role of the Catholic Church in defense of human rights, justice and care for the poor, since the first missionaries settled in the island of Santo Domingo, makes more than five centuries. During a conference entitled "500 years of the sermon of Montesinos and its relevance ', which issued in the living room of La Mancha Barceló Lina, Lopez Rodriguez gave a brief account of the life and works of Fray Antonio (Anton) of Montesinos, the priest Dominican who reproached the Spanish authorities then its "grave sin against God and the Church" by mistreating and enslaving to the extermination of the aborigines of the island. On the defense of indigenous peoples and the social doctrine of Montesinos, said it was the same doctrine of the church, which has always been practiced since the beginning, as the doctrine of Jesus Christ. "It was the same Jesus Christ who began to preach justice, defend and love the poor, to give his life for them," said Lopez Rodriguez. The cardinal noted the presence of the Congregation of the Dominicans at the time of national history, recalling that the first men who came were well formed, with a high sense of justice, theology and Christian life, as were Peter Cordova, Domingo Velasquez, Bernardo de Santo Domingo and Montesinos himself. The conference focused on the so-called Advent Sermon of Father Montesinos, where he was proclaimed as a "voice crying in the wilderness", referring to the alleged mistreatment of Aborigines. www.celam.org

• video by the Sinsinawa Dominicans