A Journey Just Begun by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Published: 2015-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

6

A Stabilizing Step Forward, 2005–2015

Sister Elizabeth Ann

To observe Sister Elizabeth Ann buzzing around the new convent in her Birkenstocks, a pager clipped to the waistband of her skirt, you would be tempted to marvel at how far the Sisterhood has evolved since the days of Mother Hannah. And you would be correct, to a point. The atmosphere is more casual and collegial, and the convent itself, with its great expanse of windows and its light-filled corridors, registers a brightness and cheerfulness that contrasts significantly with the more austere times of decades past. In an era where transparency is a political buzzword, the Sisterhood lives it literally and philosophically. But the essence remains the same: it is a contemporary community grounded in the monastic traditions and values developed by St. Benedict almost 1,500 years ago. After a decade of change and the upheaval of a major move, Sister Elizabeth Ann’s term of office has helped to stabilize the community and re-root it in the Benedictine tradition.

Elizabeth Ann Eckert was born to Grant, a family doctor, and Theda, a registered nurse, on April 7, 1957. The family worshipped at the Church of the Resurrection in Sudbury, Ontario, and Elizabeth Ann eagerly took part in many church activities. After being confirmed as a young teen, she began attending the mid-week Eucharist in addition to the Sunday services. It was clear that faith was being nurtured deeply within her. When Dr. Eckert took a position at the newly opened North York General Hospital, the family moved to Toronto and joined the local parish church, St. John’s York Mills. Its youth group turned out to be a formative experience for Elizabeth Ann: at one event she heard the Reverend Margery Pezzack, the first woman to be ordained in the Diocese of Toronto, talk about a recent retreat she had taken at a convent. It was, she told the assembled group of teens, like emptying the pockets of her life, setting them aside while she was held in God’s love throughout the weekend, then taking up the pocket contents at the end of the retreat to find them more orderly than when she had left them. Inspired by this, sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Ann made her first retreat at the same convent Pezzack had visited — the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine.

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