Saturday, September 16, 2017

Beginnings - by Gina Scaringella





A month has passed since Rhonda and I arrived at the Collaborative Dominican Novitiate (CDN), and what a full month it has been! In August, we traveled to Ruma, Illinois, to see the eclipse. Next, we were off to Kentucky to see the “Holy Land,” where so much history of US women’s religious life resides. And we have just returned from Springfield, where we visited the Motherhouse, the Lincoln Museum and Library, and Jubilee Farm. We welcomed a panel of guests to dialogue with us about prayer, heard more about prayer from Fr. Don Goergen, OP, and even talked about prayer earlier this week during a house meeting. Yes, prayer, one of the four pillars of Dominican life, is essential enough to warrant discussion at a house meeting that also featured such practical topics as the calendar for the next two months and which sisters have an AAA membership! It can be tempting for busy novices like Rhonda and me to put personal prayer on the back burner when homework, classes, house chores, ministry, communal meals, communal prayer, travel, house meetings, and other commitments fill our days. But for us at the CDN, as for all who hope to live and preach the Gospel, personal prayer is indispensable. Time and again, we are called to know (and to live!) this truth. A primary purpose of this year is to grow in our lives of prayer, so that prayer will become the bedrock of the rest of our lives.

Rhonda and I have both begun our ministries—she as a teaching assistant at Marian Middle School, and I as an English-language tutor for a young immigrant woman. We've begun classes at Aquinas Institute. Both our Vowed Life class and Foundations of Preaching class have inspired dinner-table conversation and reflection on life, relationships, and ministry.
We've met our novice peers and their directors at the Inter-Community Novitiate (ICN), a carefully designed collaboration of various orders and congregations who come together weekly to share the formation journey. We’ve heard that ICN has been a highlight for previous novices, and we look forward to walking the path of discernment with this new community.

This blog entry, which lists only some of our many activities, demonstrates the fullness of our days. But our days are not the only things that are full! Our mailboxes (literal and electronic) are full, thanks to our sisters at home as well as family and friends. Because of your faithfulness, our hearts are full, too. We thank you, we hold you in prayer, and we send our love!

8 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing and yes to always carving out time for personal prayer no matter how overwhelming and "busy" of a schedule the novitiate program can be. Holding you both in my heart and you deepen on your journey. Know of my prayers.

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  2. Thank you for sharing your progress. I just happened to catch your Reception into Noviate Gina, but you made an impact on me with some issues I've been struggling with. By your sharing that day, you alleviating some of the ills that pained me, and you now have this stranger remembering you in prayer each day. Continue to walk the path you've be graced with; you'll be doing it for me and others like me who for one reason or another didn't make that road. But at 57, I'm finally out of the holding pattern I was in and am moving forward (we make plans, God laughs! [Then He moves us 900 miles away and sticks us with a community He wants us at...] at an older age no less ). God bless you both!

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  3. What a wonderful reflection, Gina! May you continue to experience all the ways in which the activity of this graced year becomes integrated and one with your prayer life, deepening this soul journey you are on! Know that you, Rhonda, Joye and Megan are in my daily prayers...

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  4. As the days continue you will experience that each of the pillars will interplay with each other...that won't be happenstance but Providence. Enjoy the days ahead and make certain that prayer is found in your recreation as well. Know that you all are in my prayers.

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  5. Many blessings as you continue to walk this sacred year. Thanks for your sharing! We all hold you in prayer!

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  6. Thank you for your reflection, Gina! I truly enjoyed meeting you and Rhonda when you visited us in St.Catharine, Kentucky. May your time in CDN be an abundant blessing! (I, too, am one of those women who entered a bit later in life!) (BTW, the photo is of Dayzee T. Clown (my clown persona)!

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  7. Sending love and thanking you for your lovely reflection! Keep it up sister!!!! and HAPPY Birthday Gina!!!!

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  8. Thanks for sharing your experience. You are in my thoughts and prayers.

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