The Newest Dominican Sister

She was also a Harvard commencement speaker. The Hermeneutic of Continuity tells the tale. The follow-up with quotes from The Harvard Gazette is here.

Queens, N.Y., native Mary Anne Marks is a classics and English joint concentrator who fell in love with the Latin language by studying Cicero’s Catilinarian Orations. “The links between Latin and Romance languages are fascinating, and, at the same time, Latin has the ability to say things in ways that are not available to Romance languages or to English,” said Marks. “I mused about ideas for the speech for weeks before setting pen to paper, and, once I’d picked a topic, I consulted with friends and acquaintances from various departments to make sure it spoke to their experiences at Harvard.” In the fall, Marks is headed to Ann Arbor, Mich., to enter a community of Catholic teaching nuns called the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, where after three years of classes in the convent on theological and ecclesiastical topics, she’ll attain a teaching certificate at a local university and teach in Catholic schools. “I’ve always thought about being a nun but came to Harvard planning to go to graduate school and perhaps also do some other things before entering,” she recalled. “I decided in January of last year to enter right after college, but a master’s or Ph.D. is still a possibility. One of the exciting things about being a nun is that one never knows what the future holds!”

These Sisters of Mary are known here previously for being Dominicans, who rule, and the same bunch who appeared on Oprah.

This is also sort of promising, I think, if a girl can go to Harvard, survive, then come out with her faith not only intact, but strong enough to pursue a vocation as well. Let me just say that my contacts with Ivy League grads have been universally bad and that every one of its institutions should be torched and the ground sown with salt.

Perhaps I will soften that stance now.