To all who have supported and walked with us on this novitiate journey:
May God Creator bless you,
May God Redeemer heal you,
and May God the Holy Spirit fill you with light.
Peace and blessings,
Sisters Shingai, Terri, Paula, Elyse, Julie, Angela, and Teresa
by Paula Danforth
We were told ahead of time to have an idea of what we wanted to accomplish and share that with our spiritual director for the week. It was also suggested that we not be too surprised when the Holy Spirit considered our agendas, giggled, and totally sent us down a different path for the week. Well, that was not the exact wording but the sentiment was similar in my recollection. That is exactly what happened for me. I did not have a specific agenda and was open to where the Spirit would lead.
This week the Holy Spirit was more like crashing surf plowing loudly into the shoreline than a calm white dove gently leading me along in comfort and ease...Seems God had a great deal of trust in my capacity for learning this week. Silly me for being open and having no plan of my own to follow.
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I went for a walk and stopped in a boggy section of the property and a little face peeked up from under the bridge I was standing on. He popped up again through the grate of the bridge and then dipped under again. He got brave and jumped up on the rail side of the bridge. He ran toward me but stopped about five feet away from me. He seemed to be assessing the situation. Could he cross the bridge with me on it. I stood very still but he turned around and ran back to shore. He tried again, this time coming within three feet of my shoes. He looked around and hightailed it back to the shore again and promptly hopped down onto a fallen log and used that for a path instead of crossing the bridge around me. He did make it to the other shore.
My director for the week seemed to know exactly how to challenge me. The very first day she reminded me of John 21:15-17 where Jesus asks Simon Peter three times if he loves him? Then my director asked me, "What might you answer if God asked you... Paula, do you trust me?" Three times.
Maybe someday you and I will be sitting down to lunch and I will trust you enough to tell you how that conversation worked itself out between me and that wonderful, insightful, spiritual director.
In the mean time, I will say that like the chipmunk to me, I spent a great deal of time assessing my ability to go closer to God. 😇 I know how I answered my spiritual director that week. This is a big question for those of us in discernment. I "got to the other shore too." I'd like to challenge you to think about this, if you dare. How would you answer when God asks you...do you trust me?
Written by Sr. Julie Rambin, Published by Sr. Terri Schell
As novices, some of the skills we have worked on this year are relationship-building and collaboration. We have been learning to listen more deeply to God and each other, to discover the hidden fruits of working together, to remain open to the unexpected. These skills and approaches help us in learning to live a healthy and joy-filled life together.
All of us entered community life as adult women. We came to our congregations as independent adults, with careers, cars and even houses of our own. Though we come from different cultural and family backgrounds, we had all lived in the U.S. for some years prior to the novitiate.
The dominant U.S. culture highly values independence, and we have all internalized this value to some degree. Independence is an important life skill, but it’s not the only important one.
As someone strongly inclined toward independence, I had to learn the value of collaborative work. As a college student, my experience of “group work” was that one person (usually me) would complete the bulk of the work on any given project.
In the novitiate, I have worked together with others on all sorts of group projects, and contributed in varying ways and degrees. I have also benefited significantly from the hard work of others, and appreciated their gifts especially in areas where I would have struggled.
When the whole group is really committed to collaboration, sharing gifts, and working together, great things can happen.
Recently, we five novices were able to visit the McGreal Center at Dominican University in River Forest, IL. Together with Dominican novices of the Central Province, we toured the center and learned more about its history, as well as the history of Dominican sisters and friars in the United States.
As we saw in some of the old photographs in the center, collaboration is an important element of our history. We have been collaborating across congregations in many ways for years.
We were grateful to Chris Allison, McGreal Center archivist and tour guide extraordinaire, who introduced us to a number of the center’s important collections.
It was good to meet other members of the Dominican family, to get to know the current Central Province novices.
While the friar-novices were in town, we invited them to our house for evening prayer and dinner.
It was wonderful to have the opportunity to spend time with other newer members of the Dominican family, to make connections and develop relationships. “At the heart of ministry is relationship”...and relationships are where all of our collaboration begins.
As we look toward the future of Dominican religious life, we wonder what it will hold. In this time of preparation for Pentecost, we pray for the Holy Spirit's outpouring on the whole Dominican family. May the Spirit surprise us with the fruits of collaboration and joy-filled lives.
The weeks are flying by, here at the CDN. Winter gives way to spring, as we see crocus, daffodil, and even tulips blooming all around us. In our backyard, the birds and squirrels are busy, and naturally we've been busy too.
We were blessed to host an in-person panel on the topic of consecrated celibacy, with our sisters Julia Schideler MM, Mary Jo Sobieck OP (Springfield), and Christin Tomy OP (Sinsinawa). Our guest panelists shared with us their experience, understanding and practical wisdom in authentically living this important element of our vowed life. We so appreciate the gift of their time.
On St Patrick's Day, we were delighted to be able to attend Mass at Old St Pat's in downtown Chicago. It was a distinctive celebration of the saint, the parish, and the culture of the many Irish immigrants who contributed here to our Catholic life and history. You might notice a new face in the picture; we were privileged to welcome Paula's daughter for a visit that weekend. Maintaining connections with family and friends looks a little bit different for each of us; fundamentally, our priorities have changed from what they were before we entered religious life. Each of us is in the midst of learning what that might look like for us.
As part of my study this semester I am volunteering with Illinois Community for Displaced Immigrants (ICDI). I am learning more about how we are welcoming new arrivals who have been displaced from their home countries. At times, our policies seem to contradict each other. For instance, the mayor has closed five shelters and yet a shelter that is known to be unsafe and potentially toxic is still open and housing new arrivals. It is a messy, flawed, inconsistent, and complex process! The need in Chicago is urgent because it is a sanctuary city. The sanctuary city ordinance states, that this “means that the City will not ask about one’s immigration status, disclose that information to authorities, or, most importantly, deny one City services based on one’s immigration status. Undocumented individuals will be detained by the Chicago Police Department if they are wanted on a criminal warrant by local or federal authorities, if they have been convicted of a serious crime and remain in the United States illegally, or if they are otherwise a clear threat to public safety or national security.” An often overlooked fact is that those being forcibly bused by the Texas Governor are asylum seekers and are thus not undocumented.
So even with our imperfect systems we can and are trying to provide a welcoming presence one family at a time. Through ICDI we recently assisted an Indigenous (Quechua) family from Ecuador who spoke Spanish. A group of eleven, three adults and eight children from 6 to 15 years of age. We learned that in Ecuador, the family was impoverished and things had gotten so difficult for them that they could no longer afford to buy milk. The adults are siblings and risked their lives on this treacherous and uncertain journey in hopes of a better life for their families. It took them one month, and when they arrived in Chicago from NY by bus they discovered they didn’t have enough resources to get to their final destination, Minneapolis. They were exhausted, hungry, overwhelmed, and uncertain about what to do next.
Fortunately, we had two Spanish speakers in our volunteer group and we were able to get them connected to resources that allowed them to get food, water, shelter and transportation to Minneapolis. These were the parting words from one of the women, “Thank you for all you do for the poor, WE are the poor.” As I reflected on this day with my novice sisters, I wondered how we know we have done enough? After all, we do not have capacity to spend 3-4 hrs or a whole day helping every single family. Once we have provided the basics, at what point do we have to trust the system and let the families be helped by the system, imperfect as it may be? When is something better than nothing? There is no general answer, each situation will be different and the beauty of community is that we can discern together when to move on while at the same time advocating for changes to improve the infrastructure.
We Dominicans follow the Rule of St. Augustine. As Adom Zumkeller wrote, “The Rule of St. Augustine was written around the year 400 AD. It is the oldest monastic rule that we have today…In spite of its ancient origin, the Rule of St. Augustine endures because it expresses enduring principles and manifests an understanding of the human condition.” It is a short eight chapters and yet is filled with practical ways to approach living in community. I was grateful to hear the lived experience of three of our Dominican Sisters on our Zoom panel as they discussed the Rule of St. Augustine.
Grounded in Acts 4:32-35. St Augustine
describes in the rule that while things in community life may not be
distributed equally, they are distributed equitably, in accordance with each
one’s need. I appreciate the way one sister explained how she lives this.
She said, “I have to trust that my congregation is looking at me in a loving
way and respecting me and also looking in the same way at my sister who is very
different than I am and has different needs.” In chapter six of the Rule, St.
Augustine mentions interpersonal conflict, “You should avoid quarrels
altogether or else put an end to them as quickly as possible…” A sister
affirmed the need to address conflict. She spoke about the importance of lovingly
having difficult conversations and leveraging the Dominican practice of
disputatio. The ability to listen to each other even though you disagree.
Listening so deeply that you can accurately explain the other person’s argument.
Love is at the core of these conversations and this is a skill we can use in
every aspect of our lives.
We also had our first in-person panel about the vow of consecrated obedience. Three sisters graced us with their presence and joined us for evening prayer, dinner and a riveting conversation about the vow of obedience. Again, I was grateful to hear how the sisters navigated living this vow and how it has evolved since Vatican II from legalistic to more about discernment and relationship. Obedience was discussed as a freeing way of entering into mutual discerning dialogue, after all the word obey comes from the Latin ob-audire, which means to listen. As Herbert McCabe, OP wrote, “Obedience for us is not a denial of self but a discovery of self. For- to say it again- obedience is not the suppression of our will in favour of someone else’s, it is learning to live in community, in solidarity, which is simply learning to live.” The sisters were candid that it takes self-awareness, humility, and practice to live into this. It does not negate the opportunity to ask questions or voice your concerns or wonderings. These panels are invaluable. They are an interactive way to gain a deeper understanding of how the vows are practically lived.
In addition to study, we have time built in for celebrations. We celebrated another birthday in March. Sr. Teresa has a deep connection and love of St. Martin de Porres. Our local parish pastor allowed us to borrow a life size statue of St. Martin de Porres so we could surprise her for her birthday. The giggles of surprise and joy, the never ending hugging of St. Martin de Porres and the look of awe on her face was priceless! She is also a fan girl of some theologians whom she quotes often. So we made face masks and they showed up to celebrate her birthday. It was a lot of fun! Sr. Teresa was moved and said, “the fact that you know what makes me happy means a lot to me.” It was a great joy and gift to be part of this communal effort to make our sister feel special on her birthday.
Friday, March 8 was International Women’s Day, a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. It also began the US celebration of Catholic Sisters Week, a time to shine a light on the spirituality, mission, and community building of women religious. Thank you to all the sisters who have said yes to this vocational call. May your steadfast faith, consistent acts for justice, sincere love, and joyful witness continue to inspire generations to come to be a living part of writing and telling HerStory.
One Body, Many Parts.
1 Corinthians 12:18 "But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as God intended." God has a sense of humor.
Five women of different ages, nationalities, and histories living in an unfamiliar house in an unfamiliar city for the intentional purpose of learning about a countercultural, alternative way of living: a way of living together that is meant to be an example for the life of the world.
The Philosophy in our Collaborative Dominican Novitiate handbook talks about things like, openness and inclusion, respect, personal flexibility, mutually respectful dialogue, willingness to collaborate with others, and joy.
The women of the Collaborative Dominican Novitiate had a chance to reflect, review and articulate what it means to be a Dominican Sister when we traveled to Columbus Ohio from February 17-21, to present to the Board of Directors of the Collaborative Dominican Novitiate just what the first half year of our novitiate meant to us.
In our presentation we decided to just sit down and have conversations with each other using the framework of the four pillars. The board of directors were just kind of observers to what we discussed about our experiences over the past few months. That was the serious part of our presentation. To warm up the listeners, we chanted a psalm parody that we wrote, complete with an antiphon, set to one of the complex psalm tones from the Dominican Praise book. We sang about some of our experiences at the Collaborative Novitiate. We chanted about “pork chops, intuitive feelers cooking for dinner guests, CDN directors who maybe should come with subtitles, among other things. This was so well received that the directors asked us for a repeat performance. We also chanted the Psalm at lunch for the Dominican Sisters of Peace who hosted us in Columbus.
Now lest you think that writing psalms and traveling to board of director’s meetings were all we have done in the last month…
We attended a Superbowl Party with the Augustinians.
Invited Don Goergen, O.P. and Brian Bricker, O.P. over for dinner. The food was delicious.
We attended mass at the Vietnamese Parish “Holy Child of Jesus", to celebrate TET or Lunar New Year.
Angela looking stunning in her Vietnamese Dress “ao dai”.
Of course, we could not celebrate the opening of the Year of The Dragon…without Dragons. (I was so excited to have Dragons in church on TET.)
A way of living together that is meant to be an example for the life of the world…. and joy.
So many amazing things are happening here in Chicago at the Collaborative Dominican Novitiate.
Donald Goergen…and Dragons, in the same month. Who wouldn’t be joyful?
Many Parts, One Body.
Thank you for reading and please have a blessed and fruitful Lent.
