Sinsinawa
Spectrum
A Congregation News Magazine
Roots and New Growth
by Anne Marie Mongoven, OP
Sr. Anne Marie Mongoven
Mr. I. M. Pei is a renowned architect known for his ability to harmonize modern with classical themes. For example, Pei designed the modern east wing of the National Museum of Art and joined it to its classical predecessor the Andrew Mellon Museum. He also expanded the Louvre by building a glass and steel pyramid outside and apart from the classical museum as a second entryway.
Whether or not you like Pei’s designs, it is interesting to note a primary principle that guides him. Pei said,
Contemporary architects tend to impose modernity on something. There is a certain concern for history, but it’s not very deep. I understand that time has changed, we have evolved. But I don’t want to forget the beginning. A lasting architecture has to have roots.
Pei indicates that modernity has to be related to classical forms of beauty and strength. A lasting architecture has to have roots.
Pei’s principle led me to ask, “What classical roots of 13th century Dominican life do we bring to the 21st century?” What are the roots from 19th and 20th century Sinsinawa that we need to keep today? How are we blending in our lives the old and the new, the classical with the modern?
We speak among ourselves with passion about our roots, about living in community, praying together daily, devoting ourselves to study, and preaching Truth. We are convinced we need to live a contemplative life as the foundation of our preaching. Building loving relationships is essential to our life. If these are our roots, how do we blend them with contemporary culture?
Twenty-first century culture includes feminist trends, democratic ideals, an appreciation of the sacredness of the universe, the education of peoples, and the recognition of dehumanizing poverty. Today society is electronic. A growing number of people reject religious faith and Church.
What can we as 21st century Dominican women with roots emerging from the Gospel, from Dominic, from Father Mazzuchelli and our earlier Sisters say to today’s youth, to the educated, to the illiterate, to those who prosper and those who are poor, to the elderly, and to women who seek equality in our Church and our culture?
Since the Second Vatican Council, we have strengthened our roots through Chapters and by renewing our Constitution. We have tried, sometimes painfully, to prune the accretions of dead wood from our lives. Have we strengthened our roots enough? Have we pruned all that must go? The process of strengthening and pruning is never-ending, for it is only through continual grafting and pruning that we will be alive for our time.
Among the characteristics of Dominican life, study is a powerful action that relates us to the people of our time. In a society with highly educated leaders and in the Western World with educated populaces, we need to be able to preach from knowledge and wisdom with clarity, brevity, and simplicity. Study enables us to do that.
We need to be able to analyze, to debate, to understand other points of view, and to respect all with whom we speak. Study is not just a means to an end, a way to bring information to ourselves so we can then give it to others. Study not only informs us, it changes us. It is a transformative action that can lead us to wisdom through prayer. Study enables us to recognize what is rich in our roots and discern what weaknesses need to be pruned.
We are not building, as Pei does, a permanent structure that will not change. We are constructing a living culture that will renew itself by continually strengthening its roots and tending lovingly to new growth. A lasting architecture, even in ministry, has to have roots.