Where Are They
Now?
The other story of the Eucharistic
Missionaries of St. Dominic in New Orleans is their
own evacuation and resettlement with the Dominican Sisters
of Catharine, Kentucky.
Three days before Hurricane Katrina
hit New Orleans and the levees broke spilling a wall
of water the city streets, the Eucharistic Missionaries
evacuated their most vulnerable members to Kentucky,
home of the Dominican Sisters of St. Catharine. “We were overwhelmed
by the welcome and goodness of the people who helped
us,” said Diane Hooley, OP, hospice chaplain working
in New Orleans. The Kentucky Sisters gave us a
place to stay, to pray, they gave us clothes, books. “We
were prepared for three days, nothing beyond that.” The
Adrian Dominicans donated six automobiles to give them
the mobility they needed.
Since then, 17 EMDs have
settled in St. Catharine Kentucky. Of the total 33
members, five are in New Orleans,with five others in
Louisiana, four in Arizona, two in Michigan and one
in Florida. In
the meantime, the conversations that have been going
on for several years by the Dominican Cluster congregations
continues to move toward the possibility of one new
union of the seven. Eucharistic Missionaries and Kentucky
Dominicans are part of the conversation.
Recently all seven congregations voted to petition Rome
for permission to become one new congregation. So the Eucharistic
Missionaries, along with their sisters in the other six
congregations, are begining yet another journey together.
Anne Lythgoe, OP (Catherine de' Ricci), formerly Elkins
Park
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