Sister Lise Dufresne
Why am I still on the road? Is it because of a taste for excursions, reminding me of these camping experiences lived as a Girl Guide? Perhaps! But above all, it is because of the “Yes” I offered one day to the God of my life. To say it more adequately, it is because I am inhabited by Love, that of Jesus who ceaselessly gives himself to me, as to each one of us, in the Eucharist. It is because He is there with us and He invites me each day to unite my life to His.
And so I thank God for having given me the amazing religious family that welcomed me almost 56 years ago: the Dominican Missionary Adorers. Yes, I give him thanks for my sisters who have fraternally accepted me just as I am, who help me to grow in the Eucharistic spirituality which is ours, and with whom I have learned to walk in faith and in the gift of myself.
What were the happiest days of my religious life? Certainly, the first few years of my missionary life in Peru. Responding to the Church’s call asking for missionaries in Latin America, and inserting myself into a poor neighbourhood: this really answered my own aspirations. I tried to be a presence of love and hope for the numerous families so precariously installed in Comas, on the outskirts of Lima. There my affection grew for the people of Peru, and for the Church whom I discovered anew.
Then, after a period elsewhere in order to answer a call from my Congregation, here I am again on the road, still in Peru. Even if I am getting older, I want to keep looking forward, towards a new horizon: that of sharing with four of my sisters in the formation of young Peruvian girls who wish to join us, in order to live our Eucharistic mission in the wake of Saint Dominic and of our beloved foundress, Mother Julienne of the Rosary.
Sr. Lise Dufesne, o.p., 2011
