‘I Know the Plans I Have for You, Says the Lord’
The Sinsinawa Dominican Prioress and Council. Front row, from left: Srs. Mary Ellen Green, Mary Howard Johnstone, Elizabeth Dunn (Mary Denysa), and Susanne Brodeur. Back row: Srs. Jo Ann Timmerman, Erica Jordan (Caterina), Patricia Mulcahey (Marcolin), and Teresa Auad.
I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord (Jeremiah 29:11).
We Dominicans of Sinsinawa have long relied on God’s words of assurance to Jeremiah. The only prayer more particular to our tradition than the Rosary is “Providence can provide. Providence did provide. Providence will provide.” This three-fold mantra, an expression about God’s loving care for people, is surely what God sought from the Jewish exiles in Babylon. It is surely what God asks of us today. While we differ from the Jewish exiles in Babylon, we are alike in the reality of diminishing numbers, a reality that casts a strange light on our future.
Jeremiah’s words to the exiles included an additional message from God. “Again I will build you and you shall be built . . . there is hope for your future.” We hear in God’s words to the exiles the promise of God’s everlasting love. We see, in events and developments of this past year, signs of hope for the future. The signs emanate from the hierarchy of our Church; from our Dominican Family; and from our efforts to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, which informed our 2006 Chapter Enactments.
Signs from the Hierarchy of Our Church
This year the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life issued a document entitled The Service of Authority and Obedience. In the Introduction the authors describe the people of Exodus as “a group of slaves freed to become a holy people who know the joy of free service to God.” The authors acknowledge “that in recent years the way of listening to and living authority and obedience has changed both in the Church and in society.” They cite as factors contributing to the change, “. . . awareness of the value of the individual person, the centrality of the spirituality of communion, a less individualistic way of understanding mission in the sharing of all members of the People of God, with resulting forms of concrete collaboration.” As we reflect on our experience of those factors and on the central message of the document, that “listening” is integral to obedience and “listening” is integral to authority, we see more clearly wherein one hope for our future lies. It lies in “listening” to ourselves and to others.
Signs from Our Dominican Family
The Dominican Life USA web site (www.domlife.org), with over five million hits last year and an average of 53,617 page views per month, testifies to both the globalization and collaboration that will mark our future as Dominicans.
National and international Dominican Volunteers are preaching the Gospel through their work with the poor throughout the world. Three of this year’s volunteers have Sinsinawa connections. Dominican Young Adults are striving to preach through word and action. They hope to emphasize the importance of social justice which they see as integral to the Dominican heritage and their Catholic faith. They met at Edgewood College, Madison, WI, this past June.
Dominican communicators, including our Sinsinawa Communication Director, Tricia Buxton, met in Michigan last February. They engaged in conversation with Dominican Sisters from Iraq and later worked out next steps in sharing information about the plight of Iraqi exiles in Lebanon and Syria.
Lay Dominicans from the United States and Canada gathered this past April and May. Both groups discussed the need for formation in the Dominican charism. Our 227 Sinsinawa lay Associates are engaged in similar discussions. Members of the North American Conference of Associates and Religious, founded in 1996 to act as a catalyst to serve, empower, and promote the Associate-Sister relationship, met at the end of May. They, too, focused on questions about formation.
Dominican Father Chuck Dahm, the North American Co-Promoter of Justice and Peace, prepared four PowerPoint presentations that offer a comprehensive view of Church teachings and the present immigration debate. Our Sisters, Mary Ellen O’Dea, OP, and Jo Ann Timmerman, OP, assisted in planning a national meeting of Dominican Sisters and Associates in Chicago. We Dominicans of Sinsinawa took a public stance against the evil of human trafficking. In doing so we joined several other Dominican congregations calling attention to the plight of trafficking victims.
We rejoice that the number of people committed to preaching in word and action, in the tradition of Dominic, continues to increase. A sign we see clearly in our Dominican Family is that our future includes sharing of mission and collaborative efforts.
Our 2006 Chapter Enactments
The first enactment of our 2006 Chapter directed us to deepen our relationship with God, with one another, and with all creation. Subsequent enactments directed us to clarify our governmental relationships, to “right-size” space at the Mound, to continue inviting women to join us, and to reverence the Earth. Coordinating committees for the respective areas have taken initial steps toward engaging our Sisters and others in the dialogues essential to implementation of the directives. One of the dialogues is proceeding in accord with the Appreciative Inquiry process.
The Appreciative Inquiry process includes one-on-one interviews and focuses on identification of the strengths which we possess that will be an integral part of our future. Participants in the interview process completed prior to June 30 included 511 Sisters, 80 Associates, and 88 stakeholders (i.e., friends, benefactors, and coworkers). Questions addressed to our stakeholders included: “What does our PRESENCE say to you that speaks louder than what we do, what we accomplish?” and “What three wishes do you have for our future?” Questions addressed to ourselves include the following: “What tough decisions and choices about our future do we need to make as a Congregation?” and “What small steps, or even bold steps, will lead us in the direction we see for our future?”
Our gratitude to each of you who participated in the interviews! During our annual Community Days in August 2008, we listened attentively to all that has been spoken. We hope to see more clearly what God asks of us now for the sake of our future. Would you keep in your prayer God’s blessing on our deliberations and continuing conversations.
Enriched by a deeper awareness of our need for “listening,” energized by the new life and breadth of the Dominican Family, and committed to responding to the directives of our 2006 Chapter, we thank God for what has been and what will be. Our prayer remains, Providence can provide. Providence did provide. Providence will provide.
Sister Patricia Mulcahey, OP
Prioress of the Congregation
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