The Bride’s Love of God: The Response, Uniquely Dominican

Part Three of the Portrait of a Cloistered Dominican Nun Series.

A Dominican nun lives a contemplative life at the heart of the Church – something in common with all cloistered contemplative religious. But the full flowering of her contemplative vocation is uniquely Dominican: the liturgy and sacraments form the foundation of her prayer; her mind is renewed and enlightened through study, which guides her will and disciplines her heart; through Dominican common life, she becomes one in heart and mind with her sisters in God; and by living her vows as a cloistered nun, she preaches to others that God alone suffices.

Her life is liturgical and sacramental, that is, a life founded on liturgical prayer and the sacraments. As a cloistered religious, the Church entrusts to her the mission of praying for and on behalf of the Church and the world. Seven times a day, she is called to the choir by her Beloved, to make an offering of sacrifice and praise and call down His graces for His people and the world. This grace, like blood in a body, is sent out to all the Church’s members for their needs. She also cherishes the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. As the sacrament of unity, it is the sacrament of contemplation, the sacrament of eternal life. It is Christ Jesus Himself.

The life of a Dominican nun is doctrinal. Her love for her Beloved is nourished through her study. If we do not know our faith, we run a grave risk of falling into error or even heresy. Study submits us to Truth and the teaching authority of the Church. Study is also absolutely indispensable for apostles. For we cannot love what (or who) we do not know – a Dominican nun studies so as to know her Beloved all the more and to be able to express her affective knowledge of Him to others. God grants us knowledge of Him in our heart through love; but study gives us the words and concepts to share the fruits of our contemplation with others, and so to lead them into the mysteries of the faith.

A Dominican nun lives a fraternal life; she takes active part in her monastic community and in the Dominican Order. As love is at the heart of the Church, so too is love at the heart of the Dominican Order. All members of the Order are called to live a common life together, as the early Church lived, calling nothing one’s own, but sharing everything in common. A Dominican nun gladly gives up not only her possessions, but she puts her knowledge, talents, and skills, to common use of the community, as God, through the superiors, see fit. A Dominican nun also shares freely her spiritual riches of soul and mind. All she has, all she is, is put at the service of the Order. Through her community, she is exercised in the virtues, which leads her to greater contemplation. Her life of fraternal charity manifests the Holy Trinity.

And finally, through her religious profession and living of the vows, the life of a Dominican nun is sacrificial. At baptism, every Christian dies to self and the world and is reborn as a new creation in Christ Jesus. At profession, that death and rebirth is renewed in a profound way - she is consecrated to Almighty God. She has become a “house of prayer”, set aside as sacred for God alone. Her sacrifice is herself and she gives herself daily by living according to the Rule, Constitutions and laws of the Order. The religious observances and rubrics of the Order, such as silence, fasting, abstinence, wearing of the habit, prayers, and so forth, stand as one of the means to achieve the ends of the Order. When a Dominican nun fulfills her vows and lives the observances with fidelity, they daily immolate her – through them she joins her Beloved on Calvary as she dies to self and the world for love.

Bride of the Infinite Bridegroom: The Response

Part Two of the Portrait of a Cloistered Dominican Nun series. Click here for Part One.

The Dominican nun, having heard God call her to a vocation of love, longs to give herself completely to Him in love.

She has seen the things the world has to offer – many of them good things, created by God and which can lead people to knowledge and love of God. She has grown in knowledge and perhaps began exercising her talents and skills by means of her education, a career, in her parish and relationships with family and friends. Yet, her heart is not satisfied: she realizes that even these good things of life on earth are passing away. She desires to give herself completely to the eternal: Supreme Goodness in Truth and Love. And she burns with love for the souls around her who are wandering in darkness, without the light of Truth.

A Dominican nun sets herself to follow in the footsteps of our Holy Father Dominic, who first gave himself to God in a life of contemplation, and then was sent by God as a “useless servant” to preach the Gospel to those living in darkness.

The Dominican nun follows her Beloved into the desert and, in the example of Moses and Queen Esther, prays for God’s mercy and grace on behalf of lost souls. As her Beloved Jesus first expressed His thirst for souls while suffering on the cross, this desire burned in the heart of our Holy Father Dominic. A Dominican nun shares in this longing for souls and Dominic’s words continue to ring out toward heaven from the lips of his daughters and sons: “Lord, what will become of sinners?”

Look at a community of Dominican nuns and you will see all kinds of personalities, gifts and skills. Like a beautiful garden with a variety of flowers and plants, no two Dominican nuns are alike.

There is no one “type” of Dominican contemplative; you cannot look at a person and say he or she has a “natural disposition” for contemplation. Rather, the contemplative life is a calling to a life of love, of affective knowledge of God, that is, knowledge of the heart (as opposed to the intellect). God can impart knowledge of Himself through love to the heart, and it is this knowledge that forms the core of the contemplative life. It is aimed at eternal things, a supernatural life of grace and the living out of the theological virtues (faith, hope and love) in a radical way. In this way, it is a life at the heart of the Church, a lamp on a hill as a sign to all the faithful of the life to come.

The Dominican nun has an apostolic heart and participates intimately in the holy preaching of the Dominican Order.

There are many kinds of preaching: catechetical, apologetics, and so on. But holy preaching is the essential function of the contemplative life. Holy preaching unveils the mysteries that are the objects of the faith and presents them as nourishment to the faith; it is divine because God uses the preacher as His instrument. Holy preaching is a gift from God and as such, the preacher must content himself or herself to wait on God and be used at His pleasure, in His own way and time. Jesus’ life was one of holy preaching. But it was not until after Pentecost, when the disciples had experienced the silence of contemplation with the Blessed Virgin in the Cenacle, that the Spirit came upon them and sent them forth to preach.

A Dominican nun waits in silence and preaches as Mary – most often in her life of prayer and silence.

Sometimes she preaches through a word of encouragement to her brothers and sisters, and the faithful with whom she comes in contact. And always her example speaks volumes as it shows forth our dignity as children and spouses of the triune God.

Want to learn more about how to discover the gifts God has given you and about cloistered, contemplative life as a Dominican nun? Check out our resources for discernment on our website and contact Sister Joseph Marie with any questions or to arrange a visit to learn more.

Bride of the Infinite Bridegroom: The Call

Part One of the Portrait of a Cloistered Dominican Nun series.

Throughout the Christmas season, we are lavished with reminders of God’s love and compassion for us. Every person is loved into existence. Even those that, from an earthly perspective may seem unwanted, uncared for, the fact remains that before their flesh took form in their mother’s womb, they were thought of by God, down to the number of the hairs on their head, and God loved the idea of that person so much, He gave that person existence.

You, who once did not exist, now live and breathe because God wants you to be. He loved, and still loves you, into being.

And He does not simply sit back and watch the world unfold. He does not casually watch us as we would watch a movie, rooting for the good, booing the bad, crying with separated lovers and rejoicing when things end happily ever after. No, it is a great mystery how He works in human history, for our history is truly His story, and still He still respects our freewill to either cooperate with His graces or not, to love Him or spurn Him. Saint Catherine of Siena called Him a “mad lover,” because He does everything with precision to woo us and show us the infinite good that He is and offers us.

This is the Christian vocation – to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him, He who is infinite good. In that sense, every single Christian is called to contemplation.

But there are some people He chooses to woo most directly. From the beginning of time, He saw these souls and was enamored by them, and chose them to be set aside, consecrated, just for Him. He would make them His Spouse while they were yet on earth. Within this calling to a contemplative life as the Spouse of Christ, He further invites them to share in His heart, in His love, in a particular way – that is, the charism of the Order to which He calls them.

The Dominican Order was founded by Our Holy Father Dominic with the mission of preaching for the salvation of souls. During his days, Dominic joyfully gave himself freely to his brothers and sisters, encouraging and teaching them in holiness, and to his neighbors preaching the Gospel. He studied and contemplated God’s Word and sacred truth so that he might share with others the fruits of his contemplation. During the night, he spent himself in prayer, giving God praise and adoration, and interceding for the people. Periodically, he could be overheard crying out in prayer: “Lord, what will happen to sinners?” In the example and instruction of our Holy Father Dominic, Dominican life is based on the four pillars of Prayer, Study, Community, and Preaching; its mission has two intertwining parts: to give praise and glory to God and for the salvation of souls. A Dominican nun shares in this priestly and apostolic heart.

As Mary watched over the Church in the upper room at Pentecost, praying with and for them, and then the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit and went out to preach to the people, a Dominican nun spends her life in praise, prayer and sacrifice for the preaching work of the Dominican Order and the salvation of souls.

A cloistered Dominican nun is inseparably joined to the entire Dominican family and continually offers praise, prayer and sacrifices on their behalf. As the ground must be softened by water so that the seeds sown in it will grow, a Dominican nun remains at the feet of her Beloved, Jesus, contemplating Him; she does this so that the Gospel preached throughout the world would not return to God empty, but may accomplish those things for which it was sent. If we do not first pray for the Holy Spirit to rain down on hearts hardened by sin and self-love, how can the seeds of the Gospel sown by the preacher take root, grow, and bear fruit?

Want to learn more about how to discover the gifts God has given you and about cloistered, contemplative life as a Dominican nun? Then you don’t want to miss our “Come-and-See” Day - Saturday, January 18th! Visit our Retreat Days page or email our vocations directress, Sister Joseph Marie, O.P. for more information and to register.