Several hundred people gathered at St. Ann’s Novitiate on July 18th to witness the first profession of our four novices, Sr Jessica Marie, Sr Mary Matthew of the Cross, Sr Mercy Marie and Sr Rachael du Bon Pasteur. Profession day was the culmination of nearly three years of formation and an intense eight-day retreat preached by Rev. Frederick Miller, a good friend of our Congregation.
Our four new Little Sisters hail from four distinctively different regions of the country. After graduating from college in Boston, Sr Jessica Marie began volunteering in our home in Somerville as part of her vocational discernment. Sr Mercy Marie, from Connecticut, met the Little Sisters while attending college in Washington, D.C. She also participated in our summer service program at Queen of Peace Residence in Queens Village, NY before entering.
From her native Washington (state), where we do not have a home, Sr Rachael then went to college in
Montana, where we also do not have a home! But her college chaplain knew the Little Sisters while in the seminary in Denver and encouraged her to apply for our live-in program. She then got to know us in the Bronx before returning to Montana to finish her nursing studies. Sr Mary Matthew got acquainted with the Congregation almost by mistake. From Florida, she found herself in a parish pastored by the priest-uncle of a Little Sister, who asked her to accompany one of his young nieces to our novitiate for a weekend event. As soon as she arrived in Queens Sr Mary Matthew knew she was home!
At the completion of the profession Mass the four Sisters, and everyone else, learned where their first assignments would be taking them: Sr Jessica Marie will head to Chicago, along with Sr Mary Matthew, who will begin her life as a Little Sister in Palatine, a northwest suburb of Chicago. Sr Rachael is headed to Oregon, Ohio and Sr Mercy Marie will make Totowa, New Jersey her home.
On July 18th we also welcomed three young women who had become novices the day before: Sr. Mary Magdaleva, from northwest Ohio; Sr Faustina Marie, from southern Maryland; and Sr Mary Gerard, from upstate New York. Please keep them in your prayers as they begin their two-year novitiate!
CLICK HERE to watch a slideshow from the day!
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