Sr. Mary Cecilia Made First Profession!

[Sr Mary Catharine OP]

[url="http://www.nunsopsummit.org/blog"]www.nunsopsummit.org/blog[/url]

Sr. Mary Cecilia is the first extern to make profession in something like 45 years! We might be getting another extern postulant this summer!

[dominicansoul]

EXTERN???


This is so exciting!!! Praise God!!!

[OnlySunshine]

How wonderful! It's so exciting to hear of the news of Profession!

[Jennifer]

[i]Prayers for Sr Mary Cecilia and all in your Community. God Bless. !![/i]

[regina_coeli]

So wonderful! Would you tell us more about the extern vocation at Summit?

[Sr Mary Catharine OP]

Extern sisters like with the community and follow the community horarium as much as possible. They go out for shopping, train/airport pick up, sometimes speak at parishes for vocations or a fundraiser for us like a soap sale. But not too much of that. They participate fully in the Divine Office just as the Choir nuns do.

Externs, once they are out of the novitiate may go home for a yearly visit and for their annual retreat. Choir nuns may also go home to visit parents if they are too elderly to travel because the Archbishop has given us this permission, but that is an exception, not something in the ordinary life of the choir nuns.

Externs may vote in Chapter but may not be on the Council.

Sr. Mary Cecilia orginally entered as a choir nun but last year decided that her real vocationw as to be an extern. She is great and she helps Sr. Maureen with shopping and other things. Right now, Sr. Maureen does most of the outside chapel stuff but both will be in the outside chapel for something like Rosary Sunday, Solemn Professions, funerals, etc.

Externs answer the phone and doors during Office if needed.


It is a real service to the community allowing the life of the monastery to be better lived. Choir nuns may leave the monastery to serve the community if needed but externs are really perferred for this.

Also, externs help the people get to know the monastery better. They are the "face" of the community. Having externs has helped the local community get to know us better. We didn't have externs for many years and we're happy to have them once again.

[regina_coeli]

Thank you!

[maximillion]

Externs....all His blessings on them. We would have been in a sorry state in our community without them. They were in every way the face of the community and often the first one to greet an Entrant when she arrived. Ours ran our shop and guesthouse and at times that was a big undertaking, especially on the big feast days and Vows ceremonies.
Sr Edith...well do I remember her. She had Tourettes and it was sometimes hilarious to be around her, which we novices were untill Vows.

[krissylou]

I remember Sister Faith talking about the time after she left her first Carmel, she was living close to a Benedictine abbey and their extern was a tremendous support to her. It seems a lovely vocation!

[Theresita Nerita]

Wow, that actually sounds like an amesome vocation to me.

I wonder why more people aren't attracted to it? Sounds like the first thing I would check out if I were discerning.

Congrats to Sr. Mary Cecilia and God bless!

[Graciela]

I find the extern vocation attractice but I can think of a drawback in terms of participation in community decision making. Unless the canonical rules have changed, perpetually professed extern sisters are not permitted to vote in community decision-making since they are not officially members of the chapter. Only solemnly professed nun can be members of the chapter. So while cloistered communities greatly value the role of the extern sisters, the extern sisters are never fully members of the community- one Discalced Carmelite prioress (from an otherwise very trditional community) commented to me how undesirable this was and that it was a reason their monastery decided not to have externs anymore after vatican II.

If this is incorrect information, I would be appreciative of a corrective update.

[Sr Mary Catharine OP]

Graciela, you are partly right. Externs sisters do not by right have a vote in Chapter as do Choir nuns. However, Dominican nuns give them a vote in chapter, either partly or for everything (mostly for everything). They vote for prioress, canditates, repair expenses, etc. By our constitutions extern sisters are considered fully part of the monastic family.

In our monastery extern sisters take their place in order of profession as the others do, they have duties at the Divine Office like the choir nuns but are not required to make up the Office if they miss it because of their duties. They will be the first ones to answer doors if needed during Office, meetings, meals and lectures because that is part of their particular vocation.

Each monastery does decide these things and so it can depend from monastery to monastery and the Chapter may change these things over time so that is a drawback which an extern must fully realize. A lot depends on the particular spirit of the monastery.

God bless you!