Celebrating Dominican Women and Preaching

The year 2012 marks the Dominican Order’s observance of “Dominican Women and Preaching.”

This year’s theme for Dominicans is “Go tell my brothers” (John 20:15). “This appeal of the Christ to Mary at the dawn of the resurrection was chosen as the theme for this fourth year novena as we prepare to celebrate the Jubilee of the Order,” said Dominican Master General fr. Bruno Cadore, OP. “

This very simple sentence initially reminded me of the emotion I felt a few years ago in the church of a town in Iraq. Morning has just broken and we were preparing to celebrate the entrance to the novitiate and the profession of some young brothers.

A crowd of women were already in the church as they waited for the celebration; among them, there were Dominican mothers, sisters, friends, apostolic sisters, and lay women. All together, they filled the church with the dense silence of their prayers while the entire country was suffering from chaos, violence, and threats.

In that silence and in the presence of the Father, these women prayed with such intensity that at the heart of the chaos, which wreaked havoc in the country and ripped it apart with all sorts of divisions, they conveyed the assurance that nothing can silence the message of life.” To read more from fr. Bruno, click here.