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October 26, 2021, Detroit – Waiting in Wondrous Expectation, the 2021 Advent booklet written by Adrian Dominican Sister Janet Schaeffler, OP, is available to be used as a prayerful Advent resource for individuals, families, or parish groups. Written as a companion to the Advent season, the booklet includes a list of the daily readings, a reflection, a daily practice, and a prayer for each day.

Sister Janet Schaeffler, OP

While many see the traditional Advent focus on waiting in reference to the centuries of waiting for the Messiah, Advent also encourages us to “wait in the everydayness of our lives,” Sister Janet writes in her introduction. 

A retreat leader and a consultant for catechists and adult faith formation leaders, Sister Janet also once ministered as Director of Adult Faith Formation for the Archdiocese of Detroit. She is a recipient of the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership (NCCL) Distinguished Service Award.

Waiting in Wondrous Expectation is available through Twenty-Third Publications and the Weber Center Shop, [email protected] or 517-266-4035. 

December 11, 2020, Adrian, Michigan – Journey has often been used as a metaphor for travel through life and time as well as through geographic space. In their December 2, 2020 presentation, “Journey to Bethlehem,” Sisters Janice Brown, OP, and Nancyann Turner, OP, compare the journey that Joseph and Mary made from Nazareth to Bethlehem with the journey that people of faith are making this year through Advent during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Their presentation – part of a series of monthly spirituality presentations by members of the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Spirituality Committee – was live streamed and recorded.

“We take the journey down the road to Bethlehem every year when we tell the story of the birth [of Jesus],” Sister Nancyann said. She noted the difficulty of the journey  – especially for a young woman who was about to give birth – involving roads that curved back, hills and mountains, and hazards such as the rough terrain, wild animals, and bandits. 

“We, too, are on a long journey,” Sister Nancyann said. “2020 took us on a journey we’d never foreseen. We had to be more separate and yet grow closer – and we had to learn and relearn that love does cast out fear.”

Sister Janice pointed to the unusual challenges of 2020: from the inability for many people of faith to attend worship services together to the loss of activities that feed the soul, such as visiting museums. “What we know is that Christ is with us in the people, the world that surrounds us,” Sister Janice said. She encouraged her audience to “find ways to heal the divisions of this country, to listen, to be kind, even to those who are very hard to be kind to.” The challenge, she said, is to build the beloved community often referred to by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Both Sisters offered the audience opportunities to pause and reflect on their own journeys to Bethlehem, through Advent, and through the pandemic.

Watch the entire video below.