This past weekend, Sisters at the St. Catharine Motherhouse enjoyed the company of 17 Dominican novices with their novice mistress, Sister Mary Rachel, from Nashville, Tennessee.  Sister Pat Connick joined them for Mass over at St. Rose on Saturday morning, and they drove their three vans to the St. Catharine Motherhouse.

The first activity was a tour of the early history of the Kentucky congregation, which overlaps with their own, as well as a look at the EMD Heritage Room, describing how some of the sisters came here after Hurricane Katrina.  There was time in Magdalen Chapel showing off the artwork of Bernadine Egleston and a tour of St. Catharine Hall with its beautiful stained-glass window celebrating the Eucharist.

A beautiful day outside provided the perfect setting for a hayride first through Cartwright Creek over to the original foundation, where the group picked jonquils and brought them back to decorate the Motherhouse dining room for the coming week.  We also had a chance to stop at the cabins and get a wonderful view of the property with the lakes in the foreground.  The tour concluded with a brief walk in the cemetery, where Sister Pat told a few stories about the sisters she has known since she started working as a mission group coordinator and who have gone to heaven.

We had a beautiful lunch together in the dining room and concluded with a song in several parts about Our Lady written by one of the visiting sisters.  At 2 o’clock we sent the sisters on to Columbus to continue the study of their history there.