Sister Pat Brockman in July 2016 was the first of the Ursulines to become a resident of assisted living. She arrived after 65 plus years of active ministry that took her from teaching at Ursuline Academy to today’s work of helping to chronicle the life of the New Jerusalem Community. Pat began her Ursuline connection at the age of 5 when she went to the boarding school in Brown County and continued her later education at Ursuline Academy. She entered the community in 1946. She taught both elementary and high school at Ursuline Academy culminating her ministry at UA as principal by taking on the daunting task of moving the school from Oak Street near downtown Cincinnati to suburban Blue Ash in 1971.

 

From here she began her long relationship within the New Jerusalem Community. Her leadership there morphed into prayer ministry that led to her work with people on the meaning of their dreams. She received her PhD from the Union Institute and University. Her experiences led her to provide spiritual renewal opportunities through retreats and using retreatants’ own dreams for prayer in discernment. Her book The Community Dream: Awakening Tribal Consciousness was a result of her work with spirituality and prayer work with many religious communities as part of their own discernment processes. At the invitation of Fr. John Quigley, OFM, Pat also spent a year in Geneva overseeing and guiding young adult interns in the Franciscan office of social justice. Over all these years Pat was committed to her local parish and the New Jerusalem Community.

 

Pat says of her life at Mt. Notre Dame: “The sisters here are gracious and welcoming. The time for prayer and daily Mass is wonderful. One sister particularly shares my love of poetry with me. I have a beautiful room and I am able to partake in activities, particularly yoga and a book club with sisters, priests and lay persons. I am also close to family here.” In her first year at Mt. Notre Dame Pat published a sold-out book of poetry about St. Angela called Angela’s Promise.