New Novice In The Uk

[puellapaschalis]

Hello all,

on Monday a postulant at St. Cecilia's (Isle of Wight, UK, Solesmes Congregation) will receive the holy habit. Please keep her and the community there in your prayers

Thanks

[VeniteAdoremus]

And there's an aspirant planning to enter in January! (She's American through her mother.)

[DameAgnes]

I LOVE the St. Cecilia house - it's gorgeous and what a fabulous website they have. I will keep this postulant in my prayers. I do wish they'd blog a bit!

[url="http://www.stceciliasabbey.org.uk/"]http://www.stceciliasabbey.org.uk/[/url]

[puellapaschalis]

Ok - news

Her name is [b]Sr. Mary Thomas[/b]. VA, you'll like this - she's named after St. Thomas of Aquinas, for whom she has a great devotion.

I also have a copy of the short talk Mother Abbess gave at her clothing - I'll gladly share it with anyone who'd like to read it. I find it quite inspiring

Yay new novices

[stlmom]

[quote name='puellapaschalis' post='1667532' date='Oct 1 2008, 07:03 AM']Yay new novices [/quote]


I totally agree!

[puellapaschalis]

Ack, I want to attach the .doc of Mother's text but can't find the "attach" button in phatmass. Grrrrrr.

[VeniteAdoremus]

I think it's gone Copy-paste is your friend.

But, Thomas! Yay! Twenty Dominican points!

I might be hopping over in January to take 12492 pictures of Katherine's entrance... are you going then?

[puellapaschalis]

Rofl, I don't think Katherine's going to like a complete stranger turn up at her entrance

[puellapaschalis]

[quote name='VeniteAdoremus' post='1668320' date='Oct 2 2008, 04:34 PM']I think it's gone Copy-paste is your friend.[/quote]

But it has formatting and footnotes and everything

[DameAgnes]

Thank you for telling us her name. I will keep Sr. Mary Thomas in my prayers. It is SO MUCH EASIER to REMEMBER pray for vocations when you know a person's name!

[puellapaschalis]

[quote name='DameAgnes' post='1668447' date='Oct 2 2008, 07:43 PM']Thank you for telling us her name. I will keep Sr. Mary Thomas in my prayers. It is SO MUCH EASIER to REMEMBER pray for vocations when you know a person's name![/quote]

Verbum (yes, I've completely pinched that from Sacred Music Man)

Ok, I think I've cottoned on that you can attach stuff in Open Mic but not in Vocation Station. Zucht. Anyway:

===begin copypaste joy===

[center][b]Feast Of The Archangels 2008[/b]

[i]Ad quem ibimus? To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life[/i] (Jn. 6.68).[/center]

St. Peter’s words are in response to a challenge and implicit invitation of Jesus to remain with Him, the same invitation called out by St. Benedict in the Prologue to his Rule. A way is opened, a choice placed before us. There are many ways to go to God, to go to the Truth, but we shall not miss anything when the way proposed to us is proposed by God Himself. He gives all of Himself in this Way. The response, then, to the blessed opportunity is the opposite of indifferentism. It is the courageous laying open of oneself to God’s will, to His action and to the possibility of living at the deepest level of reality. It is a being-in-Christ that flows out in praise and reparation, contemplation of truth and service of neighbour.

These are the activities of the Angels, whose Feast we celebrate today. According to the Fathers, their whole occupation is contemplation of the truth in the Face of God, source of their unceasing praise and adoration. Ipsa admiratio intimæ contemplationis.1 Richard of St. Victor tells us that, nonetheless, they run back and forth, ascending and descending, zealous in serving, between the desirous soul and God. Not surprising, according to the same author, since God’s Son Himself became a little one in the midst of His disciples; feeds us now with His own Body and Blood; will make us sit at table and serve us in Heaven.2

Contemplation, adoration, service. The saints also follow this mystery of ascent and descent, beginning their course in the heart, in humility, in a devoted love of Christ. This starts in such a small and hidden way that it cannot always be perceived clearly; yet it causes men and women of great aptitude to act with a simplicity that can be mistaken for folly. Flinging away all forms of ambition to follow the poor Christ, they remain faithful through the complexities of thought and existence to their first love.

One saint exemplifies this in a singular way. He begins in the heart; asks questions of the truth like a little child; ascends with humble assurance to the Heart of God. Ascensiones in corde suo disposuit (Ps. 83.6). By meticulous scholarship and a passion for objectivity, “he climbed up to the turrets and talked with angels on the roofs of gold,” says one biographer.3 When asked in a vision what he would have as a reward for his fidelity to truth, he can answer out of his essential childlikeness: “I will have Thyself.”4 This is a man who believed intensely in the truth of what he had seen and written but who compared it to straw at the inexpressible sight of the divine splendour.

We are speaking here of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic doctor, whose “tall and towering ambition,” according to G.K. Chesterton, was to take the lowest place;5 to contemplate the Face of God and to insist on becoming a beggar. His name will be your banner to fight under in your monastic life, coupled with that of Mary, the simple girl of Nazareth, who was also the Mother of God.

Dear Sister MARY THOMAS, you have chosen to walk the way that Christ has opened for you in His love for you. You have sensed that it will lead you into the truth of His Face and to salvation for yourself and others. It is, precisely, a way, not an end in itself, but as G.K. Chesterton again says: “As things tending to a greater end, they are even more real than we think them.”6 We can have confidence, then, in the One Who is greater than ourselves. We pray for you that the light of this confidence will burn steadily throughout your monastic life and that your dear parents, family and friends will win great reward for their own acceptance of God’s will.

This will is the following of His truth wherever it leads us. Our own wings cannot carry us, but our will and our desire are moved by love.7 To whom shall we go, unless to the Lord of love, whose words are truth? Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius; nil hoc verbo veritatis verius.8

1. St. Gregory the Great, Ex libris Moralium, Lib. 2, 9-10.
2. Richard of St. Victor, Ex expositione in Cantica canticorum, Cap. 4: PL 196.417.
3. G.K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas.
4. Ibid
5. Ibid
6. Ibid
7. cf. Dante, Paradiso, xxxiii, 139-145.
8. St. Thomas, Corpus Christi Office.

===end copypaste joy===

Aaaaaahhhhhhh a talk with Latin in and footnotes!!! Small things make me happy. And yes, I am superficial.

I've taken out references to the former postulant's name in the world; I too have concerns about privacy and partially share those of other VSer's.

Some "pretty" (that is, thought out) photos of St. Cecilia's:

The view through the public chapel to the Sanctuary
[img]http://homepage.mac.com/fahrenheit451/stmarys/images/stcecilias.jpg[/img]

Adoration Exposition takes place about once a month
[img]http://homepage.mac.com/fahrenheit451/stmarys/images/monstrance.jpg[/img]

There are about thirty in the community and I did know how many are in the nov but I've forgotten.

Pic of the "public side"
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/StCecilia[/img]

I had other photos but I did something silly with my laptop and don't have them anymore. Boo

[TradMom]

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Let us all pray for this new Sister.

Thank you for posting information in such a grace-filled manner. Excellent talk!

TradMom