The Catholic Church's calendar is divided into six liturgical seasons, beginning with Advent, then Christmas, Ordinary Time, Lent, Easter Triduum, and Easter. The Ordinary Time starts after Christmas but is interrupted on its first weeks by the onset of the Lenten season followed by the Easter season. Then Easter culminates at the celebration of Pentecost [...]
A very blessed and grace-laden New Year to all of you! 2020 had been a very challenging year for all of us. We will not forget this year, for we all suffered when COVID 19 broke out and spread like wildfire in all parts of the earth. Suddenly, we found ourselves - rich and poor, [...]
Our Community here in Steyl, Netherlands, is wishing you all, our dear friends, a very Merry Christmas with lots of blessings from our Lord Himself, whose Birthday we celebrate! He is the celebrant who deserves to receive a gift from us, but instead, He gave Himself to each one of us as a GIFT - [...]
Despite the pandemic and the lockdown that ensued, we celebrated the Easter Triduum, i.e., Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Black Saturday and the Easter Vigil that followed, with greater solemnity. Because we are offering to God everything in union with the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, our liturgical celebrations were all the more meaningful. We [...]
We wish you all - our families, friends and visitors of our website - A HAPPY and GRACE-FILLED NEW YEAR 2019! Thank you very much for all the moral and prayerful support, kind help and encouraging inspirations you have extended to us through the past year 2018! Thank you for walking with us and for [...]
Last January 2 of this new year, the Himig Pilipino, a choir composing of Filipinas residing here in the Netherlands and in nearby Germany, came to carol us, as was their custom every Christmas. It is their joy, they said, to sing for us. It is also our joy to listen to them; and [...]
An empty crib! I remember when we were still young sisters, fresh from the world...Our first Advent and Christmas season in the convent was exciting - for me, especially. Everything was very solemn and surrounded by mystery. At the beginning of Advent we were introduced by our Aspirant Directress to the practice of putting a hay on [...]
Our Sisters are very busy today putting last finishing touches on our Nativity set. There are several places in the house where we put up our nativity set. Well, surely, one set could be enough, but we can't have enough of Christmas either! We celebrate our Lord's birthday only once a year and we want to [...]
We have beutiful Advent traditions in the cloister. One of them is singing Advent hymns and listening to touching stories read before us about Advent or anything that generally speaks of God's goodness and love, of man's trust and hopes, of faith journeys, forgiveness, etc. During Sunday recreation, we gather around the Advent wreath with lighted candles. [...]
We start today the Advent Season, the beginning of a new Liturgical Church Year. Advent means "coming," a word that connotes "waiting." It is a season of expectant waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in the "flesh" - for his birth. We await his coming in the flesh, we await also his second coming in glory! [...]
