From left: Joan Healy-Hartill and Srs. Sheila Fitzgerald and Mary Rathert

For Dominic, the Church that preaches is the whole Church, in all its members and all its gifts. “Holy Preaching” is the whole being of the community. Our work at Transitions’ Women’s Hearth in Spokane is a daily experience of being the “Holy Preaching” with all the participants, volunteers, and staff who make up this community.

The Women’s Hearth is a safe, welcoming community where women can come for help with basic needs of food, showers, and referrals; find people with a listening ear and heart who honor their stories and their lives; and have the opportunity to participate in groups and classes which give them hope and courage to make changes in their lives.

Over 100 homeless and low-income women per day participate in this “Holy Preaching” at the Women’s Hearth. The Word of God is announced through art, music, drama, and writing as women explore and express their joys, hopes, pains, and memories. Through the arts, women have discovered their rich talents and have found a means to healing.

One woman’s words of self-discovery point to the joy of new life.

I am

Avid, able, apt.
It’s with these words that I do relabel
My life, my work, my all. Audacious,
authentic, alluring
I am these and more

I am just ablaze and aglow
Knowing I am bedazzling,
Blessed and bodacious
Becoming, bewitching and beaming.
So it is with these ambrosial words
That I describe my
Delightful, dimpled, divine self.
                                                Joan Healy-Hartill

In addition to the Women’s Hearth, this “Holy Preaching” also happens at the three other programs of Transitions: Miryam’s House, a residential program for women coming out of crisis; Transitional Living Center, an apartment building for homeless, single women with children; and EduCare, a child care program housed at Transitional Living Center.

The four programs are united in a common mission: “Transitions sponsors programs which, in faithfulness to the mission of Jesus, foster the personal growth and wholeness of women and children in need.” We are guided by four common values: respect, community, growth and wholeness, and justice.

Sister Mary Rathert, OP (Alfred)
Sister Sheila Fitzgerald, OP (Brigidan)
Women’s Hearth Spokane, WA