Tireless nun wins award from K.C. Ladies’ Auxiliary

  
    Sister of Mount Carmel Denis Rodrigue knows a thing or two about teaching. With a career that spans more than 65 years in elementary and high schools throughout south Louisiana, she’s learned how to reach students.
 
   During an opening “Come, Lord Jesus” small prayer group meeting this school year at Mount Carmel Academy, the 84-year-old prayed a daily thought and invited her sophomore students to express their own prayers. She encouraged the girls to be God’s light to others as they journeyed to understand his words through the Gospel.
    Concentrating on a passage from the 14th chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke, which discusses giving up one’s family and possessions to follow Jesus, Sister Denis told the students the message might be hard to understand because it mentions hating their father and mother.
     “Hate. That sounds awful,” Sister Denis said. “Jesus is saying to set your priorities straight. He says, ‘I have to be No. 1 in your life. If I am not, you cannot be my disciple.’”
    She asked the teens for challenges that might distract them from Jesus. Students responded: stress, school, friendship, relationships, family hardships, cell phones, too many after-school events.    
    “How am I going to carry that cross,” Sister Denis queried. “That’s when discipleship comes in. If Jesus is on my side, I have to change my mind or endure it.”
    “Did Jesus give us an example of how to carry a cross?” She mentioned him being born in a stable; his family having to flee for fear of him being killed by a king; how people didn’t always accept him during his time.
    “Focus on him; give your mind to Jesus and remember that he is with you,” she told them. “The Gospel is calling you to discipleship, calling you to follow Jesus. This is what I hope will happen to you this year. Be on fire with the Lord. … The fire of the Holy Spirit enables us to be people of kindness, people who take care of others who have less than we do. If you are on fire with the Lord, you are going to be able to see people in need and reach out to help them.”
Accolades come her way
    Just recently, Sister Denis was awarded the “Nun of the Year” by the Louisiana Knights of Columbus Ladies’ Auxiliary Association. The Houma KC Ladies’ Auxiliary nominated her. She received her award July 27 at the organization’s installation Mass and banquet held at Visitation of Our Lady in Marrero.
    “Everyone was mesmerized by her acceptance speech at our banquet,” said Houma auxiliary  president Ida Robichaux. “She was so humble. She was the kind of teacher everyone would have liked to have.”
    Sister Denis was born in Chackbay near Thibodaux, the ninth of 12 children. She attended elementary school in a one-room schoolhouse and then Mount Carmel Academy in Thibodaux before leaving at age 15 in 10th grade to study to be a nun at the Mount Carmel Convent in New Orleans. She first professed vows in 1946 and became certified to teach after two years at Mount Carmel Normal School.
    “I’ve enjoyed teaching but I never thought I was going to teach. I thought I would be a cook,” she joked. “But when I entered, we were all teachers. I enjoyed the students. I taught and I played with them so we would have fun.” She said she jumped rope, played marbles, etc.
    “I think they saw me as a human being,” she said.
    She said frequent transfers early in her career weren’t easy but enabled her to stretch herself “and learn things I knew nothing about.”
    Hurricane Katrina brought her to Mount Carmel in New Orleans to run “Come, Lord Jesus.”                    Without much information regarding the program, Sister Denis compiled a leader’s guide still used today. She encourages gentleness to those leading teenagers to a better understanding of the Gospel and a closer relationship to Jesus. Sister  Denis said she wants students “to establish a relationship with Jesus, to get to know him better in order to love him more deeply.”
    Sister Denis tells her students that she is still working on her relationship with Jesus and encourages them to create a special name for him to make prayer more personal and take on his heart. She calls him, “my love.”
    “Make Jesus your friend,” she said. “Jesus wants us to love others as he loves you.”
    Christine Bordelon can be reached at [email protected].