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Posts in Dominican family
Celebrating Corpus Christi Sunday

On Corpus Christi Sunday, Dominican family, friends, and benefactors gathered at the monastery to celebrate with us our patronal feast day. The festivities began with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The principal celebrant and homilist was Father Andrew Opsahl, O.P. Father Andy is one of the newly ordained priests for the Western Dominican Province. He was joined at the altar by many of our Dominican friars, including Bishop Robert Christian, O.P., auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and Father Stephen Maria Lopez, O.P., student master for the Western Dominican Province.

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Model For Living a Passionate Life: Saint Catherine de Ricci

A Christian mystic is gifted by God with a state of soul raised to higher forms of prayer – to extraordinary heights of contemplation.  St. Catherine de Ricci was a true mystic.  God graced her with extraordinary favors in her prayer life, so much so that one might think she was too inapproachable in her daily life, yet this was not the case.

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Lust, Love and Angelic Warfare

His mother was appalled by her young son’s choice of life vocation - he had the world at his fingertips and he would throw it away to be a poor friar?! His brothers scoffed, kidnapped him, and locked him in a tower of the family castle until he changed his mind. His sisters begged and cajoled, but the young man converted them to his way of thinking. Then his brothers decided to try a different approach. He was a young, vigorous man, after all. So they sent into his room a beautiful woman of ill repute to seduce him.

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The Story of a Princess Dominican

One day, a Dominican friar came to the monastery to preach to the Dominican nuns. The community invited him to stop the night and give them a second sermon the next day. The friar refused; he had work to do and could not spare the time. Leaving the parlor, he went in search of his horse and trap, for King Bela had evidently built a bridge from the mainland to the island. Margaret was very anxious for him to remain; when, however, she saw that he was determined to go, she made no comment but betook herself to prayer.

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"Let Us Be Their Followers."

The mandarin, seeing that threats would be of no avail, tried to move Francis by a display of kindness. "If you do as I command," he said, "you will be great in my esteem and you will receive many favors and great riches." Father Francis simply replied simply: "I should prefer to lose a thousand lives if I had them, rather than to abandon even for an instant my God, Who is my only good, my happiness and my delight."

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Epiphany and the Melting Pot Dinner

By now in the world, Christmas is a distant memory.  But in the monastery, we are still celebrating in full swing.  Where Christmas tends to be big and flashy, with lots of greetings and gifts between our community and our family, friends, and benefactors, Epiphany is a big feast for us as a community and it is marked in a special way by our novitiate sisters.

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