Dominicans celebrate 'Year of Vocation'

The vocations promoters for the Dominican family in Ireland (nuns, sisters, friars and laity) have organised a one-day event to mark the 'Year of Vocation'. The event will take place on the feast of Saint Albert the Great (November 15th, 2008) in St. Mary's Priory, Tallaght, Dublin 24.

The keynote address entitled 'You will be my witnesses - the story of our common vocation as Dominicans' will be given by fr John Harris OP. This address will have responses from four members of the Dominican family. Continuing on this theme of Dominican vocation a friar, nun, sister and member of the Dominican laity will present their vocation stories.

A Dominican family calendar will be formally launched and a specially commissioned piece of music to honour the Dominican contribution to the 'Year of Vocation' will also be launched as part of the celebrations of the day.

The central part of the one-day event will be the celebration of the Eucharist. The auxiliary bishop of Dublin, Eamonn Walsh, will be the chief celebrant and homilist.

Over 100 members of the Dominican family are expected to attend. It is an event that I very much look forward to.

Apologies....

I would like to apologise to regular readers of this blog for my lack of posting over the past few weeks. I have many excuses, mostly to do with being busy and being more or less 'on the road' during that period. Normal posting will resume from tomorrow.

Vocation Stories

The telling of the story of one's vocation can be quite powerful, especially to hearers or readers and particularly to those who are considering vocation themselves. Every vocation story is unique. I have noticed that our Dominican nuns at the monastery of Saint Catherine of Siena in Drogheda, Co. Louth have, through their website, uploaded the vocation stories of some members of their community. I was particularly taken by the vocation stories of their recently professed sisters Niamh and Teresa (both pictured above). To access these stories, please log on to http://www.dominicannuns.ie/ and follow the link to 'vocation stories'.

Video of Irish Dominican Professions 2008

As you will note from the blog entry of September 16th 2008, the Irish Dominican friars celebrated the professions (simple and solemn) of six of our brothers on the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows - September 15th 2008. The rite of profession took place at Saint Mary's Dominican Priory church, Tallaght, Dublin 24 within the celebration of the Eucharist. The Provincial Chapter of the friars was also ongoing at this time. The video shows some images from the Mass of Religious Profession.

'Praying with the Dominicans'

Recently one of the brethren of the province introduced me to a newly published book entitled Praying with the Dominicans. The author is John Vidmar OP, a friar of the Dominican province of Saint Joseph in the USA. A detail from the introduction sums up the reason for publishing the book:

This book is an attempt to share the wealth of Dominican prayer and reflection over the last eight hundred years. What Saint Dominic envisioned....still has relevance.... for the average Christian seeking to find his or her way to the tremendous richness of Jesus Christ.

It is an excellent book (80 pages) which opens up the tradition of prayer in the Dominican Order. There are eyewitness accounts of how Saint Dominic prayed, the eucharistic texts of Aquinas, the writings of Saint Catherine of Siena, excerpts of chant and poetry. I will certainly be offering it to people who are interested in the Order as a means of opening up the richness of the tradition of Dominican prayer.

The book is published by Paulist Press.