What's Happening

July 12, 2024, Adrian, Michigan – An 18-year-old student who was just starting to turn his life around. A teenager who died by suicide. A woman killed in her driveway in front of her young children. A 3-year-old girl killed in her bedroom during a drive-by shooting. A teenage boy who died while playing Russian roulette with his friends.

These are some of the 17 people whose funerals Sister Joan Baustian, OP, attended during her 27 years of ministry in Detroit, beginning in 1989. All of them died through violence – mostly by gun violence, Sister Joan said. They came to Sister Joan’s mind last month as the United States marked June as Gun Violence Awareness Month.

Sister Joan first ministered in Detroit in the 1950s as a teacher, but the violence occurred during her second time of ministry in Detroit. During this time, she ministered primarily in the neighborhood of Rosary Parish. She ministered for a time at Covenant House, which has a home in 34 U.S. cities for youth at risk of homelessness or human trafficking. Her ministries also included teaching in an adult education program. 

Sister Joan retired from formal ministry in the mid-2000s but stayed in Detroit until 2016, serving as a community organizer, continuing to work with the people in the Rosary Church neighborhood – including people from the neighboring Baptist church. The centerpiece was the community garden, in which about eight families regularly received food, she said. “I was there to help the children, the families, the moms, and the grandmoms – to get people connected with what they needed,” she said.

Sister Joan noted that the work of building community in the Rosary neighborhood had a positive effect. “When I first went there, some of the murders happened, but then after all the years of building up community there, we had no more murders,” she said. “It tells you how important building community is.”

In the earlier days, violence was rampant in that part of Detroit. Sister Joan’s first experience of gun violence – and attending the victim’s funeral – was for a 30-year-old man who served with Sister Joan on the board of Genesis, a community organization. He was shot and killed. “That was the first one,” Sister Joan recalled. “He was buried from the Baptist church. That was a hard one and there was a lot of talk. If they ever arrested anybody, I never heard.”

Several other incidents stand out in Sister Joan’s mind. One family – a Black Catholic family who attended Rosary Parish and adopted nine children – had to deal with the shooting death of their oldest son, Edward. Quite a few years later, Sister Joan said, the couple’s granddaughter was shot and killed while washing a car in her driveway, while her children, ages 1 and 2, were nearby. 

When a 3-year-old girl, Destiny, was shot while playing in her bedroom, Destiny’s aunt – who worked with Sister Joan at Covenant House – asked her to attend the funeral. “The church was absolutely packed,” Sister Joan recalled. “The chief of police was there and stood next to the mom, next to the coffin, and promised they would do justice for Destiny. The mother was in absolute hysterics.”

Sister Joan attended all of the funerals, often visiting the families to offer the support that she could. “I couldn’t say much – just listened to them,” she said. “When each one happened, I felt sad. Some you knew personally or knew the family very well. You just get the strength to do it.” 

The experiences “affected me in my activism against gun violence, war, and violence,” she said. In her ministry in Detroit, she has seen much of the root cause of violence: poverty and racism.

Sister Joan noted that she also had many positive experiences in Detroit. The community garden brought many of the neighborhood people together – including a group of prisoners who lived in a former convent, were tracked by GPS, and could go no farther than the garden. They volunteered in the garden when children were not around, she said. 

Sister Joan also offered nutrition classes to the mothers. People in the neighborhood enjoyed summer picnics together, featuring food donated by the church and grilled by the neighborhood men.

Strong communities such as the Rosary neighborhood bring a sense of hope to Sister Joan amid difficult situations. “Violence is such a big part of this country’s history,” she said. “I’m not sure we can change that, but we have to keep trying. I’m very fond of adding at the end, ‘Hopelessness is a terminal disease.’ Even if there’s not much to hope for, you keep hoping.”
 

July 1, 2024, Adrian, Michigan – Joy, gratitude, happy memories, and a sense of homecoming permeated the Motherhouse Campus of the Adrian Dominican Sisters as the 2024 Jubilarians – Sisters marking milestone years of religious life – and their guests gathered for the June 20-22, 2024, celebration.

The 41 Jubilarians include one Sister celebrating 80 years, three 75-year Jubilarians, 22 Double-Diamond (70-year) Jubilarians, 14 Diamond (60-year) Jubilarians, and one Silver (25-year) Jubilarian. Together, the 2024 Jubilarians represent 2,710 years of dedication to the Adrian Dominican Sisters and to the people of God.

While the Adrian Dominican Sisters honor the Jubilarians throughout the year, the formal celebration began on June 20, 2024, with a meeting with the General Council, followed by dinner.

The Jubilarians remembered deceased Sisters who would have celebrated their Jubilees during a special Liturgy for Deceased Jubilarians. The liturgy marked the faithful lives of 44 75-year Jubilarians, 30 Double-Diamond Jubilarians, and six Diamond Jubilarians. 

In her reflection, Sister Joan Delaplane, OP, a 75-year Jubilarian, compared the deceased Jubilarians to the valiant women described in the Book of Proverbs, exhibiting spirit, courage, bravery, faithfulness, dedication, and risk-taking. She focused on the “faithfulness of our Creator to each deceased Jubilarian who was lovingly willed into life, cherished and cared for every sacred moment of life.”

Sister Joan noted that the bond of love between the Jubilarians and their deceased Sisters “is not severed by the thin veil that separates our physical selves,” and that the deceased Jubilarians will continue their own intercessions for the Adrian Dominican community, our nation, and our world.

“Our deceased Sisters utilized their diverse and wondrous gifts in so many beautiful ways,” while also remaining faithful throughout the difficult times and circumstances that they faced, Sister Joan said. She concluded by thanking God “for the gift of each of our deceased Sisters who shared faith and life with us on our journey.”   

The Jubilee events on Friday continued with lunch for Jubilarians and their guests; a happy hour for Jubilarians and Sisters who reside at the Dominican Life Center; dinner; and a piano concert offered by Sister Magdalena Ezoe, OP, composer, pianist, and Professor of Music Emerita at Siena Heights University.

The Saturday, June 22, 2024, celebration began with morning liturgy. “This is the day the Lord had made. Let us rejoice and be glad.” Sister Mary Louise Putrow, OP, 75-year Jubilarian, evoked that feeling as she quoted Psalm 118 in her welcome to the Jubilee Liturgy. “I rejoice that these 41 Dominican women – 80, 75, 70, 60, and 25 years ago – said yes,” Sister Mary Louise said. “They said yes to the whispering of the Spirit, and all of us were totally unaware of what that would mean. We began a journey that has brought us to this very moment.”

Sister Mary Louise noted the surprising changes brought about in the lives of the Sisters by the call of the Second Vatican Council, inviting the faithful in the Church to change and to continue in conversion. “God’s presence and spirit have remained with us,” she said. “We celebrate the many unspoken ways that we have been called to share our lives and enter into the mission of Jesus.”

In her reflection, Prioress Elise D. García, OP, expressed her gratitude for the Jubilarians and the “many shoulders we stand on, all who came before us and loved and guided us.” She recalled the gifts that the Jubilarians received from family members and friends, teachers and guides, Sister friends, and others who saw the Jubilarians through difficult times. “They are all part of the incredible journey that the One who began a good work in you continues to shape and mold in you to this day,” she said.

Sister Elise compared the companionship of the Jubilarians with that of Mary and Elizabeth, whose story was told in the day’s Gospel. “Two pregnant women, relatives, encounter each other at the opposite ends of child-bearing age – an unmarried teenager and an elder who thought herself well past child-bearing years,” she said. “But in their encounter with one another, they at once recognize the One who had begun a good work in each of them – and through them.”

Sister Elise noted that the companionship of Elizabeth and Mary is “mirrored by your companionship, as Dominican Sisters, as you worked together with so many others to advance the Mission in such an astonishing diversity of ways with extraordinary fruitfulness – through times of great joy and also, no doubt, of suffering.”

Sister Elise offered a litany of the many ministries that the Jubilarians were engaged in, from a variety of traditional educational ministries to those who “tended the hearts, minds, and spirits of so many in need of care” as chaplains, social workers, counselors, psychotherapists, spiritual directors, and directors of retreat centers. The Jubilarians served in various ways in parishes and dioceses, as mentors and social justice advocates, and in the Congregation as elected leaders and in congregational offices.

“You are a gift to us and to the world,” Sister Elise told the Jubilarians. “Your good works are still alive in the hearts of all those you served.” Yet, she said, those good works have not ended. She quoted canonist Kelly Connors, PM: “The first apostolate of all religious is the witness of their consecrated life. We carry out that witness until we breathe our last breath.”

The Jubilarians proved their continued commitment to the Mission of Jesus and the Adrian Dominican Sisters as they together renewed their vows. “To the honor of Almighty God, I, … make profession and promise obedience to almighty God, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to our holy father St. Dominic, and to you, Sister Elise García, Prioress of the Congregation, and to your lawful successors, according to the Rule of St. Augustine and the Constitution of the Sisters of St. Dominic of the Most Holy Rosary until death.”

A festive dinner for Jubilarians and their guests rounded out the formal celebration, but many of the Jubilarians continued to take the time to celebrate with family members, friends, and Sister friends. Their sense of Jubilee continues throughout the year.