I ask your prayers for the repose of the soul of one my favorite Dominican sisters, Sr. Marygrace "Ginger" Peters, OP.Ginger died on Feb 21, 2009 after a long battle with lung cancer and pneumonia.
Her last duty to her Houston Dominican sisters was to serve as their Prioress. I remember her best as my Church History professor from Aquinas Institute. Ginger never failed to smile, never failed to encourage nor cajole when necessary.
She had one the best senses of humor among my O.P. sisters. When I introduced her to friends as "Queen of the Houston Dominicans," I always got a exasperated sigh and an easily dodged slap at my impertinent head.
She will be dearly missed.
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I'm sorry for your loss.
ReplyDeleteShe was a great professor and wonderful lady. I'll never forget her American Catholic History class; it was one of my favorites.
ReplyDeleteEternal rest grant unto her
and may perpetual light shine upon her.
May God grant her peaceful rest in His eternal light and eternal life, and may He comfort the loved ones she leaves behind. She sounds like a great lady! God be with you. ~ Heather
ReplyDeleteSr. Ginger has 'that look' of someone I'd love to have met. I join you in prayer on her behalf. Blessed be your own thoughts and prayers, too.
ReplyDeleteI am still thinking about this post.
ReplyDeletePraying earlier for Sr. Ginger and for you, brought to mind one of my own friends.
I have the inexplicable privilege of friendship, a kinship, and affection with a Catholic prioress. Inexplicable given my path to 2005, or 06?, when I met her. She, too, is a cancer patient and was frail the day of your post in an alarming way. It occurred to me that if she dies before I do, she will still live on - in me - and in others - somehow.
I don't mean live on in mind and heart, but in spirit. In soul maybe? I feel my (deceased) grandparents alive in me somehow, too, for instance; and also my (living) children. It seems to me there is a dynamic - an animation, or life, real life, spiritual life, or spiritual inheritance - born in relationship, maybe certain types of relationships. And that it, the dynamic - whatever 'it' is - does not die with the body but has life of it's own.
My question, to anyone who knows:
Is there something to this - understood within an orthodox Roman Catholic frame of reference?
If it is safe to say, Fr. Philip, then part of what I intend in prayer on your behalf, is 'blessed be the life of Sr. Ginger that lives on in you,' - in addition to the 'blessed be your reaction in mind and heart and prayer to her dying.'
Ginger was my campus minister at U of H, my inquiry quide when I was discerning a vocation, a guest who traveled far for my wedding, a joyous cuddler of babies at my children's baptisms and a strong shoulder at my husband's death. She leaves behind a world of people who want only to be half as good, half as faithful and half as witty as she.
ReplyDeleteBlessed have been all touched by her heart and her life. We will miss her greatly.
Walli Carranza, PhD
Colorado Springs