At a time when major religious congregations all over the US are struggling to increase their numerical strength, hold onto their traditions and care for their aging populations, one small group of nuns has taken a leap of faith into the unknown. Four former Dominican sisters from Tennessee have formed the heart of a new congregation - the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist - committing themselves to the vocations that summon the earlier days of religious communities. “This is kind of like a response to the Holy Father's call for the new evangelization, and we think that certainly that will come a great way through devotion to the Eucharist and also to Our Lady”, said Mother Assumpta Long, who leads the congregation and is former prioress general of the St. Cecilia Dominicans of Nashville, Tenn.
Mother Long began this congregation about eight years ago in 1998, when she addressed the Institute on Religious Life and challenged superiors to select four sisters whom they felt best expressed the charisma of their communities and let them go to other parts of the country to renew the refinement to religious life. They are currently operating with a constitution based on the rule of St. Augustine, as other Dominican congregations. The nuns will formally petition to aggregate into the Dominican Order and that will require time. Through the profession of the evangelical counsels, the community embodies the graces of the New Evangelization which Pope John Paul II described “the prelude to a new springtime in the Church”. The spiritual identity of the fraternal life lived in community is shaped by Dominican spirituality with an emphasis on Eucharistic adoration and Marian devotion.
Ever since its inception, the Eucharist Sisters have been trying their level best to incorporate the spirit and ideals that went into the foundation of the world’s most popular religion.
Christmas Carnivals provides information on the Eucharist Sisters of Mother Mary.
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