Melanie was kind enough to post the last update in the comments section. Today she emailed me another update. Please continue to pray for these nuns!
Today I followed up my contact with another phone call to Sr. Carol Marie OP, their sub-prioress. And it seems appropriate to report to you what I learned.
There are five women left. Sr. Carol keeps things going as the sub-prioress. Her prioress, Sr. Mary Jordan, remains in a nursing home. Sr. Carol assures me that Sr. Jordan receives an inperson visit at least once a week from Sr. Carol, and she phones her prioress every day. In this way, Sr. Jordan continues to direct and decide for the community of nuns, although she is outside the monastery itself.
I got things a little mixed up I think about the sisters who needed medical
attention. Here is the latest version. Sr. Mary Gemma OP can actually get up and walk now. For a period of time, Sr. Carol had to carry meals to Sr. Gemma's cell because she could not get up and walk to the refectory. Professional caregivers have been visiting the monastery to nurse Sr. Gemma and do some kind of physiotheraphy with her. The attention has paid off. Sr. Gemma has a walker, and with the walker she can go from her cell to the refectory and back, joining Sr. Carol and Sr. Maria Aquinas OP for meals.
Soon the caregivers will be discharged from their monastery visits, and Sr. Carol tells me that Sr. Gemma -- frail physically, but very spirited and lively on the psychological/mental level -- gives thanks to God Almighty that those therapists aren't coming in her room anymore because now she can actually have some peace and quiet for a change.
That leaves the fifth nun, Sr. Mary Charlotte OP. More serious than I
realized. She has a cancer diagnosis and will shortly begin chemotherapy.
That course of treatment will go a month, God willing. Sr. Charlotte
has been admitted to a Union City nursing home in order to undergo
treatment for her cancer. Sr. Carol remarked to me, that until her illness and hospitalization, Sr. Charlotte had been extremely active and the
community depended very much on her efforts; without her, it is particularly hard to keep everything going.
The closing of the Union City monastery is not formal and official at
the moment. There is still all the formal communicating to do. Sr.
Jordan, the prioress, is leaning toward leaving as it is so hard to keep the big old monastery going with no new vocations. However, it is some time, Sr. Carol says, since the last visitation by the Eastern US Dominican Provincial prior who is the vicar who reports back to the Promoter and the Master of the Order in Europe. So Father is expected at the monastery again in the near future, and he will be the go-between for the nuns and the European curia.
It is all proceeding very slowly.
Well that is all my news. You know, I have never met the nuns. Reading
about them in MONIALIBUS (online at www.op.org/ to find it click onto
English-language and then Nuns) touched me so deeply that I wanted to
help.
But when I ask the sub-prioress about coming to the monastery to meet
them in person, she insists, Wait a month until maybe we have got Sr.
Charlotte back from chemotherapy....it's too hard for us without her. One of these days I will meet them somehow. Thanks for listening, Melanie T.,
Quincy, Massachusetts
Melanie was kind enough to post the last update in the comments section. Today she emailed me another update. Please continue to pray for these nuns!
Latest word, late May, from the Perpetual Rosary monastery of Dominican Nuns in Union City, New Jersey. Sr. Mary Charlotte is to be discharged from the hospital any day now. Her chemotherapy schedule has been completed, and she will return to the monastery enclosure. No word on whether or not her cancer is in remission. Yours in Christ, Melanie Trumbull
ReplyDeleteThank you Melanie!
ReplyDeletePeace be unto thee. I, and others, thank you for the up-date and prayer request. There is a spiritual presence that radiates from the monastery, particularly, from one of the late nuns Sister Mary of the Compassion, whose spirit seems to imbue the place with numinosity.
ReplyDeleteOur hearts and thoughts are, of course, with the remaining nuns. But some now fear that once the nuns are transferred, the site will be lost to the community through demolition or being sold to a developer or some other interested buyer. Throughout Hudson County and nearby New York City, churches or catholic schools are closing or being sold and in some cases bulldozed.
We cannot directly communicate with the Sisters so we have answers and are at the mercy of rumors. At least at this blog you get up-dates and credible facts for which I am grateful indeed.
We who have faithfully attended the Chapel in early morning and bracing ourselves for the day when those doors are closed. Some of us are old and somehow with determination we are able to walk to the Chapel. Thank the Lord and Our Lady for that blessing.
Keep us and the Sisters in your prayers. You know how much the flock depends on the shepherd. We all need a good measure of the Lord's tender grace in times like these.
We do thank so so much.
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment. I wish I had more updates from Melanie but I haven't heard from her in a while.
ReplyDeleteI will keep praying though.
God bless,