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Sister Carol Weber, OP, speaks from the heart as she thanks the Flint Jewish Federation on behalf of the people she serves for the Don Riegle Award.

September 27, 2024, Flint, Michigan – Sister Carol Weber, OP, Co-founder and Executive Director of St. Luke N.E.W. Life Center, was one of three recipients of the 33rd Annual Donald Riegle Community Service Award in recognition of her “outstanding leadership in improving the well-being of the Greater Flint Community.” The award was presented by the Flint Jewish Federation during a special program on September 12, 2024, at the Flint Institute of Arts.

The award is named for Donald W. Riegle, Jr., a former senior United States Senator representing Michigan. Known as a “champion of Soviet Jewry,” he retired after serving in the Senate for three terms and 10 years in the U.S. House of Representatives. Also recognized during the evening were David Gibson and Carol Hurand. 

Proceeds from the annual event have been donated to Jewish Community Services to resettle 415 people from the former Soviet Union and Russian-speaking Muslim families from Uzbekistan.

“It was a beautiful experience,” Sister Carol said, noting the program was open to all. The program included talks by a rabbi and a Protestant minister, a performance by a harpist, hors d’oeuvres, and the award presentation. Sister Carol and the other two award recipients received a certificate of special Congressional recognition from U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) and paintings.

Sister Carol was accompanied that night by family members and by Sisters Mary Priniski, OP, her Chapter Prioress, and Theresa Mayrand, OP, who also is in ministry at St. Luke N.E.W. Life Center. 

“I accepted the award on behalf of the people who trust us with their lives,” Sister Carol said during an interview after the program. “I’m just an instrument. The award was for people who change their lives – for those who do extraordinary things in the community.” She said she thanked her family and her religious community “for being there and for their support – not just that night but always.”

Sister Carol founded N.E.W. Life Center with the late Sister Judy Blake, CSJ, with whom she served for years as Co-director. The N.E.W. Life Center has had a tremendous impact on the lives of the people in Flint, Sister Carol said. Its 2023 impact report stated that the food pantry served 300 families per month; eight literacy learners earned GEDs; 854 people visited the eye clinic; nearly 1,000 people received Christmas gifts and food; and 122 pregnant women or mothers of children six months and younger attended the Center’s baby showers. 

In addition, through the Resilient Communities initiative of the Adrian Dominican Sisters, the Center works with other organizations in the Resilient Women program, which offers “unwavering support” to women who have been in abusive relationships or difficult situations. The program offers counseling, employment preparation, on-the-job training, and services such as childcare that could eliminate barriers to employment for the women.

“Many of them have gotten jobs,” she said. “Many have been able to get housing. But most important is they’ve grown in their own person and their own self-esteem, that they don’t have to take [the abuse] they’ve been receiving. They’re able to go beyond the hurt and the abuse.”

Sister Carol was quick to point out that the Center relies on its partnership with other organizations and individuals to offer its many programs. “We do a lot of partnering,” she said. “We don’t do any of this on our own.” The Center receives about 12 large grants from foundations but also has a “really good, substantial donor base.”    

Whatever programs or services people receive from the Center, they come into a place that offers respect and a sense of welcome. “We train our employees [so] that anyone who walks through that door is received without judgment,” Sister Carol said. “We’re a center of second and sometimes third chances.”

Sister Carol not only respects the people who come from the Center but values the lessons they bring. “I’ve learned from them what it’s like not to have what I have, even family support,” she said. “Everyone’s story is critical to them and I need to listen, not only to what they’re saying but what they’re not saying. I’ve learned that everyone really wants to be heard and they want someone to just spend time with them. Personally, I’ve learned to trust God a lot more.”

 

Left: Sister Carol Weber, OP, displays Shepherdess, a painting she received from the Flint Jewish Federation. Right: From left are Sister Carol Weber, OP, David Gibson, and Carol Hurand, 2024 recipients of the Donald Riegle Community Service Award.

September 19, 2024, Adrian, Michigan – “If you can see it, you can be it” reads a line from the popular children’s book, What You Can See, You Can Be by David A. Anderson. 

Sister Cheryl Liske, OP, referred to that line in her reflection during a special September 3, 2024, Mass celebrating the Feast of St. Phoebe, Deacon, at St. Catherine Chapel on the Adrian Dominican Sisters Motherhouse Campus.

For centuries, Christians have not typically seen or heard about St. Phoebe, a deacon of the early Christian Church at Cenchreae near Corinth. She was proclaimed a deacon by St. Paul in Romans 16:1-2 – yet Catholics seldom hear St. Paul’s commendation of her to the Romans.

But now, thanks to an icon of St. Phoebe, Deacon, written by Sister Cheryl and donated to the Adrian Dominican Sisters Motherhouse, visitors will be able to see St. Phoebe and remember her function as a deacon in the church at Cenchreae. The icon was blessed during the Mass celebrating her Feast Day.

Sister Cheryl’s reflection was based on the Mass readings for St. Phoebe, Romans 16:1-2 and Matthew 26:6-13, in which a woman approaches Jesus during dinner and anoints his head with expensive oil – to the condemnation of many. Through the years, Catholics have very seldom heard these readings proclaimed – in spite of St. Paul’s presentation of St. Phoebe to the Church of Rome and Jesus’ proclamation that “wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her” (Mt 26:13), Sister Cheryl said.

Sister Cheryl said her icon portrays St. Phoebe at the port in Corinth, “ready to set sail for Rome as Paul’s ambassador to the church there, where she will not only deliver the letter but probably read it out to people assembled in local house churches.” Just as St. Paul commends Phoebe to the Romans, he commends her to us in a special way, she added. 

During her reflection, Sister Cheryl also spoke on the use of icons throughout Christian history. After the creation of images was banned in 754, Empress Theodora restored the veneration of icons in the year 843, Sister Cheryl said.

“From then on, Christians have a unique relationship to the art of image making due to the theology of incarnation,” Sister Cheryl explained. “The belief that God took on human flesh while remaining fully God and fully human empowers Christians to image the Redeemer and saints without fear.”

Sister Cheryl was inspired years ago to create icons when she realized that Dominicans know so little of the first women in St. Dominic’s convent in Prouilhe, France. “I started a drawing of the first women of Prouilhe, and then I realized I was in way over my head if I didn’t take some classes on iconography,” she recalled.

She took an icon-painting workshop in San Antonio in 2019, learning the various techniques – even in laying down the paint layers and choosing the board. “It always moves from dark to the light,” Sister Cheryl explained. “Icon spirituality is moving from chaos to the light of the world.” 

Sister Cheryl said it takes a lot of time for her to create an icon, beginning with researching the person who is being represented. In the case of St. Phoebe, Sister Cheryl had to look into the way that upper-class women of St. Phoebe’s time dressed and how they looked. 

Through this research, icons also give form or a new form to images of God and the saints, Sister Cheryl explained. “They’re simply images that point to other things.” Although she hasn’t yet created the icon of the first women of Prouilhe, she painted various other icons: of St. Augustine, St. Monica, St. David, and now St. Phoebe. “I want to make them real so that people can relate to them,” she said.

Using the standardized symbolism of iconography, Sister Cheryl depicted St. Phoebe holding a scroll, a symbol of her call to proclaim the Word of God. “Here as a woman who not only led a house church, but she was a benefactor of St. Paul,” she said. “She was an important woman, and I think that’s important for women today to see. Being a minister in the Church is not a choice out of scarcity but it’s a choice of people with talent and expertise, called to serve God’s ministry.”

For Sister Cheryl, creating icons is a form of preaching – and it is recognized as such by iconographers. “There’s an anointing of the hands of the icon painter and a prayer to be worthy, and a prayer that the people who gaze on the icon will benefit from seeing the icon,” she said. 

“Icons expand your vision of who can represent God and saints and holiness,” she added. “I think that that’s the spirituality I’m looking towards. My way of acting is to create some icons that haven’t been seen before so people can see who God is in a different light.” 

She encouraged anybody interested in taking up iconography to attend workshops because of the resulting sense of community. “There are people who talk about and do icons who have a deep spirituality, and it’s a good group to be with,” she added.
 

Caption for above photo: Sister Cheryl Liske, OP, with her icon of St. Phoebe, Deacon