Voices: Notes from the Agape Community

In Memoriam: Nina Anderson

Nina, long time Agape friend, supporter, and neighbor died November 13th after a long illness with cancer. Nina was a mystical soul who expressed her spiritual vision through her poetry. With her long-departed soul-friend poet Rich Bachtold, Nina and Rich were twin stars shining a mystic light on Agape.

Nina attended St. Francis and Brigid Days, and Advent Vigil where her joyful presence brought all of us her playful joie de vivre. We will miss her compassion for people as an empath. In his grief and loss, her husband Peter said: “I always have Agape!” and yes, he does. Nina faces her own passing in her poem “Consciousness Rhythms”:  “There is no death… be joyful in life’s moments of eternity.” Rest in mystical peace dear Nina.

Fr. Tom Massaro, SJ, Fordham University, Department of Theology:

I am heartened by the anti-death work of Agape and the Catholic Mobilizing Network, led by my friend and former student Krisanne Vaillancourt, who is publicizing the horror of this horrible string of executions directed by the Trump administration. Let us hope that federal policy changes definitively with a new administration, though it comes too late for these inmates and children of God.  Keep the flame of hope alive.

Bill Beardslee, friend of Agape, before Agape, writes:

While I always felt there was a dark underbelly to the dragon, I never imagined it would show the way it has in our country these past number of years. It’s like the Beast gained permission to be unleashed. It has wreaked havoc beyond imagining.

In Memoriam, Sr. Marie Dugas, SSA

Sr.  Marie was a committed to the nonviolent Jesus in a myriad number of ways.  Supporter of Agape with prayer, Sr. Marie and Sisters of St. Anne, have stood with Agape in front of Boston’s State House every Good Friday in protest of the death penalty.