A sign of a vocationally fertile religious community is that it grows and branches out. The "Nashville Dominicans" are definitely a fertile community. Our own Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in Ann Arbor, have their origins with the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecelia in Nashville. Mother Assumpta Long, OP came from there with 3 others and established blossoming community here in Michigan about 16 years ago, and is now well over 100 in number.
The Nashville Dominicans admitted a whopping 28 women on August 15, 2013. They are bursting at the seams and stretching their wings as a community. From Catholic Culture, we learn today that they are sending some sisters to Scotland:
Bishop Hugh Gilbert of Aberdeen has welcomed the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, popularly known as the Nashville Dominicans, to his diocese.
The congregation’s charism includes devotion to Mass and the Blessed Sacrament, the choral recitation of the Divine Office and Rosary, the wearing of the habit, and reverence for the Magisterium, according to its website.
“I’m old enough to remember Westerns,” Bishop Gilbert preached. “And here we are, wagons drawn close, feeling our last days have come and our scalps about to be removed, when – lo and behold – the US 7th Cavalry appears over the hill. Here they are, armed not with carbines but rosaries. And we can breathe again.”
LOL - Read the rest at Catholic Culture and check out the links at the bottom of their news story.
I've had a theory that if God were truly building a new springtime in the Church it would have to include turbo-charged Dominicans because they filled our schools as teachers back in the day. I also believe God would put fuel in the engine with an increase on religious in contemplative communities. They are the power train and any bishop worth his salt knows of the great need to have both active, and contemplative, religious in his diocese.
In any case, the communities who have embraced the traditional model of religious life, are the ones to which young people are drawn. The average age in many of these newer, traditional communities is the late 20's and they are having no problems with vocations.
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The obedient are not held captive by Holy Mother Church;
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- Diane M. Korzeniewski
it is the disobedient who are held captive by the world!
- Diane M. Korzeniewski
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