What's Happening

October 22, 2026, Adrian, Michigan – About 50 people – Associates, Sisters, and candidates for Dominican Life – spent the weekend of October 9-11, 2026, discerning their call to join the Dominical Life Collaborative (DLC), a new organization, authentic Dominican vocation, invites women and men to live the Gospel through prayer, study, community, and preaching, woven intentionally into the realities of everyday life.

The retreat for Associate Life members of the Congregation, under the theme, Behold, I Make All Things New, was facilitated by Associate Celeste Mueller at Weber Retreat and Conference Center. The purpose of the discernment retreat was for participants to “support one another spiritually in the ongoing discernment of living out the Dominican Charism and to strengthen [their] connections.”

Following the example of St. Dominic, the Dominican Charism focuses on the call to preach the Gospel. Preaching can be formal, from a pulpit, or through everyday means such as one’s life, relationship to others, or service. Dominicans also focus on the truth and on the four foundations: prayer, study, community, and preaching or ministry.

The Adrian Dominican Sisters started the Associate Program – later renamed Associate Life – in the 1974 as the result of a General Chapter mandate to invite the laity to become involved with the Sisters in prayer and ministry. Through the years, Associates have made the Dominican Charism their own. The DLC recognizes that Associates and others interested in the Dominican Charism are Dominicans in their own right. As this new entity is formed, the Associate Life program will come to conclusion.

Participants spent Friday evening getting to know one another through an ice breaker exercise and reflecting on the meaning of the event’s logo. The day concluded with evening prayer.

Discernment and Change
Celeste began Saturday morning by leading participants in a reflective exercise of noting about six events in their lives that ultimately led to their call to be Dominicans. She encouraged participants to continue this individual discernment process on their formation as Dominicans.

“Your formation began before your birth, in utero, and sometimes we forget that everything we experience, everything we encounter, even the chair you’re sitting in right now – all of that is forming us,” Celeste said. “But when we begin to reflect on our experiences, we’re making our formation more intentional. We grow in self-awareness, and that enables us to be more aware and intentional about becoming the people we’re called to be.”

Because the transition from Associate Life to participation in the DLC could be see as major, Celeste led participants through a reflection on change, both at the organizational level and at the personal level. “It’s a challenging and stressful operation, even if you’re the one who’s really excited about the change, even if you’re the agent of change,” Celeste said. People on the receiving end of a change they don’t want can feel a sense of loss, potentially leading to denial and anger and, perhaps, ultimately, to acceptance, she said. 

One Associate spoke of her readiness to accept the transition. “I’ve seen the community go through a lot of changes,” she said. “If we can [adapt to] Vatican II, we can do this.” She added that the Dominican Charism “is so needed in our society that we have to carry it. We’ve got to be Charism carriers.”

Vision and Description of the Dominican Life Collaborative
Nancy Mason Bordley, Director of the Office of Dominican Charism – which organized the retreat – described the vision of the DLC. “The Collaborative represents our part in the continuous unfolding of the Dominican story,” she said. It will be open to current Associates, Sisters, Co-workers at the Motherhouse, Partners in Mission, employees of the Congregation’s sponsored and legacy institutions, laypeople, and anybody who feels called to live out the Dominican Charism, Nancy said.

“The Sisters were guardians of the Charism,” Nancy said. “They taught. They preached … and they gave the Church an extraordinary gift. The Charism is no longer contained within the walls of religious life. It escaped. The future is more about lay Dominicans discovering that the legacy also belongs to them.”  

Nancy described the Dominican Collaborative “as a place where we can form people for 
Dominican life, where people can discover the Dominican Charism and live it.” Noting that starting something new is never easy, she said that those involved are “going to need patience, generosity, and courage.” Certainty is not what is most needed, she said, but rather “trust in God, trust in the Charism, and trust in one another.” 

Nancy concluded by noting that she isn’t just asking for the participants’ support of a new organization. “I’m asking you to believe that Dominican life has a future, not because we know exactly what the future will be but because we trust and we believe and we know that ahead of us there is truth, study, prayer, community, preaching, justice, compassion, hope, and the conviction that our lives make a difference.”

The DLC will be a 501(c)3, nonprofit organization, with accountability, tax-exempt status, and shared leadership. It will continue part of the current structure of Associate Life, a member-driven organization featuring the Circles of Spirituality, Social Justice, Formation, and Community, Associate Dee Joyner explained. Community is formed through Sojourner Groups, in which members meet regularly to form personal relationships.

“In claiming our Dominican vocation, we work more closely with our Dominican Sisters to carry this mission forward,” Associate James Mallare explained. Participants in the DLC are invited to “maintain an ongoing relationship with the Sisters.”

That evening, six candidates made their formal commitment to Dominican Life in a ceremony at Holy Rosary Chapel at the Adrian Dominican Sisters Motherhouse. Read more about the commitment of Dominicans Courtney Berrien, Beth Blackburn, Yvette Koottungal, AnaMaria Rodriguez, Autumn Shaffier, and Shaunie Wall-Marshall. 

All people who feel called to the Dominican Charism are invited and encouraged to become part of the Dominican Life Collaborative. For information, please contact Nancy Mason Bordley, Director of the Office of the Dominican Charism, at 517-266-3534 or [email protected].

 

Caption for above feature photo: From left, Dolores Nelke, Beth Blackburn, and Jo Curran write about what led them to Dominican life.