Local woman professes perpetual vows at Dominican monastery

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

Feeling lonely one day, a Fitchburg girl built a “chapel” of pillows and blankets – and called out to God.

In high school she asked questions about her faith – then embraced it more fully.

She lost some of her fervor in college – then turned to the rosary and eucharistic adoration. After she and her boyfriend broke up, her spiritual director suggested she look into religious life.

This is part of the story that Danielle Brisebois – now Sister Mary Ana of the Divine Mercy – tells about her spiritual journey.

On Nov. 23 last year she professed perpetual vows as an extern sister at the 125-year-old Dominican Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, in Summit, New Jersey, before people from the Worcester diocese and other family members and friends.  

Father Joseph M. Dolan, pastor of St. Bernard Parish at St. Camillus de Lellis Church in Fitchburg, was to preach, but fell ill. So, Bishop Elias R. Lorenzo, a Benedictine who is auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Newark, was homilist. Among the 13 concelebrants were Benedictine Abbot Marc Crilly of St. Benedict Abbey in Still River, and Father Thien X. Nguyen, administrator of Our Lady Immaculate and St. Francis of Assisi parishes in Athol and St. Peter Parish in Petersham.

“The goal for the extern is to support the nuns [who are cloistered contemplatives] in their life of prayer,” Sister Mary Ana told The Catholic Free Press in an interview. “You can think of me as an active sister living among the nuns. ... I’m living the life with them,” but when they need someone to go beyond the monastery grounds or interact with the public, she and the other externs handle those tasks.  

She said she’s 34 years old, another extern is 32 and temporarily professed, and the third, who is in her 80s, joined the Dominicans after raising a family and is semi-retired. They’re among the 23 women in this community, five of them not yet solemnly professed. They range in age from 20s to 90s and hail from several states and countries.

Although externs are not bound to the enclosure or prayer schedule of the contemplatives, their role is different from members of active congregations, such as those with a teaching charism, she said.

Sister Mary Ana arrived at this point through choices she sometimes thought weren’t for her.
She said she grew up in Fitchburg, where she was baptized at Madonna of the Holy Rosary Parish and later attended Immaculate Conception Parish, both of which were part of a merger. Her family then registered at St. Joseph Parish and attended St. Bernard Parish.

She is the youngest of four children. Her mother taught her to love the Blessed Mother. Her father taught her to pray and told her about religious sisters. But she did not have Catholic friends, she said.  

Once at about age 8, feeling lonely, she made a “chapel” of pillows and blankets and prayed, “God, I just want to be with you because of this loneliness.”

In high school she tried to figure out what she believed, learned about different religions and asked questions about her faith. She said this helped; she wanted “to take hold of my faith as my own.”  

After high school, she planned on working; she’d been doing so at her parents’ diner. But they insisted she attend college. At Mount Wachusett Community College, she was unsure what to study. Her parents suggested she go away to college. She enrolled at Ave Maria University in Florida in part because of its vocations discernment group. When that disbanded, she decided God didn’t want her to be a religious sister, and started dating.  

“I did all the wrong things a person does in college,” she said. “I didn’t leave the faith, but I wasn’t fervent.”

At her lowest point, wanting a change, she joined a rosary group and signed up for a holy hour, focusing on Jesus, finding better friends, and forming a healthier lifestyle, she said.  
“It was at eucharistic adoration I was feeling more of a pull towards Jesus,” she said.  

After she broke up with her boyfriend, her spiritual director, Abbot Xavier Connelley of St. Benedict Abbey in Still River, now deceased, suggested she discern a vocation with active and contemplative Dominican communities, she said.

“I didn’t know what Dominican was,” she said. “I just felt a pull towards the Lord and I assumed it was to religious life.”

Visiting the Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia in Nashville, Tennessee, “I thought it was where I was going to be, but I didn’t feel any sense of peace there,” she said. “It wasn’t the place for me.” The website nashvilledominican.org says these sisters have a contemplative focus and an active apostolate of teaching.

Calling the Summit, New Jersey, community “initially I thought that I was not going to like it,” Sister Mary Ana said. “But then I came on the initial visit. ... I liked the energy, the joy.” She enjoyed Dominican Sister Mary Catharine Perry, who had attended Masses with religious in Still River; she knew some of the same people.

Returning for further discernment about joining the Summit Dominicans, “I just felt like that was what the Lord was asking of me,” she said; she felt peace.  

She entered the community in 2015. For her religious name she has Mary for the Blessed Mother and she chose Ana for Blessed Anna of the Angels Monteagudo, a seventeenth-century Dominican mystic whom she said was devoted to the souls in purgatory.

“I have always loved the holy souls in purgatory, even if I don’t necessarily know who they are,” Sister Mary Ana explained. She added Divine Mercy to her name, adopted in the Year of Mercy, because she’s needed God’s mercy, especially in college, she said.  

She wanted to be an extern, but her parents told her to get rooted in the community’s life, she said. So, she didn’t ask for this role until later.

“I really love being an extern,” she enthused. “It’s been fun being able to support and talk with the people that come,” some of whom ask for prayer. The sisters’ chapel, where there is Mass, Liturgy of the Hours and eucharistic adoration, is also open to the public.  

Sister Mary Ana’s main work is managing the gift shop. She’s also guest mistress for religious or family members who make retreats there.