American Dominican sisters thriving in Vancouver

Since 2011, a group of sisters headquartered in Nashville has been serving in the Archdiocese of Vancouver, and as with their primary mission in the U.S., they’ve taken up the role of Catholic education by teaching in various capacities.  

The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, who serve across the U.S. as well as in Ireland, Italy, Scotland, the Netherlands, and Australia, currently teach at Catholic schools in the archdiocese and at Catholic Pacific College in conjunction with Trinity Western University. 

The sisters came to B.C. at the invitation of Archbishop Miller, who has made it an important part of his tenure as bishop to invite various orders of nuns to take up residence in the archdiocese. 

When the archbishop initially came to Vancouver, he saw a need for a strong presence of teaching sisters working in the local Catholic school system. Growing up in Ottawa, he was taught as a child by sisters, and in gratitude for their service he has been eager for a new generation of students in Catholic schools to experience the same blessing. 

He invited teaching sisters back to Vancouver and thus the arrival of “pioneer” sisters who have enriched the diocesan landscape. 

In many ways, having Dominican sisters in the Archdiocese is providential, considering the patroness of the diocese of Vancouver (and its cathedral) is Our Lady of the Rosary. Dominicans have a special devotion to the Rosary, as tradition holds that Our Lady gave the Rosary to St. Dominic, founder of the Dominican order. For this reason every professed Dominican friar or nun carries rosary beads attached to their belt as part of their official habit or religious dress. 

In addition to their duties as teachers, the sisters also participate in archdiocesan events while helping to promote the faith and vocations to the religious life. 

The sisters are known for their very successful discernment group for young women in Vancouver known as Vocations in Progress, or VIP, now the Fiat Women’s Discernment Group.

The group meets online during the pandemic to pray, share a meal, and discuss a particular topic related to the discernment of a vocation and the consecrated life. 

Meanwhile, once a year the sisters organize a retreat for young women discerning. 

The sisters also lead hiking excursions, taking full advantage of the beautiful coastline and mountains of British Columbia, exercising their crucial ministry of “presence.”

The sisters, also known as the Nashville Dominicans, were founded in 1860 by four Dominican nuns from Somerset, Ohio.

For nearly 160 years the sisters have been thriving as a teaching order, serving the Church through the Dominican spirit, life, and educational apostolate. 

The sisters provide quality Catholic education while emphasizing religious instruction. They have an active teaching apostolate that reaches more than 16,000 students in preschool through university level. 

Their motherhouse in located in Nashville, their headquarters and house of formation where new recruits arrive to begin their formation, a serious process of study and discernment. 

While those unfamiliar with life in convents might think of them as perhaps dower or sad places, the truth is the exact opposite – convents are places of joy and laughter. 

Each year about a dozen young women join the order, arriving in Nashville to begin their time of active discernment in the order’s formation house. 

For those who are called to the religious life, they discern and persevere amid a life of study and prayer, professing permanent vows after some years as members of the congregation.

The sisters in formation usually study at the nearby Aquinas College in Nashville, a college operated by the sisters where they graduate with bachelor’s degrees. 

The congregation is booming with approximately 300 sisters and nearly 40 young sisters in the initial years of formation. 

In the past 20 years, the order has grown by a whopping 67 per cent, with many fresh faces from Canada joining over in recent years.

More than half the congregation is under 40, and the average age of women entering is 22. 

In an age when many religious orders are in their terminal stage, the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia are proving themselves vibrant and viable, thanks in no small part to the preserving of their traditions, including a life of oblation and their elegant Dominican habit, which tends to attract both attention and admiration for how it speaks to the soul. 

Young Catholic women discerning a possible call to religious life are encouraged to get in touch with the sisters in Vancouver by emailing them at [email protected] or visiting Vocations Vancouver.

J.P. Sonnen is a travel writer, history docent and tour operator with Orbis Catholic Travel, LLC.