DOMINICAN SISTERS AMONG THE LEPERS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 105, 1 May 1875, Page 9

DOMINICAN SISTERS AMONG THE LEPERS

I» the issue of January 15 of 'Les Missions Catholiques,* we find the following letter from a Dominiciaa at Trinidad, Port of Spain, which we translate for the ' Freeman's Journal' : — . In the ' Missions Catholiques,* of October 9, 1874, you announce the departure of three Dominican Sisters for the Lazaretto of Cocorite, (Trinidad). Since you have been so kind as to interest your readers in this noble mission to the lepers, you will, I have no doubt, give publicity to the contents of a letter I received a few days ago from one of the Sisters who left here on the seventh of October. Prom the habitation which tley now occupy, an illustration of which you published in your issue of August 21, they have taken a room about three by cix metres in dimensions. One half of this chamber is occupied as follows : the centre, by the altar ; the piece of furniture used as a vestment case, and whore the priest vests, is on the right, and the Sisters are huddled together on the left. The other half is used by the patients, and as the Protestant minister is allowed to preach to his co-religionists in the hospital, the Sisters have been obliged to make a paper partition to separate the Sanctuary from the part of the chamber reserved for tie patients In the corner in which they are thus huddled together, to hear the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and say their prayers, the poor Sisters are almost smothered, in this burning heat of the tropics — and besides, they have been obliged to make some repairs to avoid being drenched by the rain during the wet season. The patients, on the other hand, cannot all be accommodated in the part of this room which has been converted into a chapel for their use, consequently manj of them stand at the door. Nevertheless, the Sisters, even in such a life of poverty, sacrifices and privations, do not fail to find moments of real happiness. You will be able to judge for yourself by extracts from the following letter. The Sister who writes it was a widow when she entered the Order of St. Dominic. Her age did not prevent her from earnestly imploring the favor of exiling herself from her native land, so as to be able to devote her whole life to the service of lepers, who now number 115 in the hospital attended by the IJominician Sisters. "It is to you, Father, that I am indebted in a great measure," Bays Sister X — , " for haying been able to arrive at my dear Cocorite, which Iso anxiously desired to see. I feel so happy in attending to these poor lepers, that I would not exchange my ward of twenty patients with their (I acknowledge it) loathsome disease, and their more or less savage-looking faces, .for the richest kingdom in the world. " Besides, my ward is a little world that would deligt the eye of an artist, because I have nearly all races represented, Chinese, Creoles. Hindoos, Coolies, Negroes, Africans, Portugese, Americans, Englishmen, all more or less disfigured by nature or by disease. There are some without hands or feet, others have only half of these members ; some have their mouths distorted, and others their eyes. I have two half -insane patients, and one totally insane ; of two who •re almost in their infancy, one cries continually, and the other kings all the time. There are also two musicians who entertain us with grand concerts on not very expensive instruments ; one has a viol, and the other his cup and plate. As you see we can please all tastes. " Nearly all of them, young or old, call me their little mother, a title I am very proud of, and which I try to deserve, because I want to be to them, as near as possible, a real mother." — *N. Y. Freeman.'