Ascension of the Lord, 2013

"He led them out as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven. They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple, praising God." -- Luke 24:50-53

On this solemnity of the Ascension (celebrated on this Sunday in most dioceses of the United States of America) we look forward in hope to Christ's return in glory, and like the disciples, we remain in the temple (our monastery), praising God continually and thanking Him for all his many gifts. May you be blessed by God in a special way today!

We also want to give a thanks as big as Texas to all our mothers, living and deceased, since here in the United States today also happens to be Mother's Day! God bless all our mothers! And a special thanks also to our spiritual mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary!

Patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary over the Order of Preachers, 2013

Today we celebrate the Patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary over the Order of Preachers (also known as the Dominican Order). Today we renew our consecration to Mary and pray for her intercession for the Order in all its many forms. We also pray for the Master of the Order, Fr. Bruno Cadore, and all his assistants at the Curia at Santa Sabina in Rome. May God continue to grant us new vocations and perseverance in the life of the Order through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary!

Generator Update

We're delighted to announce that our two generators are up and ready to run! You may be asking, two? Well, we are still in the process of purchasing one and the other was a very generous donation. So when we have a power outage again (and hurricane season is coming!), we will have some power in both our main building and our dormitories. Which is a tremendous blessing!

The first generator. This one is next to our laundry building (we have a lot of separate buildings that make up our monastery) and will power the dormitory building and the novitiate building.

Working to install the second generator! It was quite a job, as you can see.

But finally it was all completed. 

The generator for our main building. For those who know our monastery from the inside, it's located right outside the back door to the community room. Thanks to this generous donation, we will have lights and some air conditioning (in the infirmary and kitchen).

We are so grateful to all who have helped us--and continue to help us--with this project. We have been extraordinarily blessed by God through the many people who have contributed in our time of need--small and large donations alike. We are almost there, but we still need a little more to help pay off the whole amount. May God bless all who have helped us, financially and spiritually and through various acts of charity, in our time of need! We remember you every day in our prayers!

May Novena 2013

It's May, and that means it's time again for our May novena! If you receive "Monastery Bells" via snail mail, you got a novena slip which you can mail back to us with your prayer intentions, but if not, we still encourage you to send us your intentions here. We always remember the intentions of our blog readers in a general way, but perhaps you have some special prayer intention you would like us to keep in mind in a particular way this May. A big part of our novena is our procession out to the statue of Our Lady of the Pines each night, singing the Litany of Loreto as we go. We pray especially for the intercession of Our Lady, Queen of the most holy rosary, for you and all your intentions during this beautiful month of May.

Joseph and Jeremiah

Today is the memorial of St. Joseph the Worker. In addition to his many other patronal duties, St. Joseph, the husband of Mary and the foster father of Jesus, is the patron saint of workers. This memorial was established to counter the Communist celebration of work on May Day (May 1), and it's a good opportunity to meditate on the ways we can sanctify our work and also allow work to lead us to holiness.

In the Orthodox Christian calendar, it's the feast of Jeremiah the prophet.

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, 

whose hope is in the Lord!

He is like a tree planted beside the waters

that stretches out its roots to the streams; 

It fears not the hear when it comes, 

its leaves stay green. 

In the year of drought it shows no distress, but still bears fruit." 

Jeremiah 17:7-8

May you be blessed today in your labors and always keep your trust fixed on the Lord!