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The OP after our names stands for “Order of Preachers,” the formal name of the religious order founded in 1216 by St. Dominic. As Dominicans, we preach with our lives—in both word and deed—guided by a search for truth (veritas) and a commitment to contemplate and share the fruits of our contemplation (contemplate et aliis tradere).
Our Dominican lives are shaped by the interconnecting movements of study, prayer, communal life, and ministry.
Dominic so firmly believed in the importance of study to the preaching mission that he provided a rule of “dispensation” from other responsibilities in the event they interfered with study. We are women committed to study. Through prayer and contemplation we interiorize our learnings and enter into communion with the Source of all truth. Our communal life orients us to the common good of the whole Earth community. And in ministry, our preaching takes effect.
As women of the Gospel, our preaching is also expressed in word. Read reflections on the Word of God posted by Adrian Dominican Sisters and Associates on the Praedicare Blog below.
Sunday, March 31, 2024 John 20:1-18
Good morning, everyone!
Today’s Gospel shows the reversal of an androcentric world thinking of male dominance even in the interpretation of grace. This world thinking of male dominance was not patronized by Jesus in today’s gospel. In fact, the narrative pictured Mary in the beginning and at the end of the Gospel. As related earlier in the Gospel, Mary “bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels….” In the commentary, Barbara Reid says that Mary’s action “symbolizes one who dares to enter the Holy of Holies, an act reserved for high priests.” It will not escape our minds that Jesus, on that Resurrection morning, chose to manifest himself to a woman of no-good standing based on the thinking of her very own community. This preference of Jesus, of revealing himself to Mary Magdalene early on that Easter Sunday, was an act of absolute respect for women, no matter their social condition.
Pope Francis in the synthesis of the Synod on Synodality urges people throughout the world to stop “referring to women as the problem,” hence stop the androcentric notion that men have the profound truth and women come secondary, or [not] at all.
The recently concluded UN Conference on the Status of Women, attended in person by over 6,000 women and men, religious and lay, and [attended] virtually by over 15,000 women all over the world, echo the hard reality of women and girls who have been victims of domestic violence in all its forms.
Like Jesus, who showed absolute importance to women, like Pope Francis, who is urging humanity that women are gifts to this universe and not a “problem,” the Conference on the Status of Women is calling people of goodwill to heed the suffering of women. This global issue is more horrific when the abuse happens inside the confines of their own homes.
What lesson can we draw from this example of Jesus’s regard of women? The UN Conference on the Status of Women calls for the development of women in ways where they are uplifted financially, socially, culturally, and spiritually, so they are able to function as individuals with so many gifts to give to the world. Jesus uplifted Mary Magdalene’s socio/cultural image by appearing first to her and [having her] be the messenger to the disciples that he “will go ahead of them to Galilee” and meet them there. These women in that conference and all the unfortunate women whose issues they have taken to the UN dared to enter the “Holy of Holies” in that premises where voices of nations [are laid out] to be heard. In the Gospel today, Jesus lifted Mary Magdalene. He heard her heart beating and [her] longing for compassion from her community. While nobody braved to take her as one of their own, Jesus gave compassion to her. That changed Mary Magdalene for the better.
Mary did not witness how the resurrection happened, but when “she saw the stone had been removed from the tomb” she was the first to tell the disciples that Jesus’s body is nowhere to be found. In the Gospel of Mark, the angel inside the tomb told Mary Magdalene and the other women with her to “tell his disciples that Jesus will see them in Galilee.” In today’s Gospel, it was Jesus himself who told her to tell his disciples that he “will go ahead of them to Galilee” and meet them there. The appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalene after he rose from the dead indicates how women are indispensable proclaimers of the Good News.
In the UN Conference on the Status of Women this year, the message was clear, the world needs to seriously consider the cause of women with urgency. This urgency was proclaimed by those women who either in-person or virtually attended the conference. Some of these women were victims and survivors of the abuse from inside and outside their homes. This urgency, if taken most importantly, will help alleviate the sufferings of women from the confines of the home and from the treacherous manipulations of those who are engaged in human trafficking. On many occasions, women are trafficked by their own families, their own intimate partners, and by people whose heart and mind are focused on profit.
The Gospel today is the Good News. It is the Good News of Jesus’s love for everyone, including women. The resurrection account testifies to that love, that unconditional love where everyone claims their special place in the heart of God, and the promise of Jesus meeting us in our own Galilees, whoever we are. Allowing us to dare to enter the “Holy of Holies” reserved for everybody, can be a radical call to live our life today.
Happy Easter!
Saturday, March 30, 2024 Mark 16:1-7
And so it is that women were the first to witness that Jesus was raised. Women who had followed Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem. Women who stood by him at the foot of the cross through his passion and death. Women who waited for his body to be taken down to see where he was laid. Women who rose early the next morning and set out when the sun had risen to anoint his body.
The scandal of Jesus’ death by the shame and disgrace of crucifixion is matched by the scandal of women being commissioned to testify to his resurrection.
The young man in the tomb, dressed in a white robe, said to the women, “Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee, there you will see him, just as he told you.”
The words “just as he told you” suggest that Mary Magdalene, Mary, and Salome were also at the Mount of Olives with Jesus and his disciples two days earlier. It was then, right after the Last Supper, that Jesus told his disciples, “After I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”
They were there, along with the disciples, being told those words. Don’t you think it’s likely that, right before this, they were also there at the Last Supper? Can you imagine any meal served in those days without women?
As our Church prepares for the second session of the Synod Assembly this fall, a key question pressing from around the world concerns the role of women in our Church. As we gather in conversation circles and submit our thoughts and input on this synodal journey, we can say that from Mary’s “yes” to being our Theotokos to Mary Magdalene’s being commissioned as the Apostle to the Apostles, women have been central to the Divine plan of incarnate Love.
A very large stone was rolled away from the tomb, making it possible for the women to enter and be commissioned to share the astonishing resurrection news. Perhaps on this synodal journey a very large stone will be rolled away from our beloved Church doors, making it possible for all the People of God to enter, fully functioning, as a discipleship of equals.1
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1 I’m grateful to Thea Bowman, FSPA, for her understanding of what it means to enter the Church as a “fully functioning” Black Catholic woman, and to Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza for her feminist theology of liberation, Discipleship of Equals.
Friday, March 29, 2024 Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12 Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9 John 18:1 - 19:42
How can someone be so powerful and so vulnerable at the same time?
Jesus is very clear who he is: "I am! I am!" he declares twice. No one intimidates him, even as his body and life are threatened. He is completely grounded in his identity and his mission, “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” He cares for those he will be leaving behind – uniting all disciples as his siblings, and with his mother. John portrays Jesus as very much in charge, even though he is being unfairly judged, his friends have abandoned him, he is being tortured, and then killed. Jesus decides when “It is finished.”
We have a lot coming at us that we don’t have control over: Our aging process, our health changes, loss of friends, uncertainty about the future of religious life, and the future of this country. We can be quite overwhelmed by global events that impact so many in this world.
Yet, we are not called to see ourselves as powerless victims. Like Jesus, we have a mission. As Dominicans, we too are here to “testify to the truth” – the truth of God’s love, the truth of the value of each human life, the truth that “what appears to be a death will be transformed into a birth.” (Wisdom Commentary John, pg. 475)
Jesus models for us how to stay true to our call, our purpose, until our last breath. We may do this through our witness of patience and acceptance as we deal with new and challenging realities, or in how we care for the other sisters and coworkers around us, or through our generous service, or in our faithful prayer.
No one here, at this moment, can say “It is finished.” We are still breathing.
As we approach to venerate the cross today, bring what is weighing heaviest on you, and ask Jesus for the grace to carry it, grounded in your identity and your mission.
We can claim Christ’s power in our vulnerability, a power that radiates out from the suffering of each moment and promises new and unimaginable resurrected life.
That divine cosmic power is never finished.
Thursday, March 28, 2024 Exodus 12:1-14 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 John 13:1-15
Tonight we gather on this most holy night which begins the Triduum – the sacred three days that mark our faith. In the Gospel, it is, as John says, the festival of Passover and Jesus knows his hour has come.
This is the climax of a life lived in faithfulness to God who called him into public ministry with the words “You are my son/my child in whom I am delighted.“
No doubt these words were a game changer for Jesus. And indeed, he changed the game. Time and again he broke rules, broke protocol, and upset the status quo. He challenged anyone or anything that diminished life.
He did this knowing he was loved by God and he chose to bring the fullness of that love to others, no matter the cost.
And on this night with his disciples, he knew his hour had come. He had to make this moment count. One last time, he needed his disciples to understand and embrace his world, his ministry, his work – not as followers or disciples, but as one with him. As friends. As a Beloved Community.
It was his time – once and for all – to act one more time in a way that showed his disciples God’s kingdom was breaking in and they would be full participants in this.
And so, he washes their feet. He upsets the status quo. He breaks the rules. He the teacher, the leader, the chosen one – upsets the way things are supposed to be. And they object. We hear Peter object, and I dare say the others did as well. This is discomforting for them.
As Beatrice Bruteau indicates in her book Holy Thursday Revolution, the disciples liked things the way things were. Jesus did the heavy lifting and they were behind him all the way.
Jesus, however, does not agree with this, and so he chooses tonight to once and for all show them another way. Recognizing their discomfort, he does what he has always done; he extends a loving and affirming invitation. Whatever I can do, you can also do. You can break boundaries, you can expand vision, you can wash feet, you can eat of my body and drink of my blood and be fully in me and in the One who sent me. You can for I am with you.
As Bruteau says about Jesus’ actions, they are meant to tell us that "The power of God is vested in you – hidden in you, perhaps, but it is there. Believe in it, let it shine!"
As we now re-enact the washing of feet, I invite us to take this time to feel the power of God in us, to allow what is hidden to come forth, to prepare ourselves for the sharing of the Eucharist where we enter fully into the being of Jesus.
This night is indeed a revolution – a revolution of love so needed in our world.
Sunday, March 24, 2024 John 12:12-16
Good morning! Here it is Palm Sunday and it was exactly three months ago that we celebrated a glorious Christmas Eve liturgy. Our liturgical year, in conjunction with the activity of our full moon in the wonders of creation, keeps us on the move. So it was with Jesus as he fulfilled the words of Zechariah and rode as a king — but a king soon to be humiliated and dethroned.
Much like a rerun on television, we know the story. Jesus was treated like a king, highly praised. And we barely process into chapel and take our places when we hear of Jesus’ suffering and death. There is no time to reminisce about Jesus’ good works or his exhortations to be aware of those unjustly treated. It is over and done — liturgically — for today.
But I was curious about what happened when Jesus’ parade ended, so I took a look at the passages following. And that’s when Jesus tells the people that it is time to face the reality of his earthly passing. “Unless a grain of wheat dies, it remains a grain of wheat.” “Those who love their lives, lose their lives.” “If you want to serve me, follow me.” We, ourselves, have taken those little snippets to heart and have written them on holy cards or on small plaques in our rooms or maybe highlighted them in our New Testaments. They are signs to us that we want to die to self in order to be as generous as we can with the gifts, talents, and abilities that we have.
So perhaps you would like to take your palm frond and, conscious of a person, an issue, a location in the world needing your prayerful generosity, write that name, issue, location on the palm. Then as you journey this week through remembrances of service, suffering and death, may you be especially mindful of your palm and the hope that it represents both for you and for those for whom you pray. United in the all-encompassing love of Jesus’ generosity, our week will be holy.
Monday, January 1, 2024 Numbers 6:22-27 Galatians 4:4-7 Luke 2:16-21
Good Morning and Happy New Year! Our New Year greeting and wishes for you are simple, taken right from this morning’s Book of Numbers: May our God bless you and keep you – and give you peace. May it be so all through 2024.
This year I had some kind of revelation as I was struck that we celebrate two feasts of Mary in December – The Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe – and then January always begins with a celebration of Mary, the Mother of God. In fact, in our Church, there are eighteen Marian feast days, and these do not include the numerous special regional feasts that occur annually.
So, why is this? I believe that Divine Creation needed human intervention and a partner to get the job done in the work of bringing the Light of truth and justice and love into the world. That partner was Mary, who was truly a co-creator of “Love Forever Being Born,” which is a title by artist Kelly Latimore for his beautiful icon of Mary. Love Forever Being Born.
Let’s think about partners today. There are life partners, business partners, partners in mission, card and game partners, next-door-neighbor partners, table partners, organizational partners, local community partners, General Council and Leadership Council partners, coalition partners, prayer partners – all trying to get the job done, whatever that job might be. We cannot exist without partners. They need us and we need them. It is impossible to do all the jobs and all the tasks in isolation.
Partners share values, mission, vision. They may not share those values or visions when the partnership begins, but they grow into it, just as Mary did. She pondered these things in her heart from the moment she was asked to be a partner until the moment the earthly partnership ended.
When we observe and ponder the partnership of the Divine Creator and Mary, we are awed by the outcome. As we begin a new year, as we celebrate Mary, it is so valuable for us to ponder our own various partnerships — whether with humans or the divine. What are the gifts that we bring to those partnerships? What are the gifts that we receive from those partnerships? What love and energy for a better Earth community are born from those partnerships? May our first resolution of the new year be a commitment to being a strong and faithful partner – as was Mary, the Mother of God.
Sunday, December 31, 2023 Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14 Hebrews 11:8, 11-12, 17-19 Luke 2:22-40
On this day – the Feast of the Holy Family – we continue to be in the days of incarnation, a time of promises fulfilled. In these days there is rejoicing and celebration as families gather for the holiday with feasting, gifting, and remembering.
We have also seen and have been reminded of the other side of life:
The horrors of continued warfare as mothers hold their young ones, desperate and sobbing.
We see and hear of the families making the dangerous journey from the south to the north, clinging to the hope of a better life for their children.
These are all families, families beloved by God. They are – along with Mary, Joseph, and the child, Jesus – Holy Families seeking to live faithfully in their own places, in their own times.
The long-awaited coming of the Prince of Peace, however, has yet to bring forth the fullness of life and peace.
So still we wait. And still we pray.
Mother Teresa once said, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
A simple yet profound statement: “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
We belong not just to our immediate family or to one another here as we gather in this chapel as Sisters and friends.
When Mother Teresa says we belong to each other, I believe she is referring to the vastness of the ones numbered in the sky as Abraham looked up as God directed him. God’s vision on that night with Abraham and Sara was of a family whose numbers were too many to count. The Holy Family on that evening was the vastness of the universe created in love.
It was into this “most holy family” that God became incarnate and yet the world has yet to embrace this. Peace is elusive as we dwell and struggle in the divide of our differences rather than reaching across in the common bond of belonging.
Today, like the child Jesus wrapped in the loving embrace of Joseph and Mary, we are called to grow in wisdom, to enlarge our vision and realize that this feast of the Holy Family celebrates the holy family as the Global Community/Family gathered in one-ness, standing side by side, rich in diversity and expression, praying for, working toward, and cultivating peace so that our children and the children of all creatures great and small may have life in abundance.
This is God’s promise and vision. It is the promise and vision that we work toward in whatever faithful, inspiring, creative, and courageous way as it comes to our doorstep.
Mary and Joseph received those promises and responded as they received into their hearts and home a child of mystery, a child leading them into an unknown future. They fulfilled their obligations and brought home with them a child who would grow in wisdom and become strong and be favored by God.
Is this not the hope of every parent?
In our world – broken and fractured in so many ways – is this hope for our children merely a fairy tale ending? Hoped for but not truly possible for all? Or are we being asked to enter more deeply into the promise and the mystery of being a holy family, bound together in one-ness? A Holy Family – a universe – connected in and through love.
May we enter into this final week of the Christmas season and beyond returning home with Mary and Joseph and the child Jesus to Nazareth. May we grow in wisdom – as we come to see that we belong to each other.
And in this belonging, God’s peace fills our world.
Monday, December 25, 2023 Isaiah 52:7-10 Hebrews 1:1-6 John 1:1-18
At Christmas time, we enjoy the traditional images of the baby Jesus in a manger, with Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the wisemen, the angels, and an assortment of animals. For 800 years that has been our traditional Christmas image, thanks to St. Francis who created the first creche scene.
And yet for some reason the church chooses this very distinct Gospel from John that begins not in a manger, but in the beginning of time and space. We could even call it the cosmic creche.
Why do we have this unusual reading that does not match the images on our Christmas cards at all?
Perhaps because it offers us the bigger picture and the deeper reality of Christ. And the bigger picture and the deeper reality of ourselves and all creation.
It reminds us of Genesis – "In the beginning" – so this is about God’s creation. And what was there? The Word! Remember, in Genesis, it was simply by speaking that God brought all elements of life into being. That’s the same active Word here – a Word that makes things happen! A Word also known as Wisdom.
Light and life and love come into being at the beginning of time. That means us, too. In our human perception, we know that this process began about 13.8 billion years ago. The force of life that God imbued into the universe led to all that has appeared, including us.
Unlike a manger scene, it’s not easy to grasp. I think in recent years, we’ve had a taste of the beauty and power of that Genesis through images we’ve seen from the Hubble telescope, truly stunning and magnificent images.
And yet, here we are on and with Earth, where we live out our lives. And to help us understand the power of connection and love, God became flesh, part of creation. The eternal Word took on the form of a human being who pitched his tent among us, who experienced the world as we do, limited by space and time.
The one who sustains the universe accepted the limits of being a creature in need of food, love, family, and sleep and who experienced disappointments, joys, and suffering. The Word “gets us.” And the incarnate Word shows us how to live and love.
Jesus announced good news, even as he lived in an occupied land, even as so many suffered from illness or rejection around him, even as he was condemned. He brought healing, hope, and salvation and encountered others with profound love and compassion. He was always connected to the source of life and love which is not limited by time and space.
We certainly can get discouraged when we see the struggles in our world and our Earth community. Our hearts ache so much we may be tempted to look away or escape. And yet, deep down, we know there is something bigger that holds us all, that is beyond time and space, and when we connect with that divine force, we too can bring good news with our beautiful feet, like Isaiah says.
I came across a quote that touched me: “The Word spoken in love into the world inscribes a power of self-giving love into the structure of the universe.”
Our invitation is to hold on to the power of self-giving love and to share it wherever and however we can in the world right around us.
The cosmic Christ and the human Jesus have the same message – all is imbued with love, with connection, with relationship, with self-giving.
We experience it in some particular ways in our time here on Earth. And we know there is a golden thread that carries throughout and beyond all time and space that we can hold on to and trust.
The love that stirs in our hearts as we see a little baby in a manger is the same love that permeates the universe.
That’s the love we are called to bring into this hurting world – not denying the negative, just as Jesus did not, but recognizing the power of God from the beginning that still sustains all and draws our entire cosmos forward in love.
For our time on Earth, may we join in that spirit of love and, though our feet may not be so steady, or smooth, we can be assured that they are still beautiful when they bring good news.
Merry Christmas!
Sunday, December 24, 2023 Isaiah 9:1-6 Titus 2:11-14 Luke 2:1-14
“Divine Love Becomes Incarnate.”
That’s the wonderful title of the chapter in a new commentary that begins with today’s Gospel. The commentary is part of a marvelous new series offering a feminist interpretation for every book of the Bible. It’s titled, Wisdom Commentary, and its editor and co-author is our Grand Rapids Dominican Sister Barbara E. Reid, OP.
Divine Love Becomes Incarnate. Isn’t that precisely what we hold in wonder and awe in our hearts every year at this time? That God so loved the world as to incarnate Divine Love, taking on human flesh – flesh conceived in a woman’s womb, where the alchemy of life forged over billions of years of evolution is recapitulated in one cell after another, with elements made from stardust. It’s no different than the way each one of us became flesh in our own mother’s wombs, growing from atoms to cells to limbs with the same cosmic stuff that made frogs and whales, sparrows and elephants.
In a remarkable poem, Gerard Manley Hopkins compares Mary, the Mother of God, to the air we breathe “which by life’s law my lung must draw and draw.” The very air we breathe reminds him of her who, he writes, “gave God’s infinity dwindled to infancy welcome in womb and breast, birth, milk and all the rest.” It was “Of her flesh he took flesh.”
These tangible details and others we find in today’s Gospel are not insignificant. They speak of God’s intent and the meaning of the incarnation.
As Luke tells the story, God’s infinity was dwindled to infancy in the womb of what we know from biblical scholars and Scripture was a poor and astonished Jewish girl. The infant Jesus was born to her and her accepting fiancé as they made the journey away from home to take a census required by the oppressive Roman empire for purposes of economic exploitation. They could not find shelter, so Mary gave birth to the infant in a stall for animals and then laid him in a manger, which is a feeding trough. The Divine revelation of this extraordinary birth came not to Caesar Augustus but to shepherds, who in those days were women as well as men, out in the fields tending their flock at night.
Over the years we have taken all the harsh edges off this story, depicting it in beautiful and charming nativity scenes. No shepherds that smell like the sheep. No signs of Mary’s hours of pain in labor. No evidence of the hunger of poverty or the persistent fear of violent oppressors. These are all tangible realities of the time and place into which Divine Love became incarnate.
That is why an image now circulating around the Internet is so piercing in its truth-telling. It’s an image of Mary and Joseph watching over the infant Jesus, lying on a pile of rubble in the Holy Land, surrounded by bombed-out, collapsing buildings. The image speaks of the truth of the unutterable horror of war – and of it being the probable site of Divine Love incarnate today.
As God’s infinity dwindled into infancy and became flesh in Mary’s body more than 2,000 years ago, so has God’s infinity dwindled into each one of us as the ever-present light of Christ. The Prince of Peace we await is alive within each one of us, awaiting the way we – each in our own tangible particularity – will give birth to peace on Earth.
We heard it said years ago in Medellín: “Peace is not found, it is built.”
And so as we celebrate this beautiful Christmas Eve, when Mary is tending God’s infinity dwindled into infancy, let us call on her to help us tend that Divine Love incarnate within our own hearts so that together we can build the peace we all long for in our beloved Earth home.
Perhaps we can join with Gerard Manley Hopkins in the prayer to Mary he wrote in closing his poem:
Be thou then, thou dear Mother, my atmosphere; … Stir in my ears, speak there Of God’s love, O live air, Of patience, penance, prayer: World-mothering air, air wild, Wound with thee, in thee isled, Fold home, fast fold thy child.
Tuesday, August 8, 2023 Isaiah 52:7-10 2 Timothy 4:1-8 Matthew 5:13-19
We place upon your table a gleaming cloth of white: The weaving of our stories, the fabric of our lives; The dreams of those before us, the ancient hopeful cries, The promise of our future: our needing and our nurture lie here before our eyes.
- "We Come to Your Feast," song by Michael Joncas
At any time during meals or even during physical therapy, you can hear family stories being told about people’s grandparents, parents, or siblings. Some are serious, some are comical, and some have been embellished through the years. What all the family stories have in common is they try to relate what was important to that family. Stories reveal values and priorities of how life was to be lived.
Dominic left us family stories. He did not leave behind books or documents. The stories we have evoke wonder and not explanation. So I thought today I would relate a few of those stories and look at what values they reflect, and then consider "what is our living legacy of Dominican stories?"
There are three characteristics Dominic would want us to remember in listening to these stories:
The final line of the Gospel, “Know that I am with you always until the end of the world,” was something Dominic trusted to be very true. He trusted God was and always would be with him in any circumstance of his life. As he prayed overlooking the valley of Prouhile and saw a ball of fire, he trusted this was God’s inspiration to begin the Order of Preachers. He continued to trust in God as he sent the friars out two by two all over, trusting in the gratuitousness of God’s love and mercy to guide and protect them. And then we know his invitation to women and men, married and single, to be a part of this new group was complete trust that God would see it flourish. In doing so Dominic established a full lay ecclesial community.
The second characteristic is tenderness with others. Isaiah’s reading reminds us of Dominic’s journeys. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings.” As Dominic walked up and down roads leading to many cities he encountered many people. He saw the poor begging along the road side as he carried his books of learning. That’s when we hear the story of Dominic saying, “How can I study from these costly books made from the skin of animals while the people I pass do not have enough to eat?” I like to always think he learned this kind of tenderness from his mother, who we will recall gave the best wine from the family wine cellar to those who came to the door begging.
Dominic was tender with the friars also. Each superior was empowered to dispense the friars from any particular requirement of the rule which might interfere with the work of saving souls. Hence a friar could miss prayers if he had to study for preaching. There is another story of a novice who had some issues and was brought to Dominic asking him to dismiss him. After a dialogue with the novice Dominic said we need to give him a second chance.
The third characteristic is truthfulness with himself. The second letter of Timothy reflects well Dominic’s sense of self: “Preach the word, stay with the task convenient or not, be steady and self-possessed.” We can only imagine his many conversations with the Albigensians who were so confused about their faith. We remember the story of the innkeeper and Dominic staying up all night till he helped him see the truth.
So what is our legacy of stories that we have to tell? To people like Jamie, who will be joining us as a candidate in September; to or our Sisters under 70; or to our Associates, Co-workers, and Partners in Mission? Or today on this feast, what Dominican family stories do you have to share at lunch or supper? Especially over a nice glass of wine or sparkling water! Dominic’s mother would be happy to see that!
What story of trust in God would be important for you to share that would be helpful to someone struggling with trust?
And from your many ministerial experiences: What do you remember about your tenderness with others, or giving someone a second chance?
And perhaps something more personal: How you were truthful with your self and how did this lead to a deepening of your Dominican vocation?
The author Amy Tan wrote, “The path of our lives is the stories that we remember.” The path of our lives is revealed in our Dominican family stories that are as interesting and fascinating -- if not as humorous -- as our own family stories that we remember.
People want to know:
Dominic left us a living legacy in each other. Its legacy continues to shape us.
Holy Father Dominic,
We place upon our table a gleaming cloth of white: The weaving of our stories, the fabric of our lives; The dreams of those before us, the ancient hopeful cries, The promise of our future: our needing and our nurture lie here before our eyes.
Let us celebrate that today as Sisters, to one another and to our many friends!
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