The Dominican Sisters
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia’s is a Catholic religious order in Tennessee. St. Cecilia’s looks and sounds much like it did when it first opened one hundred fifty years ago.
But there is also something new: the voices and laughter of young woman studying to become Dominican sisters. The current group of first-year students is the largest in many years. Sister Catherine Marie is a spokesperson for St. Cecilia’s.
SISTER CATHERINE MARIE: “There are two hundred seventy of us, and our growth of late has been rather extensive. This year, we had twenty-seven young women enter. Last year, it was twenty-three. Great blessings to us.”
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Sister Catherine suspects these women want to look deeper into their faith. Studies have shown that Americans are interested in spiritual issues; yet their involvement in organized religion is falling. She says the Dominican Order was founded during a period of social unrest.
SISTER CATHERINE MARIE: “There was a whole lot going on in the world that was very irreligious. And yet from this emerged an idealism and a wholehearted desire to give of self.”
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: That desire led Sister Kelly Edmunds to join St. Cecilia’s. She remembers how students at the University of Sydney reacted to Dominican sisters who served there.
SISTER KELLY EDMUNDS: “Just to watch them walking down the main boulevard of campus wearing their habits…it was just such a powerful witness! And I had friends in engineering who were like, they knew I was Catholic. So they would say to me, ‘Who are these nuns on campus?’ And so it was a really great witness to me of the power of religious life.”
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25