The Eternal God has a wonderful sense of timing!  This has struck me in particular as our community seeks to join the entire Dominican Order in celebrating the 800^th Jubilee of the founding of the first monastery of Dominican nuns at Prouille, France in December of 1206.  Remembering this event and reflecting on its significance with our Dominican brothers and sisters all over the world, we at Saint Cecilia are especially drawn by the theme proposed by the Master General in his letter announcing the Jubilee of Prouille:

“Let us walk faithful to the love we had at first.” (See Revelation 2:4). 

This theme is actually a very timely call for us at St. Cecilia at this point in our own history.  Having recently completed our first major building/renovation project in 100 years, with spaces designed specifically for the deeper living of our Dominican life, the community finds itself blessed with a rich opportunity for spiritual and apostolic renewal. While it is true that these new and renovated buildings are not guarantees of renewal, still they do provide an essential means for living our Dominican life with greater fullness and depth.  Our renewed motherhouse, and especially the beautiful monastic chapel where we come together each day for prayer, provides the setting in which the rhythm of contemplation and action can thrive.  It is a rhythm that is carried over into each of our mission houses around the country.  The life lived within our houses forms us, and calls us to love of God and others.

We concluded the past summer with community celebrations of first and final professions, reception of the habit and the entrance of a lovely group of young women as postulants. These events also serve as occasions for thanksgiving and renewed desire for the entire community to “walk faithful to the love we had at first.”  We have much for which to be grateful as the life which began at St. Cecilia in 1860 continues to see new growth.

Our Sisters have now returned to schools in Nashville and across the country, and are fully engaged in the works of love God has marked out for us in each of our missions.  Each place has its own beauty and character, and each provides the background where the vision of St. Dominic can become reality here and now.  To “walk faithful in love” wherever God places us is our first mission, as we seek to give to others the fruits of our contemplation. 

We ask your continued prayers that we will be and do all that God asks in our service of the Church. Please join us as we make our own the Jubilee Prayer for this Dominican Anniversary year:

God of Mercy, in your eternal Wisdom, you called your servant Dominic to set off on a journey of faith as itinerant pilgrim and Preacher of Grace.  With your Word of gentle Truth in his heart and on his lips, Dominic invited the first sisters and brothers to join him in a life of contemplative obedience in the service of the holy preaching.

As we commemorate this Jubilee, we ask you to breathe the Spirit of the Risen Christ once again into our hearts and minds.  Re-create  us, so that we might faithfully and joyfully proclaim the Gospel of peace, through the same Christ, our Lord.  Amen.

May the God of faithfulness and love continue to bless you and your loved ones.

Mother Ann Marie, O.P.