Addendum--Religious Orders

      A slight clarification is in order, given that even a lot of cradle Catholics these days have little knowledge of religious communities, especially here in the South:  Religious orders are communities of men or women who live in community in service to the Church and according to their rule.  These communities are each single-sex, but an order (The Franciscans, for example) may have separate religious houses (congregations) for men and women (though never together). 

      Some orders share an overall affiliation (they might, for example, all be Dominicans) but each house has a separate governance and charism.  The Hawthorne Dominicans (Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne),  founded by the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, are dedicated to the care of the sick poor, especially in hospice settings.  Our own local Nashville Dominicans (Dominican Sisters of St. Cecelia) are focused on teaching.  But they are all Dominicans (O.P.)  Likewise, there are a number of Franciscan orders for both men and women including the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (C.F.R.) who tend to the poor and outcast often in city slums.

      Sometimes both orders share a common name (Dominicans, Franciscans) whether the individual community is for men or women; sometimes the names are slightly different (Trappists/Trappistines; Redemptorists/Redemptoristines). 

     Orders come and go.  Some have existed for hundreds of years, others are quite new.  Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950; the Benedictines were founded in the Sixth Century.  Two of the newest orders are Daughters of Mary, Our Lady of Nazareth, founded by Sister Olga, an Iraqi who came to the Roman Catholic Church from the Assyrian Church (where she was the first nun in 700 years)  and Daughters of Mary, Israel's Hope, an order in the process of being founded by Rosalind Moss, a convert from Judaism.  The Holy Spirit never stops calling men and women to vocations in religious life--and orders change as times and needs change.