Posts Tagged ‘Religious Life’

A 17th century nun’s feminist manifesto

Monday, March 4th, 2024

Frida Kahlo is a name many are familiar with. But a remarkable Mexican nun, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is less well-known. Her name before becoming a nun was Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez, and she was born around 1651. Nicknamed “The Mexican Phoenix” and “The Tenth Muse”, she advocated for the feminist Read more

Nostalgia is the ‘siren song of religious life’

Monday, August 16th, 2021
Catholic News Agency

One of the issues for today’s religious, is that many men and women in religious life can be tempted to focus on the decline in numbers of vocations in their orders. Francis made the comments to an online conference on religious life in Latin America. Urging the religious to renounce the criterion of declining numbers Read more

Sister Beverley Grounds never lost her grounding in faith

Monday, November 26th, 2018

Sister Beverley Rita Grounds was born in Christchurch in 1928, the only daughter of four children born to James and Mary Grounds. The family were well-known in Catholic circles, with brother William going on to become a priest in the diocese. Grounds read newspapers in Italian, translated religious scripture from French to English and keenly studied te Read more

Nuns help to save the axolotl

Monday, June 11th, 2018

Conservationists from Chester Zoo have formed an unlikely partnership with an order of nuns – in a project that could save a critically endangered amphibian from extinction. A salamander that is unique to Mexico – has almost been wiped out of its freshwater habitat by pollution and over-fishing. Read more

70-year-old heads off to work with refugees in Thailand

Monday, May 28th, 2018
thailand

70-year-old Brother Denis O’Brien was farewelled from Ōtaki last weekend. He has been there only for a short time but now he is off on a mission to Thailand. He is planning to stay in Thailand for two years and then he will come back to New Zealand. O’Brien celebrates his 50th Jubilee of Marist Religious Read more

Religious Sisters discuss moving from being multicultural to being intercultural

Monday, December 4th, 2017
intercultural

A recent meeting in Manila focused on the theme of “building community in an intercultural world.” In her opening remarks, International Union of Superiors General (UISG), President Sr. Carmen Sammut spoke about how Religious congregations are changing. Communities in Europe, America and Australia are shrinking, with more younger members coming from Africa and Asia. Cultural Read more

One of the 20th century’s greatest magicians was a religious brother

Friday, October 14th, 2016

When magicians are asked as to who qualifies as a Magician’s Magician, the first name that comes up is Br. Hamman. Most magicians are incredulous when they find that the standard by whom all card tricks are judged was not only a devout Catholic but, in fact, a consecrated brother. He went by the stage Read more

Does religious life have a future?

Friday, March 4th, 2016

Those of us who entered religious life just after Vatican II will probably remember it in the words of Wordsworth after the French Revolution: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive”. Those were exciting years. In February 1968, aged 19, I entered an Irish Cistercian monastery. It was just three years after the Read more

Nuns make room for fancy ice cream

Tuesday, December 1st, 2015

Before Hamilton East was a destination for recycled clothing and fancy ice cream, it was a home for nuns. Nuns have been in Hamilton East since 1884, says Sister Raewyn Hogan, and four generations of her family have gone through Marian Catholic School and Sacred Heart.  Euphrasie House is now an earthquake risk building is being Read more

95-year old Anglican Friar farewelled

Friday, November 13th, 2015

About 200 people turned up at Hamilton’s St Peter’s Cathedral this afternoon to farewell Br Brian Harley, a 90-year-old Franciscan Friar who spent the last 10 years of his life at Hamilton’s Friary of Divine Compassion. When you consider that Br Brian had long had a love of what he called a “semi-erimitical life” – Read more