A lifelong educator and self-professed “New York girl” is now calling a Mercer County parish her spiritual home. Dominican Sister Catherine Patrice Morgan is the new director of religious education for St. David the King Parish, Princeton Junction.

Over the course of her ministry, Sister Catherine has shepherded Catholics of a broad spectrum of ages and circumstances. She served as DRE and head of adult faith formation in a parish in Ann Arbor, Mich., ministered to University of Michigan students, and worked in a Dominican retreat house in McLean, Va. Near her order’s motherhouse in Sparkill, N.Y., she served as director of campus ministry at St. Thomas Aquinas College, and for 28 years in Jerusalem House of Prayer. 

Sister Catherine, who last month celebrated 47 years as a religious, earned a bachelor’s degree in education and speech from the State University of N.Y., New Paltz; a master’s degree in spirituality and spiritual direction from Fordham University, Bronx, N.Y., and a doctorate in ministry from the New York Theological Seminary, in New York. 

Looking back upon her diverse list of assignments, Sister Catherine reflected, “I let life tell me what to study. It all seemed to flow together.  When I learned of this opening, my first in the Diocese of Trenton, I thought, ‘I think this is it.’”

Sister Catherine eagerly anticipates leading her team of catechists in molding the Catholic faith foundation of
St. David the King’s 500 students. “Faith provides an essential life component. When everything else fails, it endures. But, don’t call it ‘education,’” she gently admonishes.

“When you say ‘education,’ it implies that you graduate, that it ends,” Sister Catherine explained. “It’s a lifelong, growing relationship with God. The main thrust is hope and prayer.”