What's Happening

October 21, 2024, Adrian, Michigan – Many people and organizations publish and sell calendars to help people keep track of the tasks and events of each day. Sister Maryetta Churches, OP, has for the past five years created calendars that help people make the most of each day through prayer and reflection.

“We all have different ways of praying,” Sister Maryetta said. “I journal every day, and each day I do something different – whatever helps me to enhance my prayer, my listening to God.” She often enhances her reflections with artwork, using creative tools such as clay, markers, or yarn. Her calendars are based on selected artwork from the previous year. 

Sister Maryetta used her creativity during her 25 years of ministry at St. Mary Magdalen Parish in Brighton, Michigan, teaching groups to pray with art and creating All Souls Day posters depicting the parishioners who had died the previous year. When she left that ministry in 2020 – amid the COVID-19 pandemic – and returned to Adrian, she created a calendar based on her artwork as a way to help the parishioners remember her. Now, her calendars are available to a wider audience. 

This year, Sister Maryetta said, she decided to make a change as she created the 2025 calendar. “I wanted to go deeper,” she said. “I wanted to go deeper into my own life, so the questions I asked myself I share with you.” She included reflection questions on the back page of the calendar, numbered to correspond to the relevant month.

Sister Maryetta hopes that people who buy her calendar will use it to help them deepen their prayer lives and their relationship with God. “I invite you to pray with the artwork for each month,” she said. Contemplating the artwork and how it speaks to you can be another prompt for your prayer. What is the artwork telling you, and can you speak to God about it?” She believes the calendar could also be a useful tool for parishes.

Noting that each day of the year is a gift from God, Sister Maryetta said, “My hope is that this calendar can help you to appreciate that gift and claim it for yourself, and that it can help you to deepen your prayer life.”

The 2025 calendar sells for $15 and is available through the Weber Shop at the Weber Retreat and Conference Center. Visit or call the shop at 517-266-4035 to reserve a copy for yourself or purchase in bulk. 
 

Caption for above feature photo: Sister Maryetta Churches, OP, finds many outlets for her creativity. Along with her artwork and her creation of calendars, she enjoys knitting prayer shawls.

September 19, 2024, Ann Arbor, Michigan – After buying popular art from local artists in Brazil and Peru for about 30 years, Sister Barbara Cervenka, OP, and Marion “Mame” Jackson have one more task: to return the more than 750 pieces of art, primarily to the state of Bahia, Brazil. 

Sister Barbara and Mame, then professors at the University of Michigan, made annual trips to Latin America, predominantly to Brazil, to locate and purchase popular art – art created by the people – to bring back to the United States. “We put the collection together originally to open cultural doors between North and South America,” Mame said in a recent article in The Guardian. 

Through their nonprofit organization, Con/Vida: Popular Arts of the Americas, they arranged exhibits in museums throughout the United States to give voice to the artists and to popularize their work within the North American culture. One of the organization’s earliest exhibits, Bandits & Heroes, Poets & Saints, featured the popular art from Northeastern Brazil and explored the history and culture of the Black people who settled there. Through the years, Con/Vida received some of its funding through the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Ministry Trust Fund.

Once the artwork – including paintings, religious objects, and sculptures – are returned to their native land, many will be exhibited for the local people to enjoy and appreciate.

Read more about Con/Vida and its use of popular art to bridge the gap between South and North America – and efforts to return the art – in an article by Tiago Rogero in The Guardian.
 

Caption for above photo: Sister Barbara Cervenka, OP, left, and Marion “Mame” Jackson