New religious order of women starting in Boston

Jun 27, 2011
by Tom Gallagher

From the Boston Globe:

It was May 2001 when Sister Olga Yaqob arrived in Boston. She had graduated top of the class in seminary in her native Iraq and was offered a scholarship to study ministry and spirituality at Boston College. First, she had to learn how to speak English. She studied for two years in an intensive program at Boston University.

“I cried a lot,’’ said Yaqob. “I never thought I’d learn this language.’’

As an Assyrian Christian nun, Yaqob always wore an ankle-length habit with a veil. In the months following Sept. 11, 2001, people often mistook her for a Muslim, with her olive skin and covered head. She was detained at airports, and when she sat down next to people on the T, they’d change seats.

But she got her master’s degree from BC, converted to Catholicism, worked as a campus minister at BU and was promoted to university chaplain. Her most recent accomplishment had not been achieved in the Archdiocese of Boston since World War II: she founded a religious order of sisters.

Daughters of Mary of Nazareth is one of many initiatives the archdiocese is taking to restore faith among area Catholics, following the priest sex-abuse scandal, the closing of several churches, and the declining attendance at Mass, Yaqob said.

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