In New York, I stayed with the excellent Sisters of Life, and I am very impressed with their work and mission. They offer accomodation, practical help, and care to pregnant women who might otherwise be tempted to abort their babies. The whole approach is one of friendship, love and neighbourly service.. I stayed in one of their convents in the city, which can house up to a dozen young women and their babies...each woman lovingly welcomed and made to feel warmly at home.. When I arrived the whole community had just been celebrating a "baby shower" for the latest new baby, with decorations and cards and gifts in the large pleasant room where the women spend their evenings...
I had first encountered the Sisters of Life at World Youth in Madrid in 2011, where they were running the great "Love and Life Centre" with talks and meetings....it was teeming with young people and the sisters were (and are) young, lively, and with a fresh, open and joyful approach which is immensely attractive...the Order is 25 years young and is large and flourishing and I loved every moment of my time with them...
....And so on to Tennessee, where the Dominican Sisters of St Cecilia - better known as the Nashville Dominicans - welcomed me joyfully and where I once again felt warmly at home and surrounded by affection. It wasn't until the next morning (Mass at 6.15am!) that I saw them all, and just gulped in astonishment....here was this vast chapel, with over two hundred white-robed Sisters, their voices ringing out confidently with the Mass responses and sung chants. Nashville loves them: there is a large girls' high school, a popular kindergarten and primary school, plus Aquinas College...and I spoke at the College and at the school, and also at the nearby Father Ryan High School...
The sisters have convents in various places in addition to this Motherhouse, and the newest venture is at Elgin in Scotland...they have great numbers of novices and postulants, the latter despite the fact that the girls wear a most hideous semi-habit for their first year or so, quite unlike the lovely full robes worn once they make their first vows.
The Montessori Good Shepherd programme is used with the small children, and it was a sweet sight to be a sister on the floor surrounded by little ones all busy with a small, beautiflly-made minature altar and set of vessels, or drawing some bright pictures...all with a sense of cheerful, quiet, creative .purpose..that rare combination of peace and activity that is somehow the essence of a happy day.
There is more, but that was essentially what I was doing in America, and I flew home the better for it all. There is a sense of a flourishing Church there. And America is going to need that in the years ahead. The political scene looks grim, and uncertainty beckons for the future of religious freedom and for the right to give legal protection to unborn children...
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Was that city in Tennessee that you visited named after one (or more) of your illustrious ancestors?
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