Nuns in the News

Sister Sara Salkahazi, a Sister of Social Service, was killed in 1944 for sheltering Jewish people during World War II. On September 17, 2006, she was beatified (a step on the way to being canonized as a saint) during a Mass held outside St. Stephen Basilica in Budapest, Hungary.beatification, saints and feasts, sara salkahazi

Yesterday marked the 11th annual Nun’s Beach Community Day and Surf Invitational in Stone Harbor, New Jersey. Nun’s Beach is located in front of Villa Maria, the Immaculata IHM‘s convent. I had the privilege of staying at Villa Maria for a long weekend. The sisters that live at Villa Maria told me about the Surf Invitational on the beach. They seem to enjoy the fact that surfers use the stretch of beach and surf in front of their convent.

The New York Times has another article that features a sister. “Devoted Fan Pursues Higher Calling” (September 4, 2006) by Jack Curry is about Sister Marian, a Dominican Sister of Hawthorn, New York. In the article, Curry talks about Sister Marian’s great love of Braves baseball which developed when she worked at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cancer Home in Atlanta. The home is just blocks away from Turner Field.

Scientists have speculated that there is a “God spot” or “God module” — basically a spiritual center of the brain — this study suggests that multiple parts of the brain are at work during a religious experience. This corresponds well with Catholic theology which has long taught that it is the whole person — body, soul, and mind — who encounters the Living God, not just some isolated part of our being.

The New York Times recently published an article on a cloistered group of Dominican nuns who live just a couple blocks from all the action in Hollywood.