The Religious Life — on Oprah

PUBLISHED ON

February 8, 2010

News has been spreading through the blogosphere that the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, will be appearing on Oprah tomorrow afternoon. The sisters explained how it all came to be in an e-mail update:

Oprah was interested in doing a show on religious life as a hidden way of life which many people never experience, and so her producers asked us if we would be willing to welcome them. We accepted this invitation as an opportunity to share our life, and by extension, the Gospel, with an audience that we might not ever reach otherwise.      

A camera crew came to the Motherhouse in Ann Arbor at the beginning of [last] week, and then on Thursday, Sr. Mary Samuel, Sr. John Dominic, Sr. Mary Judith, and Sr. Francis Mary were flown to Chicago for the taping. Some of our Novices and Postulants also participated in the taping from the Motherhouse via “Skype.”

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. . . please join us in praying that Our Lord will use this television show to touch the hearts of many, so that they may come to know Him and His boundless love and mercy. 

The Dominican sisters are a great order to demonstrate the beauty of the religious life, being such a vibrant community. Who knows what good may come from their visit? Tune in tomorrow at 4 to see the sisters in action (more photos on their Flickr stream here).

Update: On the other hand, The Anchoress says that “the Sisters will share the hour with a look at the ‘the word’s only Western Geisha’”:

I guess Oprah’s “theme” here is that two rather “secret” lives are being looked into, but I do wonder at the mindset that puts Consecrated religious like and Geisha on the same footing. Either one of these subjects could easily fill an hour’s worth of television, and by reducing them to 23 minute overviews, both features promise to be as penetrating as prop knives; superficial, shallow and sensationalistic. 

Read the rest of her take on the line of questioning likely to follow, which can be summed up as: “You don’t have sex? What about sex? How can you not have sex?”

 

Author

  • Margaret Cabaniss

    Margaret Cabaniss is the former managing editor of Crisis Magazine. She joined Crisis in 2002 after graduating from the University of the South with a degree in English Literature and currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland. She now blogs at SlowMama.com.

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