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November 24, 2020, Detroit – Dominican Volunteer Danielle Porter has been educated by Dominicans most of her life.
“I grew up with the Dominicans,” Danielle said. A native of the western suburbs of Chicago, she attended St. Edmund Parish School, where Adrian Dominican Sisters once taught. From there, she attended Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois, sponsored by the Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Albert the Great. Most recently, she graduated from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, sponsored by the Grand Rapids Dominican Sisters.
This year, she’s continuing her Dominican education in a different way: through community life with Adrian Dominican Sisters Ginny King, OP, Janice Brown, OP, and Nancyann Turner, OP, at Gesu Parish in Detroit. She is rounding out her education with practical ministry at All Saints Literacy Center and Siena Literacy Center, two of the seven literacy centers sponsored by the Adrian Dominican Sisters.
Danielle’s placement with Dominican Volunteers USA (DVUSA) is the result of a year of discernment during her senior year at Aquinas. “By the end of my junior year I knew I needed a little more time before applying for graduate school,” she said. During Mass, she prayed about her next steps after graduating. During Mass at a later date, she heard a presentation about DVUSA. “I spoke to two of the recruiters and by December 2019 I finished my application,” she said.
Danielle is one of six DVUSA volunteers for 2020-2021. Dominican Volunteers make a commitment to an 11-month experience in which they live in community with Dominican Sisters or Friars and are engaged in ministry. This year, Dominican Volunteers are serving in Racine, Wisconsin; Chicago; Blauvelt, New York; Houston, Texas; and Detroit.
Community life is “what I had expected,” said Danielle. “My mother used to tell me stories about how she was in the convent. My mom was in the convent around the same age that I am, which is really weird but inspiring, so I grew up with stories about how she lived with the nuns.”
A native of Haiti, Danielle’s mother studied abroad in Belgium, where she entered a religious community and was a novice there when her grandfather asked her to come back home.
Danielle said living with Sisters Ginny, Janice, and Nancyann “is like living with my family.” They pray together three times a week and formally eat together twice a week – though they eat together more often. Danielle takes her turns at cooking dinner and helps with the cleaning. “We do talk, and during the whole political cycle we were watching the news and praying to help boost our spirits,” Danielle said.
Her ministry at All Saints involves “very administrative, behind the scenes work,” such as writing thank-you notes to donors, Danielle explained. In addition, she is involved in two special projects at All Saints: the “five years-five goals” project for Giving Tuesday, in recognition of All Saints’ fifth anniversary, and a rearrangement of the space at the center to allow for greater accessibility for people who have disabilities and to create a “book nook” for all adult learners.
Since completing her tutor training, Danielle also has begun tutoring an English as a Second Language (ESL) student. As the daughter of two immigrants – her father is from Jamaica – Danielle said she especially enjoys tutoring an ESL student.
Danielle said her work at All Saints is also giving her the skills she will need when she formally enters the work force. “Even though I’m not getting paid, I’m still learning how to work alongside staff, meet deadlines, and do all the work that is essential for the workforce without being part of it as a 40-hour work week,” she said.
In her time as a Dominican Volunteer, Danielle has accumulated a number of special memories. One took place on Election Day, when, in the course of a lesson, Danielle taught her learner about homophones in the English language – words that sound the same but have different meanings.
“I was so excited,” she said. “I did tell her that her youngest child would actually have to learn homophones,” and that she would be equipped to help him to understand the concept.
At the conclusion of her year as a Dominican Volunteer, Danielle hopes to attend graduate school, most likely to study philosophy. She holds a bachelor’s degree with a double minor in philosophy and legal studies. “I’m an academic at heart, so I do enjoy learning and seeking knowledge,” she said. Graduate school “is what my heart is aiming for.”
Danielle also has a heart for her year as a Dominican Volunteer and encourages anyone who feels called to apply for this program to do so. “If you’re called to be [a volunteer], you should be one,” she said. “I’m almost finished with my first year and it’s very rewarding to know that you’re looking at the Catholic faith from a different perspective. In this program, you see it from behind the scenes with the Sisters in a community that values study and prayer.”
Danielle also urged prospective Dominican Volunteers to follow their passions. “Know your passion and go into a program that facilitates and nourishes those kinds of passions – whether or not you seek to be in religious life in the future or be single or have a family.”
October 6, 2020, Detroit – For the past 40 years, a dedicated group of Adrian Dominican Sisters and lay people have offered a spiritual presence in the Detroit area and beyond by forming spiritual directors, offering directed retreats, and presenting an annual colloquium for spiritual directors and other programs for people of faith. This has been the ministry of the Dominican Center: Spirituality for Mission, originally known as the Dominican Center for Religious Development.
This year, the Dominican Center’s staff and Board mark the Center’s 40th anniversary but, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the formal celebration will be delayed at least until 2021. Still, the founders – Sisters Charlotte Hoefer, OP, and Carol Johannes, OP – took time to reflect on the Dominican Center, its evolution through the years, and its impact on the people of faith in the Detroit area and beyond.
The Dominican Center – which opened on September 1, 1980 – was founded on the model of the Center for Religious Development in Boston, Massachusetts, where Sisters Charlotte and Carol ministered and received training in spiritual direction.
In 1980, during Sister Carol’s first term as Prioress of the Adrian Dominican Congregation, Sister Charlotte was serving on the Congregation’s Mission Service Team. “I knew Carol wanted to do something about spiritual direction for the Congregation, so I consulted with the Center for Religious Development where we had trained,” Sister Charlotte explained.
On their advice and with Sister Carol’s direction, Sister Charlotte submitted a proposal for the center, received positive feedback from a questionnaire sent to spiritual directors, and established the Dominican Center for Religious Development with a small staff. After completing her second term as the Congregation’s Prioress and taking a sabbatical, Sister Carol joined the staff with Sister Charlotte.
Through the years, the Dominican Center has changed locations within the Detroit area. Originally housed in the convent of Dominican High School, the Center moved to St. Mel’s and then to St. Paul of the Cross Retreat and Conference Center. Currently, the office is at the Mercy Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, but the staff will soon move their offices again.
While the Center is not a formal sponsored institution of the Adrian Dominican Congregation, a number of Adrian Dominican Sisters and other people of faith have been critical members of its staff. For many years after Sister Charlotte was Director and served as Bookkeeper and Instructor in the internship program, the Center was directed by the late Sister Joanne Podlucky, OP. She was succeeded by the late Sister Rosemarie Kieffer, OP, and then Sister Adrienne Schafer, OP.
Currently, Sister Karen Rossman, OP, is the Executive Director and Faith Offman is Director of the Spiritual Direction Internship Program. Father Victor Clore, of the Archdiocese of Detroit, has been affiliated with the Dominican Center for years.
Other staff members through the years have included Adrian Dominican Sisters Barbara Cervenka, OP, Kathleen McGrail, OP, Maribeth Howell, OP, Helen Sohn, OP, and the late Eleanor Stech, OP. The late Grand Rapids Dominican Sister Suzanne Eichhorn, OP, also served on staff, bringing the Center’s spiritual direction internship program to St. Francis Retreat Center in DeWitt, Michigan.
With all the changes in office space and personnel, the Dominican Center has maintained its mission: to assist all people of faith to develop the contemplative dimension of their lives.
“The Center has always been a very modest ministerial project,” Sister Carol said, noting that it has received some Ministry Trust grants from the Adrian Dominican Congregation. “The biggest contribution is that we ran an internship for spiritual directors based on the model that Charlotte and I had experienced.” The Dominican Center collaborated with the Cambridge Center for Religious Development for several decades, until the Cambridge Center became part of the School of Ministry of Boston College.
“I saw the need for the spiritual direction internship program,” Sister Charlotte said, explaining that originally the internship program was offered for one year and became very academic. The program was redesigned into a part-time, two-year format. The new program was experiential, with an academic component and a practical, hands-on component, Sister Charlotte explained. “We laid the foundation the first year, but [the interns] started out right away doing direction. The seasoning came the second year.”
Sister Carol recalled the many fluctuations in the Internship Program over the years. “There were years when we only had five to six people [in the program] and years when we had the maximum, 12,” she said. “Some were women religious and one or two priests, but there were also ministers and lay people from other faith traditions. It got to be very ecumenical.”
The Dominican Center continues the formation of spiritual directors after the internship program through the annual Spiritual Direction Colloquium. Sister Carol has fond memories of specific colloquia, such as one led by author and speaker Father Ron Rolheiser, who focused on spiritual direction derived from the life of St. John of the Cross. At times, Sister Carol said, as many as 85 or 90 people have attended the events. “People were so enthusiastic,” she recalled. “They were so excited about what they learned.”
Both Sisters Carol and Charlotte continue to feel committed not only to training and forming spiritual directors through the Dominican Center, but also to serving as spiritual directors themselves.
Sister Carol said a highlight of her years of involvement with the Dominican Center has been in directing participants in the summer retreats. “When one does a directed retreat, you have the opportunity to watch how God works in people’s lives,” Sister Carol said. “It was such a wonderful experience to walk with someone for a week or so and see how, when they gave themselves up to real, intense prayer, wonderful things happened to them.”
Sister Charlotte believes people are called to be spiritual directors. “It’s the trust that people invest in you … having people share how God is working in their lives. I felt so privileged to be called to that ministry.”
Sister Carol believes that people in today’s troubled times can benefit from spiritual direction. “A ministry like the Center can help people in spiritual direction and in retreat work to learn that they can have a wonderful, close relationship to God,” she said.
At the same time, she said, spiritual directors are still being called to walk with people. “You have to be a person who has a surplus of warmth, who is compassionate and a good listener,” as well as someone with a good theological background and some counseling skills.
The Dominican Center will start another two-year training program in the Fall of 2021. For more information, contact Sister Karen Rossman, OP, at director@dominicancenter.org.