What's Happening

October 10, 2024, Adrian, Michigan – About 47 people – Adrian Dominican Associates and a few Sisters – attended the first in-person Associate Life retreat in years at Weber Retreat and Conference Center. 

Adrian Dominican Associates are women and men at least 18 years of age who make a non-vowed commitment to partner with the Adrian Dominican Sisters and to live out their call to the Dominican Charism. While maintaining their own lifestyles and financial independence, they participate in various spiritual, social, and ministerial experiences with the Sisters. 

The retreat focused on the new cosmology – or the new understanding of the universe – and the Dominican Charism. Prioress Elise D. García, OP, broke open the theme on the evening of October 4, 2024, as she welcomed the Associates and spoke of how her spirituality has been shaped by insights from the new cosmology. The vastness of the universe “expands the horizons of my inner landscape, my spiritual landscape,” she said. 

These insights have caused writers and theologians since the late 20th Century to “revisit assumptions derived from a 300-year-old view of the universe as a static, hierarchically organized universe,” Sister Elise said. Many people now, she said, have come to see the “deep interconnectedness of all life and understanding our place in the universe as a self-aware, conscious species.” 

The Dominican Charism “deeply grounds us into the search [for truth] and into what we’re learning,” Sister Elise said. “We take this learning from study and we integrate it into our prayer, into our hearts, into our Spirit-filled acts. All of those elements of the Dominican Charism fit well with the new cosmology.”  

The Dominican Charism was again the focus on Saturday, October 5, when the retreat participants gathered for a reflection by Associate Nancy Mason Bordley, Director of the Adrian Dominican Sisters Office of Dominican Charism. She compared the Dominican family to a family kitchen or dining room table. 

“There’s room for everyone,” Nancy said, adding that this Dominican table is held up by the four Dominican values – or pillars – of study, community, prayer, and ministry. “I like to think of the four legs holding up and supporting the holy preaching,” a distinct call of members of the Dominican family. “We preach from the pulpit of our lives. We use our individual gifts to meet the needs of the world around us.”

Nancy also emphasized the wider role of Dominicans as followers of Jesus. “As Dominicans, we’re people of Christ’s table,” she said. “Christ’s table is open, inclusive, uniting, invitational, and always diverse. Making room at the table is an ongoing mission for all people of God.”

Finally, Nancy issued a challenge to the participants to take up their individual roles in the Dominican family while facing the changes that will take place in the future – for both the Dominican Sisters and the Associates. “Each person in this room has received a very specific and sacred call from God,” she said. “Each of us is called to the charism and to promote our beautiful Dominican future.”

The afternoon session included a discussion by Patricia Siemen, OP, on the call of the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ General Chapter 2022 Spiritualty Enactment to attend to “the evolutionary awakening of human consciousness.” Scientific studies show that humanity is a species with self-conscious awareness, she said. “Some quantum physicists say now that the fundamental reality of the universe may indeed be consciousness – a consciousness that is embedded in matter and energy.”

Sister Patricia said that keeping this consciousness alive requires “a daily practice of silence, of engagement in contemplative practice and a mindfulness practice that helps us to stay in touch.” 

This consciousness has shifted her spirituality and understanding of God, who is present in this transformational consciousness. “Acknowledging the presence of a God who moves before us and yet the call to an ever-loving consciousness is the one thing that seems certain,” Sister Patricia said. “It’s the call of our soul to awaken to the sense of Holy Mystery, whose desire is to call us into ever-deepening relationship.” 

Esther Kennedy, OP, followed up with a presentation on mindfulness and the transformation of human consciousness. She described her own journey toward consciousness and mindfulness, which began when, as a chaplain at County Hospital in Chicago, she realized that she needed to come to grips with the suffering she witnessed in patients and their families. The only book on suffering that she could find was a handbook written by Buddha for his followers. “It was an opening to consciousness in how to deal with my life and to find my place in it,” she said. 

Pointing to the great need for the transformation of human consciousness and the practice of mindfulness, Sister Esther quoted Eckhart Tolle, author of “The Power of Now: “The transformation of human consciousness is no longer a luxury… but a necessity if humankind is not to destroy itself. At the present time, the dysfunction of the old consciousness and the arising of the new are both accelerating.”

Sister Esther pointed with hope to the “millions of small groups” who gather in service to the world through their transformed consciousness. While the world situation is awful in places of war and strife, “there are millions of people right now in service who are waking up to the goodness inside.”

The final day of the retreat offered the Associates one final time to gather and to share their insights from the weekend. The Associates concluded their time together by attending Mass at St. Catherine Chapel with the Motherhouse community.

For information on becoming an Adrian Dominican Associate, contact Associate Nancy Mason Bordley at 517-266-3534 or [email protected].  

 

Caption for above photo: Participants in the Associate Life Retreat take time out for a group photo.

October 9, 2024, Adrian, Michigan – Adrian Dominican Associate Life welcomed three new Associates on October 3, 2024, during an evening Commitment Ceremony held in Holy Rosary Chapel on the Motherhouse Campus.

Associates are women and men, at least 18 years of age, who feel called to the Dominican Charism (spirit) and who make a non-vowed commitment to associate themselves with the Adrian Dominican Sisters. While maintaining their independent lifestyle, they are invited to share in the Sisters’ mission, ministries, and spiritual and social activities.

Associate Nancy Mason Bordley, Director of the Office of Dominican Charism, welcomed the Associates, Sisters, and friends, explaining the commitment that the Associate candidates and their mentors had already made in preparation for the event. Each Associate candidate “has acknowledged his or her desire to make this next step and has spent months discerning how they will live out the Dominican Charism as a member of the Dominican family,” she said.

During the prayer service, candidate Celeste Mueller preached on the Gospel explaining how Jesus sent out 72 disciples ahead of him to villages and towns where he intended to visit. “It’s a pattern that has been repeated in our history,” she said, noting that Dominic, too, sent out his brothers to preach when they had only been in the Order for a short time. That pattern was repeated with Dominican Sisters who came from Germany to New York in 1853 and the Sisters who began ministries at parishes in Adrian, Michigan, in the late 19th century – and beyond to the new Associates today, Celeste said. 

“What we share with the earliest disciples and every Dominican through the ages is the invitation to become the sacred preaching,” Celeste said. “Each of us is ready and fully equipped to respond to that invitation.”

The new Associates are:

Celeste Mueller, a self-employed practical theologian and leadership formation facilitator from University City, Missouri, is the great-niece of Sister Rose de Lourdes DeSchryver, OP. A native of Detroit and the youngest of seven children, she was taught by Columbus Dominican Sisters at St. Clare de Montefalco Elementary School. She attended Our Lady Star of the Sea High School. 

Celeste, who earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and theology at the University of Notre Dame, came to know the Adrian Dominican Sisters through her studies. While earning a master’s degree and partial MDiv at Aquinas Institute of Theology, a graduate school in the Dominican tradition, in St. Louis, she was a classmate and student of Adrian Dominican Sisters. She earned her doctorate in ministry (DMin) at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis and returned to Aquinas as an Assistant Professor, counting Patricia Walter, Joan Delaplane, OP, and Maribeth Howell, OP, as her colleagues. Sister Patricia was her mentor in her journey to Associate Life.

“I am inspired by the creative and deeply committed spirit of the vowed Adrian Dominicans, and I have been deeply impressed by their hope-filled engagement of profound issues and their willingness to collaborate with non-vowed Associates to assure and even expand the impact of the Dominican Charism in the world,” Celeste said.

She and Tom, her husband of 40 years, have two grown children and one granddaughter. Celeste’s ministry is developing leaders “fueled by virtue” for the work of spiritual and theological formation. 

Peggy M. Pantelis, of Chesterfield, Michigan, heard about Associate Life for years from Mary Kay Homan, OP, her mentor. “My family was very loving [and] went to church every Sunday,” she recalled. She is the middle of three children: her older sister, Pat, is deceased and she remains close to her younger brother, Jim. 

A retired teacher in the Macomb Intermediate School District, Peggy remains active as President of the St. Basil Conference of St. Vincent de Paul. She also works one or two days each week with visually impaired students. She and her husband, Gary, have two children: Elizabeth and Paul, who is married with a 4-year-old son. 

Peggy enjoys joining and leading discussion groups for church programs. Becoming an Associate “seems like the next step,” she said. She brings to Associate Life compassion and the ability to teach and hopes to find “growth in my prayers, the ability to share my faith with others, and [involvement] in something that would impact lives.”

Stephen Wolbert, a native of Flint, Michigan, is the CEO of Social Impact Philanthropy and Investment (SIPI), serving as a consultant, primarily with nonprofit organizations in North Flint. In his work, he positions nonprofit organizations, helping them to expand their mission and serve more people. “Over the last 8-and-a-half years, we have helped organizations secure over $10 million in additional resources and impact the lives of over 13,000 people per year,” he said.

Stephen came to know the Adrian Dominican Sisters through Carol Weber, OP, Executive Director of St. Luke N.E.W. Life Center in Flint. Through Sister Carol, his mentor, he said he has “become really amazed with [the Sisters’] ministries and vision for how to sustain them long-term.” He holds Sister Carol – as well as the late Judy Blake, CSJ, Co-founder of St. Luke N.E.W. Life Center, as “tremendous mentors,” along with his parents, grandparents, and friends.

Stephen hopes that being an Associate will augment his ministry at SIPI. “While the work is extremely rewarding, it can become exhausting,” he said. “I would like to explore more fully how to move these challenges into purpose, develop a more focused personal mission, and develop a network of others that are doing work as ministry.”

After each new Associate was introduced by his or her mentor and declared their intention to become an Adrian Associate, they proclaimed together their commitment statement. “United in purpose through the Office of Dominican Charism, we Dominican Associates commit ourselves to sharing life in a communion of Gospel-driven women and men who are spiritual seekers, alive with the fire of being Dominicans in service to the world,” they proclaimed. “We strive to widen and deepen the impact of the Dominican Charism, which urges us forward in our desire to transform the world in partnership with the emerging reign of God.”

The new Associates and their mentors concluded the formal ceremony by signing the commitment form. Associates James Mallare and Rosemary Martin presented the new Associates with the Associate pin and a candle as a symbol of their new commitment. 

For information on becoming an Adrian Dominican Associate, contact Associate Nancy Mason Bordley at 517-266-3534 or visit www.adriandominicans.org/MeetDominicans/Associates.

 

Caption for above photo: Participating in the Commitment Ceremony for new Adrian Dominican Associates are, from left, Sister Patricia Walter, OP, mentor of Celeste Mueller; Sister Mary Kay Homan, OP, mentor of Peggy Pantelis; and Sister Carol Weber, OP, mentor of Stephen M. Wolbert.