The Charles De Koninck Project
Doran, M. Verda Clare (C.S.C.)
1947
On the Goodness of Created Things
Sr. Doran’s dissertation is a two-part work of translation with commentary. The first part translates the Commentary on the Hebdomads of Boethius and the De Veritate, q. 21 of Aquinas, as well as John of St. Thomas’s Cursus Theologicus, t. 1, disp. 6, a. 3. The second part, “Marginal Notes to the De Hebdomadibus: Whether Every Thing That Is, Is Good,” contains the commentary. The dissertation was published in excerpts in the Laval journal.
Photo Permission: CSC Archives
Sr. Doran (1902–1987) was a Holy Cross Sister who graduated from St. Mary’s College in 1923, entered the order in 1926, and earned master’s degrees from the University of Notre Dame in both French and philosophy. She not only studied at Laval, but also at the Sorbonne. She returned to South Bend, IN, and taught at Saint Mary’s Academy, Saint Mary’s College (where she was vice-president for six years), and at Notre Dame. It was during the time that she served as Vice-President of Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, Indiana that she translated a two-volume work on Carmelite Spirituality by Pere Marie-Eugene, OCD, I Want to See God and I Am a Daughter of the Church.
She also taught at and was president of the now-defunct Cardinal Cushing College (Brookline, MA). When assigned there in 1954, the college was only two years old. She not only expanded the college physically but expanded the liberal arts program from a two year one to a four year one. From 1961–1969 she served as Midwest Provincial Superior and in 1975–1978 as Midwest Regional Councilor for the Congregation.
Following a year of study in the Holy Land at the École Biblique (1969–1970), she was engaged in helping the Congregation with renewal programs of Scripture and the teaching of Scripture and prayer, which she dearly loved.
Before her retirement in 1978, she worked from 1972–1975 at Thomas Aquinas College, as Administrative Assistant for Women Students, when the college was still located in Calabasas, CA.
(The Project thanks Sr. Joanne Becker, CSC, Assistant Achivist, Sisters of the Holy Cross Archives & Records, Notre Dame, IN, for her contributions to this record.)
Select Bibliography
“Whether Everything That Is, Is Good : Marginal Notes on St. Thomas’s Exposition of Boethius’s De Hebdomadibus (I).” Laval théologique et philosophique 3, no. 1 (1947): 66–76. https://doi.org/10.7202/1019780ar.
“Whether Everything That Is, Is Good : Marginal Notes on St. Thomas’s Exposition of Boethius’s De Hebdomadibus (II).” Laval théologique et philosophique 3, no. 2 (1947): 177–94. https://doi.org/10.7202/1019789ar.
“Whether Everything That Is, Is Good : Marginal Notes on St. Thomas’s Exposition of Boethius’s De Hebdomadibus (III).” Laval théologique et philosophique 5, no. 1 (1949): 119–40. https://doi.org/10.7202/1019819ar.
Philippe, O.P., Thomas. The Fire of Contemplation: A Guide for Interior Souls. Translated by M. Verda Clare Doran, C.S.C. New York: Alba House, 1981. [link]
Marie-Eugène de l'Enfant-Jésus, O.C.D. I Want to See God: A Practical Synthesis of Carmelite Spirituality, Volume I. Translated by M. Verda Clare Doran, C.S.C. Allen, TX: Christian Classics, 1997 [1953]. [link]
———. I Am a Daughter of the Church: A Practical Synthesis of Carmelite Spirituality, Volume II. Translated by M. Verda Clare Doran, C.S.C. Allen, TX: Christian Classics, 1997 [1955]. [link]
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Note: The work New Realism in the Light of Scholasticism (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926), was written by a different Sr. Mary Verda, C.S.C., who died in 1942. (This other book is reviewed here in the old Dominicana journal.)