Our Lady Queen of Peace

The monastery’s garden in early August.

Dear friends,

Tomorrow we will celebrate the Queenship of Mary, which is the patronal feast of our monastery. Falling eight days after we celebrate the Assumption of our Lady into heaven, it is an opportunity to celebrate and give thanks for her gentle care and protection in our lives and community.

We have a lot to give thanks for this month as we celebrated the solemn profession of two of our sisters. On August 6, the feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus, we celebrated the solemn profession of Sr. Elizabeth Marie of the Transfiguration.

 

Litany of the Saints

Pronouncing the vows.

Final Blessing.

 

Just over a week later, on the solemnity of the Assumption, we celebrated the solemn profession of Sr. Marie Étienne of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. It was a beautiful day particularly blessed by welcoming her cousin as the celebrant for the Mass. Please join us in praying for our two sisters as they continue to follow Jesus more deeply in Dominican monastic life.

 

“Do you wish to make solemn profession of vows as a nun of the Order of Preachers?”

“I do!”

Profession of vows.

Final Blessing

 

At this time, it is also our great joy to share our summer newsletter with you. The English edition is available now, and the French edition will follow in a few weeks.

There is a lot to share this season, including our monastery’s purchase of a portion of land immediately to the west of our driveway. After 13 years of prayer and hard work, this step means that our monastery is now surrounded in all directions by a buffer against future development. The silence and peace of our contemplative life is now safeguarded for future generations, and we offer our heartfelt thanks to all those who helped us with this project.

Finally, we join with Pope Leo in praying and fasting for peace. Together, let us ask Mary, Queen of Peace, to intercede for the war-torn areas of our world. May Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace, have mercy on all of us.

God bless,
your sisters at Queen of Peace Monastery

Sr. Marie Thomas Lawrie
Happy Pentecost

Happy Pentecost! May the Holy Spirit fill your hearts with peace and joy as we celebrate this beautiful feast.

P.S. Fun art history fact: This image is by the 14th-century illuminator called "Master of the Dominican Effigies," best known for his illumination of our Blessed Mother surrounded by 17 Dominican saints and blesseds. His illumination for Pentecost is rightly focused on our Blessed Mother and the apostles—but it seems that a Dominican snuck into the scene anyways!

Sr. Marie Thomas Lawrie
"Christ Our Hope is Risen"

Dear friends,

Happy Easter! As the joy of the Paschal season continues to unfold throughout these fifty days, we are reminded of the reason for our hope—the Resurrection of Christ. In the great love poem of the Bible, we are told that “love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave” (Song of Songs 8:6). By Jesus’s death and Resurrection,  God’s love reaches out to us with a freedom that nothing in heaven or on earth can take away. This love is not for our present life only, but stretches “beyond the veil” to a life of friendship with God that is wilder and more beautiful than anything we can ask or imagine. As Jesus said to his disciples at the Last Supper: ‘I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you” (Jn 16:22). As we prepare for the feast of Ascension, this our confidence, our hope and our peace. Alleluia!

 
 
 
 
 
 

After a beautiful celebration of the Paschal Mysteries during Holy Week, it was also our great joy to welcome Catherine as a postulant—fittingly, on the feast of St. Catherine of Siena (April 29)! Our Constitutions say that postulancy is a period when a candidate “comes to experience the goal and means of our contemplative life, through suitable catechesis and personal dialogue concerning both the life of union with God and monastic observance.” Please pray for Catherine as she begins this new step in her journey with the Lord.

 
 

As we continue to celebrate liturgically, the joy of the Resurrection makes its own appearance in the quiet details of daily monastic life. For our Easter bouquets, we were able to harvest fresh tulips, narcissus and boughs from our gardens and orchards. Our sister candlemaker is hard at work in her new shop, and we are grateful for your donations of recycled wax. With the arrival of spring’s good weather, as many sisters as possible are outside to prepare the garden for the year ahead.

 
 
 
 
 
 

We continue to hold you and your loved ones in prayer, particularly those who are affected by the Lapu Lapu tragedy in Vancouver. May God grant peace and healing to us all, and to our world.

God bless,

Your sisters at Queen of Peace Monastery

Sr. Marie Thomas Lawrie