Dominicans: August 2008 Archives

Dominican sisters based in Nashville start new mission in Australia

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (CNS) -- The 12 months spent by three U.S. Dominican sisters

in   Sydney, Australia, to help plan and organize World Youth Day has led to a new mission in Australia for the congregation. The three -- Sisters Mary Madeline Todd, Mary Rachel Capets and Anna Wray -- are members of the St. Cecilia Congregation in Nashville. They have returned home but two of them will go back to Sydney to help establish their community's first permanent mission outside the United States. Cardinal George Pell and Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney, a fellow Dominican, "we're eager to have our sisters working in Sydney," said Sister Mary Madeline. "What we could offer and what they needed were complementary." What the Dominicans offer and what is needed in southern Australia, Sister Mary Madeline said, is a "witness of religious life." Although Australian society has become increasingly secular, "there is a great interest in religious life in Australia," Sister Mary Madeline told the Tennessee Register, newspaper of the Nashville Diocese.

 

On another note, the Nashville Dominicans finally professed 11 sisters on July 25^th. May God grant many years!

 

If you are interested in knowing more about the Nashville Dominicans, send an email to Sister Mary Emily at: vocation@op-tn.org

Saint Dominic's Monastery is where a group of Dominican nuns --not to be confused with the

third order sisters like Nashville Dominicans or Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist-- are beginning a new life in Linden, Virginia, and they ought to be on your radar screen. The monastery is 12 miles from Christendom College and a short distance from Washington, DC.

The nuns need our prayerful solidarity, vocations and material support. What's more beautiful than a life dedicated to following the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the charism of Saint Dominic by faithfulness to a life of sacrifice, worship, study and community life? The nuns live what is considered a traditional Dominican nuns' life with the night office, the traditional habit, community life and abstinence. Their life is not easy but they it is beautiful, happy and rewarding. The monastery will be blessed (dedicated) and the nuns formally enclosed by the bishop of the Dicoese of Arlington, The Most Reverend Paul Stephen Loverdi on October 7, 2008, the feast of the Holy Rosary.

A great story of monastic adventure may be found at Roman Catholic Vocations blog.