Memorial
of Saint Dominic, Priest
“Hear, O Israel! The
LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with
all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:4-5
Then the disciples
approached Jesus in private and said, “Why could we not drive it out?” He said
to them, “Because of your little faith. Amen, I say to you, if you have faith
the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to
there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:19-20
Piety
“For
all that has been – Thanks! For all that will be – Yes!” (Dag Hammarskjold)
Study
All
your heart. Not 99 and 44/100 percent of
your heart.
All
your soul. Not Most of your Soul.
All
your strength. Not Some of Your Strength.
Moses
commands in absolutes that Jesus would likely approve. If you follow the course proscribed by Moses,
there is no room in your heart for anything else. No hobbies.
No temptations. No addictions.
St.
Dominic, whose feast is celebrated today, dedicated his life to preaching
against heresy. His fellow preachers
gradually became a community, and in 1215 he founded a religious house at
Toulouse, France, the beginning what know today as the Order of Preachers
(Dominicans).
His ideal, and that of his Order, was to link
organically a life with God, study and prayer in all forms, with a ministry of
salvation to people by the word of God. His ideal: contemplata tradere:
“to pass on the fruits of contemplation” or “to speak only of God or with
God."[i]
Action
The
Dominican ideal, like that of all religious communities, is for the imitation,
not merely the admiration, of the rest of the Church. The effective combining
of contemplation and activity is the vocation of truck driver Smith as well as
theologian Aquinas. Acquired contemplation is the tranquil abiding in the
presence of God, and is an integral part of any full human life. It must be the
wellspring of all Christian activity.[ii]
In
Northern Virginia, that ideal has been implemented for the past fifty-plus
years by the Dominican Retreat House.
Sadly, the retreat house will be closing and next Weekend, there will be
a final open house Saturday, August 15, 2015 from 5:00 - 8:00 p.m.
The
sisters from the community invite us to share fun, laughter and joy as they say
goodbye to the loving community that has supported their ministry for more than
50 years.
Stop
by between 5-8 pm to visit with the Sisters and other retreatants. It is a
wonderful opportunity to enjoy the property and relive your retreat memories.
Now
is the time to celebrate more than five decades of ministry and the living
“Saints” who have been in service at the Retreat House. “For what has been – Thanks. For what will be - Yes.” Will you courageously
say “yes” when you are given responsibility or a challenge?
The
real story of Thanksgiving has deep biblical parallels in Exodus. The Pilgrims, a band of Protestant outcasts,
saw themselves as fulfilling this story. After all, in coming to the New World,
they, too, had to cross a tumultuous sea, arrive in an untested wilderness, and
build a new “Promised Land.” They were not recreating the biblical
narrative, they were fulfilling it anew.
Maybe
there was a little of that same fulfillment when the Dominican Sisters ventured
into Northern Virginia in their full habits the year before now Saint Pope John
XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council – a council which opened the eyes,
and mind, and hearts and souls and strength of a laity to undertake a spiritual
life formerly the primary province of those with a religious vocation. Now, we know that we share that vocation in
marriage. In Divorce. In sickness.
In health. In addiction. In a
strange land. Into this world of
possibility, the Dominican Retreat House opened to fill a need.
For
more than 54 years, the Dominican Retreat House has been a promised land of
quiet for all the pilgrims who made their way to McLean. They may have been people with serious
illnesses. They may have been people
wrestling with addictions like Moses wrestled with his Lord. They may have been new immigrants trying to
build a new life in this region despite the barriers of language before we knew
ESOL. They were pilgrims nonetheless, and
they were thankful for all that was done for them over the years.
We
are thankful for these special Dominican Sisters of Peace and what they have
done in the past and how they will help us get ready to write the next chapter. Agnes.
Mary Ellen. Carmen. Annie.
Pat. Thank you.
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