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Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I hope you, your families and chapters are doing well and staying safe.
Below is a letter from Fr. Augustine. In his letter, he reminds us of the importance of keeping up with our studies. Since most of our chapters will not be able to meet in April, and possibly May, it is necessary for each Formation Director to reach out to those in formation via email or Zoom. In this way, the regular study schedule can be maintained. One chapter recently asked if this current lapse in meetings will postpone receptions/professions. For those who participate in online communication, there will be no change in status. 

I would also like to add the importance of keeping up with our monthly council and chapter meetings. This also can be done via email or Zoom. For council meetings and/or smaller chapters, conference calls will work well too. For those using Zoom, be advised of recent hacking that has been occurring during meetings. The Catherine of Siena chapter has a few tips when using Zoom:  “Have people mute their mics until they want to talk. When doing the Rosary or Liturgy of the Hours, have one person for each side as the designated person (it can get confusing if people are delayed in saying things and/or due to Internet connections). Leave the chat feature on so people can have “side conversations” or send out notes to the group. You can do shared screen for presentations. Finally, if people get disconnected or unstable connections, they can leave the group and come back, except for the host”.

Stay well and take care of each other.
May Our Lady protect you on this First Saturday, Denise

Dear brothers and sisters,
“The person that is greatly distressed, that goes about bent over and feeble, and the eyes that are failing, and the person that hungers, will ascribe to Thee glory and righteousness, O Lord.” Baruch 2:18
“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:4-6
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.” 1 Peter 2:24-25
    We are weak and suffering people who need God. We need our Lord Jesus Christ in His compassion to give us Himself and make us compassionate. This weakness can lead us into despair or presumption. Our Lord knows. He was there with us in our temptations at the beginning of Lent – now so far away – and he is here with us in our passion.
    I have been shut up along with you. Shut up with my weakness and my sin. I try reaching out to God, but He seems so far away. Our Dominican community and many priests around the world are doing holy hours for you, because we know you can’t. But these holy hours are difficult. 
    So many things come to mind about what needs to be done, what can’t be done, what should be done. It is all in the Lord’s hands. But these hands are the ones that held the nails, the wounds. Here we are healed. I place all my trust in everything that I think needs to be done into these hands. 
    This week he lives our life to the full measure and when he says, It is finished, it truly is. This life is in his hands for he has lived our full life. We give him our life as we live it. But there is more. We give to him our sufferings and our sin. He is there on the cross to receive it.
    When you look at the passage from Isaiah and the passage from St. Peter, you can easily find parallels. St. Peter knew that Isaiah was referring to Jesus as the suffering servant. But Isaiah only knew half of it. St. Peter tells us that Jesus bore our sin and lived for righteousness. We have gone astray like sheep, but Jesus is our Good Shepherd. There is more to our life in Jesus crucified. 
    Let us do more with our time and what we have been given, then; not less. I’d like to propose three things. One: our holy hour can still happen, only with an icon. We can recover our understanding of icons, which are windows into the divine. And as we pray this way, may we pray the prayer of the Lord that all might be one (Catholic and Orthodox). Two: we can include Dominican things into our Holy Week at home. Our parish at Blessed Sacrament in Seattle is praying Tenebrae Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings at 8am (Pacific). It is being recorded in real time and will be posted on our website afterwards. You can also join us if you pray the Book of Lamentations during these days. Our Dominican tradition is to pray the seven penitential psalms for midday prayer during the Triduum. See if you can do this, or break the seven down into three, three and four during these three days. Also, a Dominican custom for Holy Thursday evening is to read the Last Discourse, which is the Gospel of John chapters 13:31-17:26. Also on Good Friday we have the seven last words. If you haven’t already thought about them, it would be important to pick one and write about it. Maybe you can share it with the Dominican Chapter. Maybe with the parish next year as something to preach. Three: we need to keep up our study. So, with this in mind, I have some items for you to study while you are confined. Email me and I will give you topics to study. I also suggest for those who know different languages, to translate something spiritual for your Dominican chapters.
    Finally, here is a fun title I picked up recently: Quodlibetal Questions by St. Thomas Aquinas. I have been spending a few minutes with one of them a day. They are random questions proposed to him and his short answers. It gives us insight into his thoughts on many different subjects and the way he thought. 

May God grant you His peace,

Fr. Augustine, OP