News & Events
Sr. Nahida Al Sawa professes final vows
March 30, 2009.
Sr. Nahida Al Sawa professed her perpetual vows of chastity, poverty and obedience during a special Mass at 4 pm Sunday, March 29, at Jesus the Good Shepherd Convent in Grand Prairie, TX. The Most Rev. Michael Duca, bishop of Shreveport, LA, presided at the mass and accepted Sr. Nahida's vows on behalf of the whole Church. Sr. Janice Fulmer, CSFN, superior general, accepted Sr. Nahida's profession on behalf of the congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth (CSFN).  Sr. Nahida joined the congregation as a postulant in 2000. She spent nine years in formation, including time as a postulant, two years as a novice, and the past six years as a temporary professed sister, making her vows on an annual basis.
A native of Damascus, Syria, Sr. Nahida has traveled a long road to Nazareth. She first met the Nazareth sisters while teaching two CSFN sisters Arabic while she was working in Damascus. "Something touched my heart; I thought this, maybe, was what I had been searching for." Nahida visited the CSFNs in Poland, then sought permission to enter the congregation. She entered in Poland, and also was assigned to convents in Italy, England and the Philippines before moving to the CSFN convent in Grand Prairie, TX, last year. "Wherever I have been, I have always felt at home in Nazareth," she notes. Among her first tasks when she joined the sisters: "I learned Polish. Even when I was in Rome, we spoke Polish. I could not have done it without the grace of God." In addition to Polish and Arabic, she also speaks English and a little French -- languages she learned in school in Damascus. Sr. Nahida's parents, a brother and a sister still live in Syria; one brother lives in England, and a third in Greece. "We are a simple family; we love each other, we care for each other," she says. Provincial Superior Sr. Sally Marie Kiepura said, "I speak for our Nazareth community in the U.S. when I say how delighted we are to welcome Sr. Nahida." Sr. Edyta Krawczyk, a provincial counselor and initial formation liaison for the CSFNs' Holy Family Province (U.S.), points out that Bishop Duca's presence at Sr. Nahida's Rite of Perpetual Vows holds special meaning for the CSFNs in Texas. The bishop was a student of the sisters when they taught at St. Thomas Aquinas in Dallas; after ordination to the priesthood, he often celebrated Mass in the convent chapel in Grand Prairie until his move to Shreveport in 2008. Please visit our photo gallery from Sr. Nahida's Rite of Profession: http://www.nazarethcsfn.org/news-events/photo-gallery.php?thisGalleryID=30 Photos by Marta Baldowska of Texas and Sr. Maryann McKeogh, CSFN. --- On Jan. 31, Sr. Emmanuela Le, a native of Vietnam, professed her final vows at the convent chapel in Grand Prairie. In the U.S., the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth have some 370 sisters in Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Puerto Rico. The international congregation, headquartered in Rome, has some 1,400 sisters serving in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America.
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