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Teachers always love field trips! Especially field trips when the children and parents (chaperones) enjoy what they learn. Every year the Diocese of Oakland invites schools of the diocese to send their 5th grade students on a special field trip. The boys go to St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park and the girls go to a sisters’ motherhouse in the diocese.
Today students came from two diocesan schools to the motherhouse of the Dominican Sisters of San Jose. Three of us sisters, Sister Liz Schille, RGS (a Good Shepherd Sister), Sister
Sister Beth talking to the 5th graders
Beth Quire, OP (a Dominican Sister of Mission San Jose), and I (a Dominican Sister of San Rafael), taught them a little bit about what it’s like to be a sister, and the importance of answering God’s call in their life. It was a fun day, and the girls and their parents really enjoyed themselves.
Truly, all of us are called . . . from the time we are baptized, or even from the time we are born. God calls us to, as the apostle Luke wrote: “. . . to preach good news to the poor. . . to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19) God calls us to do this whether we marry or not, whether we become a nun or a sister or not.
Today we talked about our way, as sisters, of living out this call. I always like talking about that, because I love being a sister!
The time we have to pray together in the morning as sisters truly is a gift. It’s one of those regular things about religious life that is there for us day in and day out. (Though we do take a break from it on the weekends here at St. Rose Convent.) Its consistency is a gift. Knowing that my sisters are praying for me when I am not there (out of town, at a meeting, etc.) is a gift. And sometimes the sisters’ reflections on the day’s Scripture reading is also a gift.
Take today for example. Today’s reading was from Mark 7:24-30, and it’s about the Greek (Syrophoenician) woman who came to Jesus looking for healing for her daughter. Jesus was rather gruff with her. Since she was not Hebrew, and Jesus saw his mission as being to his people, the Hebrews, he said to her, “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” Sounds a little off-putting, doesn’t it?
Because this Syrophoenician woman persisted and said, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps,” Jesus healed her daughter, and told the woman that when she went home she would find that her daughter would be just fine, and that the demon that tormented her would be gone.
Talk about good news for that family!
I wonder if over these 2000 plus years that Christians have been reading this passage, we’ve tried to sanitize it, by saying that Jesus was only trying to test her faith, and prove a point about faith to his disciples. Otherwise, how could Jesus possibly have acted so abruptly? Some might even suggest that he sounded rude. To top it off, the version of the Gospel that was read from the missal this morning said that Jesus dismissed her with the words, “Be off!”
Sister Cathryn’s brief reflection and prayer grasped all of the incongruity of the situation. Noting that Jesus sometimes got frustrated with his disciples and their obtuseness, she wondered whether or not he might be having an off day. Yet, in the midst of his frustration, and in spite of his sharp words to a woman desperate for her daughter’s well-being, Jesus mission of release to the captives and healing to the broken-hearted still was fulfilled. The demons were cast out of the woman’s daughter.
That can give all of us hope, can’t it? Even when we’re not having the best day . . . . even if we don’t choose the best words . . . . even when someone is standing on our last nerve . . . . God’s liberating and healing power can work through us. It never has been and never will be about us. It’s about GOD working through us, just the way we are.
Now that’s Good News!
The reading from Mark’s Gospel on Sunday, January 25th read, ” Jesus said to them (Simon and Andrew), “‘Come after me, and I will make you fishers of people.’ Then they abandoned their nets and followed him. He walked along a little farther and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They too were in a boat mending their nets. Then he called them. So they left their father Zebedee in the boat along with the hired men and followed him.” (Mark 1:17-20)
What an auspicious reading, for a very special day for Kathy (Kat) Repass who came all the way from North Carolina to further discern God’s call in her life, by entering into religious life with the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael. I think of Jesus calling Simon and Andrew, and then walking a little farther and calling James and John. In a way, that’s what we’ve seen happen. Jesus called Colleen, who was living in Athens, Georgia, to come to California and join us in August. And then Jesus walked a little farther to Cary, North Carolina, and called Kat. They may not have been mending any nets, but they certainly abandoned their lives as they knew them and followed.
There are four pillars on which we build our lives as Dominicans – four pillars that keep us balanced. On Sunday,
Kat entered into the community part of Dominican life. On Monday, Kat went to Berkeley to the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology (DSPT), so that she could enter into the study part. Prayer is a part that gets woven through all of our days as Dominicans. I’m looking forward to hearing what she chooses to do for the service part.
We do have to give her a little time, though, to settle in a little.
Welcome, Kat!!
During the mid-20th century, all religious orders experienced a phenomenon of large groups of women entering the convent. (The same was true for men’s orders) Many look at today’s fewer numbers of entrants and say that something must be wrong with religious life. Yet if one looks at the entire history of religious life, it is clear that, in most times, religious life was a calling for fewer than that unusual time in the mid-20th century. I think Sister Julie unpacks this well in her blog, “Declining Numbers of Catholic Sisters and Nuns” at anunslife.org.
In those days of plenty, the groups of sisters who entered the convent called themselves groups, crowds, or sets. Sisters in my community still refer to sisters that they entered the convent and the novitiate with as their “set.” In more recent years, we have had sets of one. I entered 15 years ago, and the 6 sisters who have entered after me have all been a set of one, though we have enjoyed larger groupings of novices by our participation in the Dominican Collaborative Novitiate in St. Louis, where most of the congregations of Dominican Sisters in the U.S. send their novices for a year.
This year, we are celebrating a set!!! Colleen McDermott entered our congregation in August, and Kat Repass (though she has already arrived) will be celebrating her entrance on Sunday, January 25th. Colleen and Kat will be our two candidates, and thus a set. But since the ceremony is not until Sunday, they will have to be a “set-elect for a little while yet.”
What a joy to have them! We wish this set-elect the joy of Dominican Life as they embark on this wonderful journey together.
Don’t you think it would be great to be part of this set, or the next one for that matter? If so, please contact me or comment above.
I had to laugh this morning when I looked at the paper. Every morning I look for this little box inside the Datebook section, entitled: “Public Eavesdropping.” Readers send amusing remarks to Leah Garchik, who makes them part of her daily column.
Today it reads: One woman was heard saying to another,
“I can’t commit to anything except tattoos.”
We live in a society where the “C” word is frightening to many. We live in a culture where there are so many choices . . . and sometimes making a choice shuts out other ones, and that’s . . .that’s . . . that’s . . . a commitment. It feels safer to keep one’s options open.
Strangely enough, I live in a culture – the convent – where we have uttered the “C” word, and have made vows that will hold us, and that we will hold, for the rest of our lives. That final commitment – perpetual or solemn vows – keeps us from making other choices. But it also frees us to give ourselves in ways we couldn’t otherwise. It also means I have sisters that I share this commitment with. I’m not going it alone!
The gift of this life is that one can try it for a time and see if it fits. Sometimes it’s not clear how God is calling us. And our answers are often found in our living of our lives. So before sisters, brothers, and priests say the “C” word, we get to try the life on for size – for five to nine years.
Most of the nuns I know are okay with the concept of 
commitment of their lives. But they are a bit squeamish about the commitment of a tattoo! (except for the really brave ones, of course!)
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