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August 6, 2018, Adrian, Michigan – In an atmosphere of great joy and celebration, Sister Katherine Frazier, OP, made her First Profession of Vows August 5, 2018, in St. Catherine Chapel, which was packed with Adrian Dominican Sisters and Associates, Dominican Sisters from other Congregations, family members, and friends.
| NOTE: The video of the First Profession is at the very bottom of this article. |
During the Rite of Profession, Sister Patricia Siemen, OP, Prioress of the Congregation, formally examined Sister Katherine on her willingness and readiness to “unite [herself] more closely to God by a bond of religious profession.” Sister Katherine then stated her intent to profess vows with the Adrian Dominican Sisters to answer God’s call in her life.
“I desire to share faith and life with my Sisters and to carry into the world alongside them the mission of Jesus,” Sister Katherine said. “Having started this adventure three years ago as a candidate and then as a novice, I want to see where God is leading us next, trusting that God’s plans for the future are always good.”
After lying prostrate during the Litany of the Saints, Sister Katherine professed her vow, promising obedience to God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Dominic, Sister Patricia and her lawful successors. The Rite continued with the presentation of the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ logo to Sister Katherine and signing the profession documents by Sister Katherine; Sister Patricia; Father Greg Heille, OP, presider; and Sister Katherine’s two witnesses, Sister Joan Delaplane, OP, and Sister Mary Soher, OP.
“I am awed to have been called to the Adrian Dominican Sisters, and I am grateful for each Sister who has come into my life for being an example of loving and faithful service,” Sister Katherine wrote to members of the assembly. “I look forward to seeing what adventures God will lead us on in the future.”
Sister Katherine entered the Adrian Dominican Congregation in 2015 and spent her first year as a candidate, coming to know the Adrian Dominican Sisters better; studying the Congregation’s Constitution, history and identity; and ministering in Adrian and Detroit, Michigan, and in New Orleans, Louisiana. Sister Katherine spent the next year, her canonical novitiate year, at the Collaborative Dominican Novitiate in St. Louis, Missouri. In the past year, as a second-year novice, Sister Katherine studied at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
Sister Patricia Walter, OP, preached during the liturgy and focused on the message of the Gospel as an alternative vision to that of the dominant culture – and the role of preachers as “subversives,” people who preach a vision deeper than the message of popular culture. Basing her message on that of theologian Walter Brueggermann, Sister Patricia said when a culture understands the world without any reference to God, “what the preacher, what the faith community is called to do, is to help people to see, to notice, to name, to re-imagine the world as if God’s will counted, as if God is an actor in it. This is our good news, our truth, which is seen as fake and certainly as alternate. Preaching this is subversion.”
Just as the Israelites became people on a mission, and the disciples, in response to Jesus, became a people on a mission, Sister Patricia said, Sister Katherine’s call is to join a community on a mission, the Adrian Dominican Sisters, a community of the holy preaching, the Order of Preachers.
“The good news is that alternative reality, that alternative subversion, that vision of God’s reign and what the world would really be like if God’s will were done on Earth as it is in Heaven,” Sister Patricia said.
Sister Patricia added that St. Paul’s vision – that we are all part of one another – is also an alternative vision in our world today. “[This is] good news, the joy of living in mutual affection, with deep respect, with giving and receiving, with mutuality, with trying to discern the will of God: to rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer. This is a joyful invitation Paul gives us, a joyful imagining – so much better than being polarized.”
The older of the two daughters of Lee and Lynne (McKenna) Frazier, Sister Katherine hails from Fort Wayne, Indiana. At the time of her entrance, she had ministered as the coordinator of the Bishop Donald Trautman Catholic House at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Sister Katherine will minister in the area of Mission Integration at Regina Dominican High School, an all-girls school sponsored by the Adrian Dominican Sisters and located in Wilmette, Illinois. Her role will be to keep members of the Regina Dominican Community aware of and help them live out the Mission of the Congregation.
Sister Katherine begins her new life as a vowed Adrian Dominican Sister with a sense of optimism and hope. The Adrian Dominican Sisters “give me the gift of the example of their lives lived in the mission of God,” she said. “Their example of trusting in God’s provident care is a continual reminder that God’s plan for us is larger than we can imagine.”
As Sister Katherine looks to the future of religious life, she said, “I am confident in the foundations and work that has been done before me by Adrian Dominican Sisters and women religious from other congregations. Having met and had conversations with other younger women religious, I find hope because God continues to call us to work in the mission and that young men and women are still open to hearing this call.”
For more information on how you or a single Catholic woman in your life can become an Adrian Dominican Sister, please contact Sister Tarianne DeYonker, OP, at 517-266-3532 or tdeyonker@adriandominicans.org or Sister Mariane Fahlman, OP, at 517-266-3537 or mfahlman@adriandominicans.org. Information is also available at http://adriandominicans.org/BecomeaSister/EnteringtheLife.
July 26, 2018, St. Catharine, Kentucky – Dominican temporary professed Sisters are diverse in culture and nationality, but hold in common their search for their identity as women religious, living out that reality in the Dominican tradition.
That was one of the findings of Sister Marilín Llanes, OP, an Adrian Dominican Sister in temporary profession, who attended the fourth annual Gathering of Dominican Women: Temporary Professed Sisters and their Companions. The event, which drew 25 participants, was held July 1-4, 2018, at St. Catharine, Kentucky, site of the former Motherhouse of the Kentucky Dominican Sisters – now part of the Dominican Sisters of Peace. Participants included 14 temporary professed Dominican Sisters from nine congregations.
Sister Marilín attended the gathering along with two other Adrian Dominican Sisters: Sister Patricia Walter, OP, her companion on the continuing formation journey, and Sister Lorraine Réaume, OP, who will begin her position as Co-director of the Collaborative Dominican Novitiate in St. Louis, Missouri. Temporary professed Sisters have made their first profession of vows, their initial commitment to religious life, and are still discerning the call to their final, or perpetual, profession of vows.
Sister Marilín, who served on the planning committee for the event, said her hope in planning the weekend was that participants “would deepen our connections, our relationships with each other; that we would have opportunities to have fun together, as well as to have meaningful conversations and sharing that help us to continue to say that ‘yes’ every day.”
Each day began and ended with prayer, planned and led by the various congregations. The gathering also included a talk by guest speaker Sister Gloria Marie Jones, OP, a Mission San Jose Dominican Sister, on the Dominican Futuring Project, a collaborative effort between Dominicans in the United States and Africa. The schedule also included times for temporary professed and companions to meet in their respective groups and come together again to share the fruits of their meetings.
The temporary professed also discussed ways to maintain their connections, including designated, private social media that would keep Sisters connected even after they professed their perpetual vows. The annual meeting would continue to focus on temporary professed Sisters and their companions.
Even the shared free time offered participants the opportunity to deepen their connections. Sister Marilín noted that one evening focused on Dominican Jeopardy, in which questions focused on Dominican history, the lands of St. Dominic, and Dominican saints. “We were revisiting our Dominican history, and so there’s a sense of reverencing the past and honoring the present – and then being excited about the future,” she said.
The informal time together also gave the Sisters the opportunity to come to know each other. “In the evenings we just gathered around and shared our challenges in a very sincere and honest way, listening to each other but also sharing our own lived wisdom and challenges.”
Both Sisters Marilín and Pat were impressed by the diversity of the group – with participants representing U.S. Dominican Congregations but coming originally from diverse nations, including Korea, Indonesia, Hungary, the Philippines, Mexico, and Peru.
“It was rich,” Sister Marilín said. “We’re becoming much more of an international body. We’re joined by our Dominican charism and our Dominican way of life.”
“It was good just to meet the women and get a sense of the diversity of the multi-culturality, which really is our future, and to hear what the [temporary professed Sisters’] concerns were, what their challenges were,” Sister Pat said.
Adding to the sense of diversity was the presence of the Maryknoll Sisters, members of the Dominican family who serve primarily as missionaries outside of their home countries. The presence of the Maryknoll Sisters was a “great gift,” Sister Pat said. “They leave their home country and they won’t come back to it except to visit. They know they’ll be sent to other countries. We’re all missionaries, but they witness far more profoundly what it means to be itinerant.” Itinerancy, the willingness to change to a new ministry and a new location for the sake of the mission, is an integral part of Dominican spirituality.
Sister Pat, who recently took on her new role in formation as companion to the temporary professed Adrian Dominican Sisters, said the gathering was “very helpful for multiple reasons. I really appreciated meeting the women in temporary vows and was reinvigorated and refreshed by their commitment to the charism and by their passion, their zeal, their enthusiasm.” As companion and formator, Sister Pat will continue to walk with Sister Marilín and Sister Katherine Frazier, who will make her First Profession of Vows on August 5, 2018. “I’m delighted to continue being a conversation partner – another person to talk to them and provide continuity from the perspective of formation.”
She also came away from the gathering with a renewed sense of hope for religious life and for the Dominican Order. “My takeaway is that the Dominican family has a future,” she said. “The charism still speaks to women….It gives me hope for a future beyond my life.”
Temporary Professed Dominican Sisters and their Companions in formation gathered July 1-4, 2018, at St. Catharine, Kentucky.