We are delighted to announce thar Brother Augustine Karovi will be making his Solemn Profession - that is, is vows to remain a Dominican for life - at 10.30am on Sunday, 26th January 2014 at the MSC Chapel, Bomana.  (We thank the MSCs for their hospitality  - our own chapel is just too small.)  Everyone is welcome to the Mass -and to some kaikai afterwards at Dominican College.

As usual, we enjoyed a splendid dinner to honour our Saviour's Birth.  After Midnight Mass and Morning Mass at McGregor Barracks (where we are chaplains), we were joined by brothers from various communities - Capuchins, Mariannhill, MSC, John of God Brothers and Marists - as well as a lay employee of CTI for a nice dinner.  A surprise visitor was Lucy George - you can read about her in a previous post -  with a couple of her children.  I hope everyone reading this had just as happy a celebration!

Nearly five years ago, Fr Martin noticed in the back yard of the priory an old woman picking up sticks - rather like the woman of Zarephath (cf. 1 Kings 17: 10).  Indeed, the medieval sequence came to his mind:

Ligna legens in Sarepta
spem salutis est adepta
pauper muliercula.

["Picking up sticks in Zarephata, a poor little woman gained hope of salvation..."]

The sun was hot, and she rested awhile under the shade of our trees, so Father Martin offered her a cool drink and a biscuit - and there began a friendship.  It turned out that Lucy George - for such is her name - was collecting firewood to cook for the many orphaned and sometimes disabled children that she took under her wing in the nearby Nine Mile settlement.

Over the years the community has helped out Lucy with food and occasionally photocopying, since she also distributes material promoting the Rosary.  But even we did not realise quite the extent of her charitable work until we read this article in the Post Courier.  Happily, a prayer group with some connections in the right places had also befriended Lucy, and was able to get some corporate help for an extraordinary woman doing some extraordinary work.

(Click on the image of the newspaper article for an enlargement.)