By Thea Jarvis

The Congregation of Our Lady of the Retreat in the Cenacle, popularly known as the Cenacle Sisters, will bring its ministry of retreats and programs of spiritual development to the archdiocese of Atlanta at the end of this year.

The arrival of the sisters in North Georgia coincides with the congregation’s centenary celebration of their beginnings in North America.

“It’s a year of exploration” to see how their ministry will be received, Sister Susan Arcaro, RC, said of the venture. For approximately one year, the sisters will undertake a “mobile ministry,” she said, staying part-time in North Georgia and the remainder of their time in regular assignments.

Sister Arcaro, who helped coordinate the North Georgia connection and is currently stationed in Vienna, Va., said the Cenacle Sisters have been talking about coming to the Atlanta area, “brainstorming over where our ministry was really needed,” for six or seven years. The fact that the Southern U.S. has fewer centers for spiritual growth figured strongly in the decision-making, she explained.

Initial weekend retreats are scheduled for Advent and Lent, with a day of prayer planned for the pre-Christmas season. Visitors will be welcomed at an open house December 15.

All activities will take place at the residence of Fred and Virginia Hedges, longtime parishioners of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church who have made their vacation property in Hoschton, Georgia, available for retreats in recent years.

Fred Hedges said the home he built four years ago is equipped with a third floor “conference” room, ample bed space and open living areas.

“You can do everything there you can do at a retreat house,” he said, happy that the sisters will have use of it.

A 10-acre tract of adjacent land was purchased by the Hedges two years ago and an 1827 farmhouse left on the property was restored, providing additional room.

“I didn’t know what the Lord wanted to use it for,” Hedges said. The rustic two-story, known as the Watkins House, will accommodate the sisters when they arrive in December.

The Sisters of the Cenacle have been looking to expand their ministry in the South when they met local Glenmary Father Louis McNeil at a retreat in West Virginia. Father McNeil, whose community had used the Hedges’ homestead for retreats and conferences, mentioned the couple’s desire to develop a retreat center and said he would tell them of the sisters’ interest.

Sister Acraro, who has spent 30 years in religious life, has found herself drawn to ministry in North Georgia.

“I had a sense that the church there was alive,” she said. “I felt our ministry would really give that much more life to the church in Atlanta.”

The Sisters of the Cenacle were founded in France in 1826 by St. Therese Coudere and Father Stephen Terme. The international community now ministers in 15 countries and in the United States. The eastern province of the congregation, with headquarters in Lake Ronkonkoma, New York, numbers some 140 women and stretches from Rochester to Lantana, Florida and from Charleston, West Virginia to the East Coast.