Christmas 2013 enewsletter

Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia LAUDARE, BENEDICERE, PRAEDICARE “TO PRAISE, TO BLESS, TO PREACH” Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia 801 Dominican Drive Nashville, TN 37228 www.nashvilledominican.org vocation@op-tn.org

“Glory to God! Above all else, this is what Christmas bids us to do: give glory to God, for he is good, he is faithful, he is merciful.

Today I voice my hope that everyone will come to know the true face of God, the Father who has given us Jesus.

My hope is that everyone will feel God's closeness, live in his presence, love him and adore him.

May each of us give glory to God above all by our lives, by lives spent for love of him and of all our brothers and sisters.

Pope Francis Christmas Day, 2013

Christmas 2013 Dear Friends, As you gaze on the face of the new-born Savior, Jesus Christ, may you be transformed into his own glorious image and be filled with the joy of being saved. Many blessings to you in this Christmas season and throughout the New Year.

In Christ, The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia

Recommended Reading

A Young Professed Sister’s Reflection “Long lay the world in sin and error pining Till he appear'd and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!"

The celebration of Christmas is filled with such warmth and tenderness as well as such majesty and splendor. From the soft opening notes of “Silent Night” to the triumphant refrain of “Angels We Have Heard on High,” the hymns of the season reflect this richness of joyful sentiments.

Click above to order

On the Incarnation

by St. Athanasius In this treatise, St. Athanasius expounds on the Incarnation as the divine answer to the dilemma of a race fashioned in God’s Image but corrupted by sin, made for life but condemned to death.

“…it is not right that those who had once shared his Image should be destroyed.

What, then, was God to do? … The Word of God came in his own Person, because it was He alone, the Image of the Father Who could recreate man made after the Image.

In order to effect this re-creation, however …

He assumed a human body, in order that in it death might once for all be destroyed, and that men might be renewed according to the Image.

As He says Himself, ‘I came to seek and to save that which was lost.’”

But even as we stare in awe at the Baby in the manger, we must not forget the reason for his coming among us. “O, Holy Night,” my favorite hymn of the season, reminds us why He came: “Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.” Now, as then, we recognize the fallen state of the world around us and our own weakness. We experience deeply the need for a Savior, and this opens us up to the joy of being saved. Our amazement that God would become man is intensified when we realize that God became man to save us…to save me!

The “worth” that we had vainly tried to earn ourselves through so many empty achievements comes to us as a free gift of merciful forgiveness and divinizing grace. This indeed inspires the “thrill of hope” in all those who labor under the burden of their own sinfulness, trapped in it by either denial or despair. This “weary world” longs to rejoice, and joy comes to the world when it welcomes the new-born Christ as its Savior.

“We experience deeply our need for a Savior, and this opens us up to the joy of being saved.”

May the knowledge of our own sinfulness draw us irresistibly to the manger scene where we will encounter the Savior of the world who longs to complete in us the Redemption ushered in by his birth. There, let us “fall on our knees” and “hear the angel voices” knowing that He came to seek and to save the lost and that our repentance is a cause of rejoicing in Heaven.

Christmas Preparations

Sisters came to the Motherhouse from mission convents around the country, from Australia, and from Canada, and joined in the holiday baking, tree decorating, and music practicing. At the end of the Midnight Mass preludes, Mother Ann Marie and the youngest postulant processed to the chapel Nativity set where Mother placed the figurine of the Christ Child into the manger.

Other seasonal celebrations included visiting local Christmas lights displays and performing a convent adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”

With the help of local producers, the Sisters recorded a collection of Christmas hymns as a gift to all. Click on the CD cover to the right to download the music.

…and Celebrations

Fall Motherhouse Visitors Knoxville Catholic High School Knoxville, TN

John Carroll Catholic High School

Birmingham, AL

Saint Cecilia Academy Nashville, TN

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Whitesville, KY

Holy Trinity Catholic High School

Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati