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
“I say that we are wound With mercy round and round As if with air: the same Is Mary, more by name. … If I have understood, She holds high motherhood Towards all our ghostly good And plays in grace her part About man’s beating heart, …Yet no part but what will Be Christ our Saviour still. Of her flesh he took flesh: He does take fresh and fresh, Though much the mystery how, Not flesh but spirit now And makes, O marvellous! New Nazareths in us, Where she shall yet conceive Him, morning, noon, and eve; New Bethlems, and he born There, evening, noon, and morn…” --Gerard Manley Hopkins “The Virgin Mary Compared to the Air We Breathe”
May 2015
Dear Friends, As we conclude this month in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we thank the Lord for her maternal care for us and ask that we may continue walking with Mary every day of the year. In Christ, The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia
Recommended Reading
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Walking with Mary: A Biblical Journey from Nazareth to the Cross “This book is … intended to be a highly readable, accessible work that draws on wisdom from the Catholic tradition, recent popes, and biblical scholars of a variety of perspectives and traditions. With the riches of these insights, we will ponder what [Mary’s] journey of faith may have been like in order to draw out spiritual lessons for our own walk with God.” (from the Introduction by Edward Sri)
A Professed Sister’s Reflection “May is Mary’s month, and I / Muse at that and wonder why…”After these opening lines of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “The May Magnificat,” the poet delightfully describes this month’s many qualities that make it a fitting time for celebrating the Blessed Mother Mary. Spring’s “magnifying of each its kind” (29) and its “universal bliss” (34) reflect the joy of her motherhood, which she received at the Incarnation of the Word and which she daily exercises in our spiritual lives. The budding of nature that happens in May reminds us of the greater rebirth that must take place in each of us. And God has made Mary’s role in this rebirth indispensable. I became more and more aware of this role of Mary’s intercession and maternal care when I stepped into the classroom. Teaching teenage students, I was often confronted with my powerlessness to help them overcome or sort through the many challenges they faced. On one such occasion, I went to the chapel to pray for my students. There, I pleaded and begged our Lady, “Please, you’ve got to help these kids! You love them, don’t you?!” Then it occurred to me: of course, she loves them—she’s always loved them! She had been pleading with me to love them more, and my own prayers and concern and efforts on their behalf were the very fruit of the compassion that she had labored to engender in my heart. The more I became Christ-like, the more I could bring Him to birth in the souls of my students. As our spiritual mother, Mary is constantly at work forming us into the likeness of her Son, which enables us to become more ourselves, or as Hopkins expresses in another Marian poem, “New self and nobler me.”1 As consecrated religious and Dominican sisters, we share in her spiritual motherhood and the task of bringing Christ to birth in souls through our apostolate of teaching. Because the nine months of nurturing that happens in the classroom is often brought to fruition at this time of year, we can add to the list of reasons for celebrating Mary in May her role as exemplar and intercessor of all spiritual mothers. May Mary continue to make “New Nazareths in us, / Where she shall yet conceive /Him, morning, noon, and eve; New Bethlems, and he born / There, evening, noon, and morn…”2
“Mary was endowed with unique graces and privileges in Christ’s kingdom, but she was still a woman who had her own faith journey to make—and one that we can relate to in many ways. She experienced the joys of parenthood and the blessings of following God’s plan. But she also experienced the devastation of watching her son be misunderstood, rejected, and killed on the cross.” (Random House 2013, pg. 25) 1 “The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We Breathe,” 69; 2 Ibid., 60-64
spring Motherhouse Visitors
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