A New South Wales woman has professed her vows as a member of the Dominican Sisters of St Cecilia Congregation in Nashville, Tennessee. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
Sr Zelie Marie Groves OP hails from Camden and made her first profession on August 11.
She said she felt “incredible joy, peace, and freedom” after the special event in which she responded to God’s vocational call.
“It is both a privilege and a gift to be able to live this consecrated life, and I continue to marvel at the countless ways in which God’s grace has worked in my life to bring me here,” she told The Catholic Weekly.
Sr Zelie Marie previously attended the University of Wollongong, earning a Bachelor of Science degree, before achieving a Master of Arts in theology from the University of Notre Dame Australia in Sydney.
She is currently working towards a master’s degree in teaching, at Aquinas College in Nashville, which is owned and operated by the Dominican Sisters of St Cecilia.
Sr Zelie Marie first encountered the Dominicans in Colorado while completing a study abroad program, as one of her friends was discerning religious life at the time.
“Over the next few years, I began to experience a growing attraction to religious life myself, but was not sure where, how, or even whether to begin any kind of concrete discernment process,” she said.
“I eventually attended a women’s discernment evening called For Love Alone at the University of Sydney’s Catholic Chaplaincy Centre, where I was able to hear about and meet a number of different communities in the Archdiocese of Sydney, including the Dominican Sisters of St Cecilia.”
Sr Zelie Marie said her interest in devoting her life completely to God had grown in the years between meeting a sister and the discernment event in Sydney, and that a priest recognised this in her.
She said the priest encouraged her to reach out to some of the various religious communities and discern further.
“It became clear very quickly that my heart was being drawn toward the Nashville Dominicans in a very particular way,” she said.
Communications director Sr Anne Catherine Burleigh said she was thankful to God for the dozen women, including Sr Zelie Marie, who made their first profession in her community.
FULL STORY
Sydney woman makes first vows with Nashville Dominican sisters (By Tara Kennedy, The Catholic Weekly).
