A Rose Garden for Our Lady

There is a well-loved story from the Lives of the Brethren that offers much consolation for those who wear the habit of our Order. Our Holy Father St
Dominic, being one day granted a vision of Heaven, looked in vain for his children among the heavenly court. Being distressed, he appealed to Our Divine
Lord, Who gestured to His Mother, saying, “I have given your Order to my Mother.” The Queen of Heaven then opened her mantle to reveal a company of
white-clad religious – safely sheltering under her maternal heart!
The month of May is, as always, a most lovely month dedicated to the Queenship of Mary. Here at Rosary Convent, efforts to honour her as principal patroness of our swiftly growing novitiate this month have included both active works and contemplative ruminations on the special place that she holds in Dominican life.
 
The month opened with the Sisters lustily singing a Marian “entrance” hymn accompanied by Sr Anna on the organ for each Holy Sacrifice offered daily upon
our humble altar. 7am is possibly not the best time to be singing hymns, but we’ve managed so far to keep our veils on while thumbing through the hymnal and croaking along to the dulcet sounds of a very subdued organ.
We also honoured St Joseph’s feast day on May 1st with a Rosary procession that took us up to Corpus Christi and back again down the hill.
 
 
The 2nd year novices took up the slim volume of St Louis de Montfort’s The Secret of the Rosary for their Spirituality class this month – it is certainly delightful to read of the power of the Rosary and all the graces that Our Lady has obtained for her children through the centuries simply by the recitation of the Angelic Psalter. And for those who despair of ever
being Scholastics, the humble Rosary – which is after all, materially speaking, a little child’s plaything of beads strung together – is an even greater weapon
than all the eloquence and learning that can be put together by men.
In school, the Sisters have also opened the treasury of divine grace by encouraging their students to enroll in the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary. The Rosary by itself is one of the most
richly indulgenced prayers by the Church, and when joined together by the prayers and sacrifices of a spiritual community of tens of thousands of souls past, present and future, makes for a most happy prospect of growing not just in love for our Blessed Mother, but also for the much-needed graces to do one’s duty of state with constancy and fervour.
 
The Sisters also made the pilgrimage to Hampton for their annual May procession of the Blessed Sacrament in honour of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. With the weather surprisingly genial and the Sisters swelling the ranks of the choir up in the tiny choir loft, it was a most beautiful Solemn High Mass celebrated by Fr Elias, assisted by Fr Black and Fr Johnson.
 
Unfortunately, May also means the beginning of very wet weather here in Tynong. It takes much fortitude and blind trust in God’s Providence to patiently await the day when the little mud flat by the girls’ block will have the first spade of sod turned once more with the commencement of actual building!
 
 
May is not quite over yet! So do join us in besieging and beseeching the Queen of Heaven for fair weather and the necessary funds to build the whole of the new Convent. 
We might miss the sheep and kangaroos currently sharing our neighbourhood, but new lodgings are sorely needed!