What's Happening

October 8, 2024, Caloocan, Metro Manila, Philippines – The varied ministries of Sister May Cano, OP, of the Our Lady of Remedies Mission Chapter of the Adrian Dominican Sisters, literally take her near and far – from the daily needs of the Bajao peoples in the City of Zamboanga, Philippines, to the global concerns of climate change. Sister May serves as Caritas Secretary for the Diocese of Kalookan and as a Justice Promoter for the Adrian Dominican Sisters.

“I am a missionary in my own country,” Sister May said in an interview. “I feel the grace of embracing the different groups of people. I felt the love of Jesus as well as embraced the sufferings of Jesus” through the sufferings of the people.

Service to People on the Margins
As Caritas Secretary, Sister May oversees the various programs in place that respond to the needs of the poor in the Diocese of Kalookan. Caritas is the equivalent to Catholic Charities in the United States, a network of diocesan agencies that respond to the needs of people in a variety of situations. 

“Whenever we have a calamity, we supply the goods for more than 30 parishes, 20 mission stations, and other mission areas in the Diocese of Kalookan,” Sister May explained. In the case of a fire, for example, Caritas and its partner organizations provide basic needs for the victims, such as rice, other food items, and medicine.

A major service, she said, is to help the Bajao to obtain birth certificates, which allows them to further their education. Other Sisters in the Mission Chapter are working with the Indigenous Aeta people from the Pampanga region, where the Sisters’ central house is located. “We send them to universities to finish their college degree,” Sister May explained.

Sister May also works with victims of national injustice – particularly with the family members of the victims of former President Rodrigo Duterte’s Extrajudicial Killings (EJK) of people suspected of being involved in drugs or drug trafficking. As a result of the government’s “aggressive war against illegal drugs,” some 6,250 people were killed in police operations and another 20,000 were killed by unknown assailants, Sister May said. She added that the killings have decreased under the current President, Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr., the son of Ferdinand Marcos and former First Lady Imelda Marcos.

“We launched a scholarship program to provide opportunities” for the survivors of the EJK victims, she said. Working with partners, the Diocese of Kalookan also offers medical support, livelihood support, and counseling for those who lost family members to EJK, Sister May added.

Justice Advocacy
EJK is one of the many justice issues that Sister May has addressed as a Justice Promoter for the Adrian Dominican Sisters, under the Congregation’s Office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation, directed by Sister Kathleen Nolan, OP. In turn, the Adrian Dominican Justice Promoters are part of a global network working through the Dominican Sisters International Confederation (DSIC). 

Sister May and the other Sisters in the Chapter also focus on the global climate emergency. “I said climate emergency rather than climate change because we are already experiencing the effects of global warming,” she explained. The Philippines have been suffering from “super typhoons,” such as Carina, which hit Metro Manila and other regions on July 24, 2024. “It was nonstop rain, heavy,” she recalled. “Many got flooded, even the Northern Luzon Expressway. All of Metro Manila was flooded.” Through her office, the diocese distributed food – including $1,000 worth of eggs – to 30 parishes and 20 mission stations.

To counteract the climate emergency, Sister May and the other Sisters in her Chapter educate people minister with about Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical letter, Laudato Si’, which calls for commitments to address climate change and environmental devastation. Among other things, the Sisters instruct on practices of reducing use, recycling, and reusing, or repurposing items. As a Congregation, the Adrian Dominican Sisters are part of the global Laudato Si’ Action Platform, in which Catholic organizations make commitments to act against global climate change.

Justice advocacy has been a vital aspect of Sister May’s ministries since before she entered religious life. As an aspirant – one discerning religious life – she was encouraged to attend seminars and workshops on justice and peace issues. As a novice, she was part of the Exchange of Dreams for a Unified Struggle (EXODUS), attending monthly talks to learn about the national situation and to deepen her knowledge of Scripture. “We integrated with the indigenous people, farmers, women, and urban poor and discussed their issues and our role,” Sister May recalled.

From 1999 to 2006, she was assigned to minister with the indigenous Aetas in the mountains, organizing them in sewing. She also worked with women in Manila, educating them about justice and peace, and ministered with persons with disabilities. “The seeds of justice and peace were planted in my heart and the majority of my life as a religious was spent in serving the poor and journeying with them, working for justice and peace,” she said.

Sister May’s hopes are that “someday all the victims of EKJ will acquire justice; that our Mother Earth, our common home, will be cured; and that we may become an instrument in proclaiming the Gospel truth and continue to give witness to what we are preaching in words.”    
 

Caption for above photo: Sister May Cano, OP, stands near a display table for the Diocese of Kalookan’s Flowers for a Cause program. The sale of these flowers helps the diocese to provide food and other necessities for local people who are poor.

October 9, 2024, Adrian, Michigan – Adrian Dominican Associate Life welcomed three new Associates on October 3, 2024, during an evening Commitment Ceremony held in Holy Rosary Chapel on the Motherhouse Campus.

Associates are women and men, at least 18 years of age, who feel called to the Dominican Charism (spirit) and who make a non-vowed commitment to associate themselves with the Adrian Dominican Sisters. While maintaining their independent lifestyle, they are invited to share in the Sisters’ mission, ministries, and spiritual and social activities.

Associate Nancy Mason Bordley, Director of the Office of Dominican Charism, welcomed the Associates, Sisters, and friends, explaining the commitment that the Associate candidates and their mentors had already made in preparation for the event. Each Associate candidate “has acknowledged his or her desire to make this next step and has spent months discerning how they will live out the Dominican Charism as a member of the Dominican family,” she said.

During the prayer service, candidate Celeste Mueller preached on the Gospel explaining how Jesus sent out 72 disciples ahead of him to villages and towns where he intended to visit. “It’s a pattern that has been repeated in our history,” she said, noting that Dominic, too, sent out his brothers to preach when they had only been in the Order for a short time. That pattern was repeated with Dominican Sisters who came from Germany to New York in 1853 and the Sisters who began ministries at parishes in Adrian, Michigan, in the late 19th century – and beyond to the new Associates today, Celeste said. 

“What we share with the earliest disciples and every Dominican through the ages is the invitation to become the sacred preaching,” Celeste said. “Each of us is ready and fully equipped to respond to that invitation.”

The new Associates are:

Celeste Mueller, a self-employed practical theologian and leadership formation facilitator from University City, Missouri, is the great-niece of Sister Rose de Lourdes DeSchryver, OP. A native of Detroit and the youngest of seven children, she was taught by Columbus Dominican Sisters at St. Clare de Montefalco Elementary School. She attended Our Lady Star of the Sea High School. 

Celeste, who earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and theology at the University of Notre Dame, came to know the Adrian Dominican Sisters through her studies. While earning a master’s degree and partial MDiv at Aquinas Institute of Theology, a graduate school in the Dominican tradition, in St. Louis, she was a classmate and student of Adrian Dominican Sisters. She earned her doctorate in ministry (DMin) at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis and returned to Aquinas as an Assistant Professor, counting Patricia Walter, Joan Delaplane, OP, and Maribeth Howell, OP, as her colleagues. Sister Patricia was her mentor in her journey to Associate Life.

“I am inspired by the creative and deeply committed spirit of the vowed Adrian Dominicans, and I have been deeply impressed by their hope-filled engagement of profound issues and their willingness to collaborate with non-vowed Associates to assure and even expand the impact of the Dominican Charism in the world,” Celeste said.

She and Tom, her husband of 40 years, have two grown children and one granddaughter. Celeste’s ministry is developing leaders “fueled by virtue” for the work of spiritual and theological formation. 

Peggy M. Pantelis, of Chesterfield, Michigan, heard about Associate Life for years from Mary Kay Homan, OP, her mentor. “My family was very loving [and] went to church every Sunday,” she recalled. She is the middle of three children: her older sister, Pat, is deceased and she remains close to her younger brother, Jim. 

A retired teacher in the Macomb Intermediate School District, Peggy remains active as President of the St. Basil Conference of St. Vincent de Paul. She also works one or two days each week with visually impaired students. She and her husband, Gary, have two children: Elizabeth and Paul, who is married with a 4-year-old son. 

Peggy enjoys joining and leading discussion groups for church programs. Becoming an Associate “seems like the next step,” she said. She brings to Associate Life compassion and the ability to teach and hopes to find “growth in my prayers, the ability to share my faith with others, and [involvement] in something that would impact lives.”

Stephen Wolbert, a native of Flint, Michigan, is the CEO of Social Impact Philanthropy and Investment (SIPI), serving as a consultant, primarily with nonprofit organizations in North Flint. In his work, he positions nonprofit organizations, helping them to expand their mission and serve more people. “Over the last 8-and-a-half years, we have helped organizations secure over $10 million in additional resources and impact the lives of over 13,000 people per year,” he said.

Stephen came to know the Adrian Dominican Sisters through Carol Weber, OP, Executive Director of St. Luke N.E.W. Life Center in Flint. Through Sister Carol, his mentor, he said he has “become really amazed with [the Sisters’] ministries and vision for how to sustain them long-term.” He holds Sister Carol – as well as the late Judy Blake, CSJ, Co-founder of St. Luke N.E.W. Life Center, as “tremendous mentors,” along with his parents, grandparents, and friends.

Stephen hopes that being an Associate will augment his ministry at SIPI. “While the work is extremely rewarding, it can become exhausting,” he said. “I would like to explore more fully how to move these challenges into purpose, develop a more focused personal mission, and develop a network of others that are doing work as ministry.”

After each new Associate was introduced by his or her mentor and declared their intention to become an Adrian Associate, they proclaimed together their commitment statement. “United in purpose through the Office of Dominican Charism, we Dominican Associates commit ourselves to sharing life in a communion of Gospel-driven women and men who are spiritual seekers, alive with the fire of being Dominicans in service to the world,” they proclaimed. “We strive to widen and deepen the impact of the Dominican Charism, which urges us forward in our desire to transform the world in partnership with the emerging reign of God.”

The new Associates and their mentors concluded the formal ceremony by signing the commitment form. Associates James Mallare and Rosemary Martin presented the new Associates with the Associate pin and a candle as a symbol of their new commitment. 

For information on becoming an Adrian Dominican Associate, contact Associate Nancy Mason Bordley at 517-266-3534 or visit www.adriandominicans.org/MeetDominicans/Associates.

 

Caption for above photo: Participating in the Commitment Ceremony for new Adrian Dominican Associates are, from left, Sister Patricia Walter, OP, mentor of Celeste Mueller; Sister Mary Kay Homan, OP, mentor of Peggy Pantelis; and Sister Carol Weber, OP, mentor of Stephen M. Wolbert.