On Friday, 22nd May, the Apostolic Nuncio to PNG and Solomon Islands, His Excellency Archbishop Michael Banach, did us the honour of visiting us for Vespers and dinnner.
Unfortunately we have no pictures of the liturgy - we were too busy praying! - but we began with the traditional Dominican welcome to a papal representative, offering him the Gospels to kiss, and the holy water with which to sprinkle the brothers while we sang - in this case, the traditional Dominican Regina Caeli (below).

Then followed sung Vespers (in English, mostly,  with simple tones for the psalms, as we sing every evening), and the Rosary.

After prayers, we enjoyed a fine meal of baked fish and vegetables:

After dinner, the Nuncio shared a little about himself and his dual role - representing the Holy See as an ambassador to Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, and representing the Holy Father to the bishops and the Church in these two countries.  He answered many challeging and thoughtful questions from the brothers in a very open and direct manner.

Finally, we sang together the antiphon to St Dominic, O Lumen Ecclesiae.

A most enjoyable and educative experirence for us all!

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!

It's not all prayer and study at Dominican College:  some recreation is good for the soul, and here we feature a couple of our recent excursions:  a picnic at Crystal Rapids near Sogeri during the term break, and a trip to a local production of Shakespeare's hilarious comedy, Twelfth Night. (The latter was performed by the Moresby Arts Theatre - check out their facebook page here.)