Beginning this week there are two Co-Directors of Vocations for the Congregation: Sisters Tarianne DeYonker, OP, and Mariane Fahlman, OP. 

Sister Mariane is currently a Professor of Kinesiology, Health and Sports Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan where her teaching and research focus on disease prevention through healthy living. She will be reaching out in the metro Detroit area as well as responding to requests from those who are seeking more information on religious life, specifically with the Adrian Dominican Sisters.

Sister Tarianne lives and ministers in Adrian, Michigan and is a social worker with a marriage and family therapy background. She has served in numerous leadership roles not only in the Congregation, but also at Dominican High School and Academy in Detroit, a sponsored ministry of the Congregation, in Beginning Experience International, a grief resolution ministry for separated, divorced and widowed men and women and their children and as a team trainer for Returning to Spirit, a program to bring about reconciliation between the church and those who attended Residential Schools in Canada. During the past year, she has been conducting creative writing workshops in Adrian as well as doing writing of her own. She brings to this new role a listening ear, curiosity about what God is doing in our lives and willingness to try new approaches in response to needs.

We are very grateful to Sisters Sara and Lorraine for all the contributions they have made to Vocation ministry and for how diligently they worked to make these past few months a smooth transition for us. We are comforted in knowing they are only a phone call or email away for help when we need it! We wish them well!

Blessings,
Sisters Tarianne and Mariane

"Boy drinks water..." by DFAT is licensed under CC by 2.0

Do you have the water? Or the jug? Or are you thirsty? A regular Lenten reading is the Samaritan woman at the well. In a way, the Samaritan woman could be any of us. She is coming to get water, to get what is needed for her and her family to survive, but she is tired of having to come day after day. The thought of receiving water that would quench her thirst forever sounds like a wonderful idea to her!

Our Lenten practices can help us become aware of what we truly need. By giving something up, we can no longer use that food or habit or thought to distract us, and we can encounter our own deep thirst. If we don’t realize we are thirsty, we will fail to drink the water we need. When we become aware of our spiritual and emotional thirsts, we can bring them to God and ask for that life-giving water only God can provide.

The wonderful gift of encountering our own thirst, and allowing God to ease it, enables us to then offer water to others. We know what it is like to thirst. We can share in that struggle with someone. We can help them lower the bucket to their depths in order to receive true water. Where are you this Lent? Are you avoiding your thirst? Are you allowing God to quench it? Are you called to help someone else lower the bucket into the well? 

Blessings,

Sister Lorraine Réaume, OP