Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur mark 200th anniversary

Published: 2004-07-26

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (CNS) -- If St. Julie Billiart could look out today at the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, a congregation she helped start, she would be amazed that her vision "would expand and extend so far," said Sister Camilla Burns, a member of the congregation who serves on its Rome-based leadership team. Today the sisters are in 16 countries on five continents. In Springfield July 8-11, 500 sisters from those five continents gathered at a symposium to celebrate the congregation's 200th anniversary. The theme of the gathering was "Rapture of Action: Passion for the Vowed Life." "We're so far spread that it's possible to live and die and not meet all your sisters," Sister Burns said in an interview with Catholic Communications, the media ministry of the Springfield Diocese. But the congregation's multicultural nature is "a very wholesome thing for us; it keeps us always having to have a very expansive vision," she added.

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