Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 2—The Georgia Bulletin, June 5,1980
The Sisters And The Farm
Sister June Racicot, O.P.
Cassidy, O.P. with friends.
and Sister Jean
BY THEA JARVIS
When the Dominican
Sisters in Cumming moved
to their seventeen and a
half acre farm off Route
53 just three years ago,
they barely knew a spade
from a pitchfork.
In all their training at
the Dominican
motherhouse in Adrian,
Michigan, they had never
been taught to milk a goat,
plow a field, make their
own furniture, or bake
their own bread.
“When we first got to
the farm,” recalls Sister
June Racicot, “there was
so much to do • and we
didn’t know how to do it!
The farmhouse needed
work, the barn needed
mending, and the garden
had to be started
somehow.”
It was an opportunity
for their neighbors to learn
that they, too, had gifts to
share.
‘‘We visited the
hardware and lumber
stores and, as we were'
buying our supplies,”
Sister June continues, “we
asked questions of people
who had worked the land
all their lives. They
laughed at us good-natur
edly, brought their tools,
and helped us get started.”
From this humble
beginning, the Sisters have
become lovers of the land,
tending their homestead as
a living legacy passed on
by generations of
mountain people.
THE DAIRY GOATS
Life on the farm is
moving in its simplicity.
As a registered dairy farm,
the care of the goats is the
first order of business.
Each goat has a Biblical
name. Obadiah, Jedediah,
Lea, and Susie (Susanna)
are among the animals
who roam the five acres in
pasture and produce rich,
sweet milk.
The Sisters have
become adept at turning
goat’s milk into cheese,
butter, yogurt, and ice
cream. This they consume
themselves or sell or barter
with their neighbors in the
countryside.
The animal population
of the farm is limited to
the goats, a fine, broad
German shepherd named
“Munchen,” and a black
and white cat with an avid
appetite for mouse.
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The Sisters tried their
hand at raising animals for
slaughter when they
received a Black Angus
bred cow for Christmas
one year. They found they
hadn’t the heart for the
job.
Sister Kathryn Cliatt
admits: “We just couldn’t
eat an animal we had
raised. When you live
eyeball to eyeball with a
cow every day, you find
that you don’t like beef all
that much.”
While beef is not a part
of their diet, the
three-quarter acre garden
provides plenty of fresh
made and sturdy, with a
rustic touch.
The airy country
kitchen is abrim with good
natural foods. The stocky
woodstove promises a
warm and cozy winter.
Sister Nancyanne
Turner’s weavings dress
the walls in earthy, natural
fibers, and a stately old
spinning wheel awaits the
goat hair it will soon turn.
“We chose to live on a
farm because it seemed to
be the most contemplative
lifestyle,” says Sister
Kathryn. “We needed a
place where we could
reflect, share common
prayer, and remain
chose a forty year old
farmstead and worked
hard to put it in order. We
are more acceptable and in
a better position to
minister to the community
because we are here on the ’
farm.”
VISITORS
Farm life and the peace
it engenders attracts a fair
number of visitors.
Members of the
Dominican community
stop by occasionally to
refresh themselves in the
quiet of the mountains.
Two young medical
students have pitched their
The 1 IVi acre farm the Dominican Sisters call “home.”
produce. An old-fashioned
root cellar stores potatoes,
squash, and canned goods,
and newly planted fruit
trees offer cherries for the
picking. A rural barter
system brings in wild
rabbit and pork from local
pigs.
AN ALTERNATE
LIFESTYLE
Sitting in the
well-scrubbed pador of the
main house, it is obvious
that the Sisters have opted
for an alternative lifestyle.
The couch and chairs and
the beds in the rooms
beyond have been
fashioned by the Sisters
themselves. They are well
hopeful in our work with
the rural poor.”
The farm also gives the
Sisters a chance to
separate themselves from
the consumer orientation
that pervades late
twentieth century life.
Sister Kathryn believes
that “We have to find
alternate ways of living
our lives. We have learned
that it is possible to live on
a sum equivalent to that
received from Social
Security and food stamps
if you supplement with a
garden and live simply.”
Sister June c ites
another plus for farm
living: “Here, we really
live among the people. We
tent on the Sisters’
doorstep for two summers
and have helped with work
at the farm and “The
Place.” They are planning
to return for their third
year.
Those who come to the
farm find a roughly hewn
barnwood cross that hangs
on the far wall of the
Sisters’ living room. It is
compellingly stark, but
alive and attractive in its
strength.
It is a fitting symbol of
the life that the Sisters
follow on the farm - a life
that is simple and basic
and rather plain, but one
that is challenging and real
and remarkably in tune
with the call of the Lord.
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“God Is A Family”
BY JUDITH GIGLITTO
NOTRE DAME, Ind.
(NC) - The spirit was both
joyous and serious at the
1980 National Conference
on the Charismatic
Renewal in the Catholic
Church May 30-June 1 on
the University of Notre
Dame campus.
More than 11,000 men,
women and children -
some wearing blue T shirts
with the conference
theme, “God, make us
your family” emblazoned
across the front --
embraced old friends,
sang, prayed and listened
to talks on ways to
strengthen the quality of
nuclear family life and the
family of God.
“God is a family,”
Redemptorist Father
Thomas Forrest said
during the opening general
session.
“To this divine family
we give the special name
Trinity,” he said. Father
Forrest is the director of
the International
Communications Office
serving the Catholic
Charismatic Renewal in
Brussels, Belgium.
“Man is capable of
living the very same life
that God lives, the life of
many as one. For us being
a family is the only way
for us to be Cod-like,” he
said.
Ralph Martin, an
author and member of the
Word of Cod Community
in Ann Arbor, Mich., said
“problems can look
overwhelming, because the
secular culture is
enveloping.”
He mentioned
television, schools and the
economy as contributing
to anxiety and despair
about marriage and family
life. But he said Christians
have help other people do
not have, a commitment
from God. This
commitment makes a
people of hope, he said.
“Cod is a competent
God, an effective God,” he
said. “He can back up his
commitments.
“God’s programs and
policies always pass,” he
added, but emphasized
that this does not mean
that human beings will not
suffer or feel pain.
However, all “self-inflicted
pain will disappear with a
trust in God.”
The fourth
commandment, “Honor
thy father and thy
mother,” is the key to
improved family life,
according to Dorothy
Ranaghan, a member of
the National Service
Committee of the Catholic
Charismatic Renewal and
the mother of five
children.
She defined honor as a
combination of obedience
and responsibility and said
that children recognize
honor between their
mother and father in what
she called family rituals -
a special chair for the
father, everyone waiting
until the mother is seated
at the table before others
sit down and conversing
without interrupting each
other.
Mrs. Ranaghan outlined
four ways parents can
teach honor. First, parents
need to be there in the
home.
“It is clearly out of
order” for a mother not to
be at home, Mrs.
Ranaghan said, “except
for a few exceptions.”
She called for a return
of the family dinner hour
with everyone sharing a
meal and conversation.
“Maybe priorities have
to be changed,” she said
about the many activities
which can interfere with
the family’s eating
together.
Second, parents must
create an environment of
prayer and order in the
home.
Third, parents must
guard their values of truth
and of right and wrong.
“We hear that we
should not impose our
thoughts on our children,
that we should let them be
free. Hogwash,” she said.
“If we don’t give them our
values they will receive the
values of everyone in the
world but us.”
Fourth, she urged
parents actively to train
their children “to become
just like us” and to respect
the values their parents do.
Mrs. Ranaghan said a
single parent needs
assistance and committed
fellowship and advised the
single parent to “guard
your work hours” to be
with the child during the
most important hours of
the child’s day.
A workshop directed
specifically at singles
included remarks by La
Lonne Murphy of
Minneapolis, who told
how she realized she had
been storing herself for
marriage just as she had
been saving a box of things
for that time.
“God doesn’t want us
to store ourselves for a day
that may never come,” she
said, adding that singles
should try to build
relationships because God
did not intend them to
feel alone.
Finances, time and lives
are the basics which make
people really a family and
not just “a bunch of
acquaintances,” said
Theresa Cirner, a wife,
mother and author from
Steubenville, Ohio, in
another session.
“We need to get past
the privateness of our lives
and open up the concrete
part of our lives to each
other,” she said.
During the final general
session Martin urged
conference participants to
make a break with some
aspects of the
contemporary secular
culture, to study the Bible
and to object firmly to evil
and false teachings.
Sister Kathryn Cliatt, O.P., Sister
June Racicot, O.P. and Sister Jean
Cassidy, O.P. tend the animals at the
barn.
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