Harvard's Valedictorian to Become Dominican Nun (Mary Anne Marks)

TheSacredPage.com ^ | 08-27-10 | Posted by TheSacredPage.com

[Salvation]

Harvard's Valedictorian to Become Dominican Nun

Here's a great story. . .

Don’t tell Mary Anne Marks the Catholic Church is an oppressive, misogynistic disaster. She knows better. And she’s got a Harvard degree, too.

Miss Marks, a native of Queens, N.Y., graduated from Harvard University this past semester with an undergraduate degree in classics and English, delivering her commencement address in Latin. This fall, she begins a new life, discerning her future consecrated to Christ as a Catholic religious sister with the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, in Ann Arbor, Mich.
. . .

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: You are a Harvard graduate. Aren’t you surrendering all the possibilities that entails by entering a convent?

MARY ANNE MARKS: Yes, if one doesn’t see becoming a well-educated, intellectually alive nun as one of the possibilities. . . .

LOPEZ: I don’t know about you, but I read the New York Times. A number of the op-ed columnists there, and a number of the news stories, tell me that the Catholic Church is anti-woman. And from other stories, about the various scandals, the Catholic Church also sounds like a dying, loser organization of sinners. Why would you choose to represent it in such a public, hard-to-miss way — in a religious habit?

MARKS: I feel privileged to represent the Catholic Church in a visible way, because it is an organization of sinners and sinners-turned-saints, emphatically alive, expanding, and responsive to the needs of the time, an organization that has been enormously effective in promoting the spiritual and material well-being of women and men throughout the 2,000 years of its existence.

From its earliest years, the Church’s doctrine of the equality of all humans as beloved children of God and its reverence for Mary as the spouse and mother of God elevated women to a status previously unheard of. In our own times, the Church’s unequivocal opposition to practices such as abortion and contraception, which harm women physically and psychologically, and threaten to render them victims of their own and others’ unchecked desires, makes the Church a lone voice above the chaos, promoting women’s dignity and happiness.

The cry that the Church is a “dying, loser organization of sinners” echoes down the centuries; it rang out in Christ’s day, it rang out in Luther’s day, and it rings out in ours. The second part always has and always will be too true. Kyrie eleison. The erroneousness of the first part is suggested by the Church’s record of accomplishments and its longevity to this point, and by the new growth that people of my generation rejoice to see.

. . .

LOPEZ: I don’t know Harvard to be a great incubator or beacon of religious vocations. Am I wrong?

MARKS: Yes, Deo gratias! A couple of years ago, a young man who finished Harvard in three years entered the seminary in St. Louis. A little further back, a young woman who attended Harvard and lived in the same women's residence that I did joined the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal. One of my friends, whom I met while she was pursuing a degree at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, joined the Religious Sisters of Mercy two years ago. This July 25, two young men from Harvard joined the Eastern Province of the Dominicans.

Read the whole interview here. Here's a video of her delivering her now famous commencement speech in Latin:

 

 

[Salvation]

Men are being called to the consecrated life as monks too. Not all men become priests.

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[don-o]

Fail as usual, complete with the juvenile LOOK AT MEEEEE!!!! avatar

[Running On Empty]

Thanks, don-o

I’m glad somebody finally said it.

[don-o]

More fail. Have pity on yourself.

[Running On Empty]

Some people should quit while they’re behind.

[Religion Moderator]

You two are just upset because

Reading the mind of another Freeper is a form of "making it personal."

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.

[Running On Empty]

You expressed it very well for all of us on this Forum, sitetest.

Thanks much.

[don-o]

This goes beyond simple mind-reading to a gratuitous insult of the posters.

You have surely noticed that gratuitous insult is coin of the realm on the RF, haven't you? It's permitted, if it is slyly disguised to circumvent the "don't make it personal" dictum.

People who take their faith seriously are personally attacked when their beliefs are insulted - not challenged - but made fun of by "comedians" and other wannabe wits.

We are told to "grow a thick skin" in the public square. Well, if I go to a place where I can regularly expect bad treatment for simply engaging in conversation; where my arguments are ignored or misrepresented and half the participants seem to be present just to "pile on"...well, I'm not likely to be found in such a place very often

[Salvation]

Degrade the targets — who are upstanding in my opinion — and serve to disrupt a perfectly great thread about an outstanding woman who is becoming a nun.

Was it done on purpose?

It seems very sad to me that such steps are taken by some posters.

[Religion Moderator]

You have a good point. I will remove that post and yours for quoting it. Make a new post without a direct quote if you want to make the point on thread, i.e. for the record.

[Running On Empty]

“We are told to ‘grow a thick skin’ in the public square. Well, if I go to a place where I can regularly expect bad treatment for simply engaging in conversation; where my arguments are ignored or misrepresented and half the participants seem to be present just to ‘pile on’...well, I’m not likely to be found in such a place very often.”

This is so true. I have gradually stepped away from the Religion Forum in recent months because much of the time it was a public square that was openly hostile to all I hold sacred, and just perceiving it that way, I would be “thin-skinned”, or partitioned off to devotional threads.

I can think of dozens of screen names I haven’t seen on this forum in quite some time. I guess they got the message, too.

I just wish that this were the genre of thread that the ubiquitous “pile-on” posters would be reading; they are the ones who should see the common sense of what you have said.

[sitetest]

Dear Religion Moderator,

It seems that it would be better if the posts had been left in place, but the offender removed. There are some posters who add nothing at all to the conversations here. The sum total of their posting is a detraction, a degradation of the forum, themselves, and their correspondents.

They serve no useful purpose whatsoever except as bad examples.

But if you remove their posts, then they don't even achieve that low accomplishment.

sitetest

[Judith Anne]

No reason to choose the fellowship of bigots.

[trisham]

Hey, Judith Anne! Nice to see you!

[trisham]

This is truly wonderful. What an asset she will be to the Church.

[trisham]

MARKS: I feel privileged to represent the Catholic Church in a visible way, because it is an organization of sinners and sinners-turned-saints, emphatically alive, expanding, and responsive to the needs of the time, an organization that has been enormously effective in promoting the spiritual and material well-being of women and men throughout the 2,000 years of its existence.

From its earliest years, the Church’s doctrine of the equality of all humans as beloved children of God and its reverence for Mary as the spouse and mother of God elevated women to a status previously unheard of. In our own times, the Church’s unequivocal opposition to practices such as abortion and contraception, which harm women physically and psychologically, and threaten to render them victims of their own and others’ unchecked desires, makes the Church a lone voice above the chaos, promoting women’s dignity and happiness.

The cry that the Church is a “dying, loser organization of sinners” echoes down the centuries; it rang out in Christ’s day, it rang out in Luther’s day, and it rings out in ours. The second part always has and always will be too true. Kyrie eleison. The erroneousness of the first part is suggested by the Church’s record of accomplishments and its longevity to this point, and by the new growth that people of my generation rejoice to see.

*************************

What an exceptional young woman.

[sitetest]

My friends,

The Religion Forum is run under the conceit that it is “like a town square.”

It isn't.

In a town square, it is true, the more obnoxious sorts will resort to arguments that degrade what is held dear by others.

But it is also true that in the town square, those who are thusly attacked can defend themselves by impeaching the credibility of the scum that so attack them. Pointing out that some of the attackers are inveterate liars is a routine use of the town square. Pointing out the immorality and personal evil of such persons is regularly done in the town square. Other defenses that might be thought of as "making it personal" are part and parcel of the back-and-forth of the town square.

But here, such defenses are called “making it personal.” And thus, our “town square's” “freedom of speech” is pretty badly abridged to avoid “making it personal.” The reason? “Making it personal is flame-bait” and encourages flame wars.

Well, guess what? So does degradation of what others hold sacred. And for those who worship God in Truth rather than give false worship, personal attacks are far less offensive than attacks on what is holy. Only for the self-worshiping solipsists is it imaginable that a personal attack is worse than an attack on holy things.

But the bias suffered here is a trifling thing compared to what our ancestors in faith suffered, and compared to what the disciples suffer in many parts of the world. It's regrettable, but vanishingly insignificant.

We should pray for those here who persecute Jesus by persecuting His Church.

I do think, though, that open RF threads are Satan's playground here on FR, and should generally be avoided by those who follow the Master.

sitetest

[Salvation]

NO doubt you speak the truth here, friend.

**But the bias suffered here is a trifling thing compared to what our ancestors in faith suffered, and compared to what the disciples suffer in many parts of the world. It’s regrettable, but vanishingly insignificant.**