News Archive

August 6, 2004

Sr. Mary Anastase Dura, CSR professed first vows on August 6, 2004 with the Sisters of the Holy Redeemer. She joins a community of twenty-six perpetually professed sisters in the community’s American Province located in Huntingdon Valley, PA. At the present time the community has two other sisters in temporary profession, three women who are actively discerning their calls.

At the age of 28, Sr. Ana has lived in community with the Sisters for four years. Ana was born and raised in California. Sr. Ana is a 1994 graduate of Portola High School and former parishioner of Holy Family Catholic Church. Following high school, she moved to the Philadelphia area to live with her grandmother while seeking direction for her life. After taking pre-requisite course work at Penn State University, Abington Campus, Ana finished her degree in Occupational Therapy at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA.

During her time with the Sisters, Ana has ministered at Project Rainbow and St. Joseph’s Manor. At St. Joseph’s Manor in Huntingdon Valley, PA, Sr. Ana has been able to use her training as an Occupational Therapist with the elderly residents. Ana is working as an Occupational therapist at Holy Redeemer Hospital and lives nearby with the Angelus Community of the Sisters of the Holy Redeemer in the Oak Lane section of Philadelphia, PA.

While in school in the Philadelphia area, she participated in a vocation awareness weekend with other young adults from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Sr. Ana had begun recognizing a call to religious life at the age of 17 but did not seriously consider Religious life until later. While at the discernment weekend, Sr. Ana met the Vocation/Formation director for the Sisters of the Holy Redeemer, Sr. Anne Marie Haas, CSR. Sr. Ana was interested in Health Care ministry and valued community life as a support for her desire to deepen her relationship with God. Through Sr. Anne Marie and the other sisters, Ana came to value the Sisters’ charism of witnessing the love and mercy of Jesus to those who are poor and sick through their charism of Redemptive Suffering, Healing Presence, Prayerfulness. Ana entered the Sisters of the Holy Redeemer in September 2001 as a postulant.

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“That our lives become fruitful, and that God who began this good work in us will bring it to completion.”
– Mother Alphonse Maria Eppinger