What's Happening

September 12, 2018, Adrian, Michigan – The Season of Creation is in full bloom at the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Motherhouse, and the Sisters welcome all who are interested to walk with us through this special season.

The Season of Creation –Sunday, September 1 through Thursday, October 4 – is a special, optional season for Christians worldwide. This season gives Christians the invitation to deepen our relationship to God, our Creator, and to appreciate and find ways to protect God’s creation.

Upcoming Season of Creation events at the Motherhouse are as follows.

• Autumn Equinox: Sister Esther Kennedy, OP, leads this celebration of Earth’s abundance and of Earth’s third seasonal turn of the year. The celebration will be from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, September 23, 2018 at Weber Center. The event is free and open to all. Registration is not required.
  
  
• “The New Cosmology: Where to from Here?” Sister Catherine Vincie, RSHM, offers this presentation from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. Friday, September 28, 2018, and from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Saturday, September 29, 2018, at the Weber Retreat and Conference Center. Sister Catherine contrasts the biblical cosmology with the new cosmology, discusses theological implications, and explores how Christians can take these insights into their corporate prayer. The cost is $80 for commuters, $100 per person for double occupancy, and $160 for single occupancy. Registration is required. To register, visit www.webercenter.org and click on “programs” or contact Weber Center at 517-266-4000 or [email protected].

The Season of Creation also includes ongoing events. The 10:30 a.m. Mass on Sundays in St. Catherine Chapel and presided over by Father James Hug, SJ, Motherhouse Chaplain, will include a homily on various themes of the Season of Creation. The public is also welcome to Peace Prayer, held every Tuesday at 4:45 p.m. in Holy Rosary Chapel. During September, Peace Prayer will focus on themes related to the Season of Creation.

Sister Sue Schreiber, OP, will lead Meditation Walks in the Congregation’s Permaculture Gardens at 9:00 a.m. and 6:15 p.m. Thursdays, September 13, 20, and 27 and October 4. Meet at the Gaia Garden (raised garden bed) of the Permaculture Garden on the Motherhouse campus.

Elaine Johnson, Permaculture Coordinator, will conduct Golf Cart Tours of the Permaculture Gardens from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays during the Season of Creation. The tour will leave from the entrance of the Dominican Life Center on Tuesdays and from the main entrance of Weber Center on Thursdays. Reserve your space at the Dominican Life Center and Weber Center reception desks, or email Elaine at [email protected].

July 17, 2018, Providence, Rhode Island – About a month after leading select students from Barry University and Siena Heights University on an intensive, two-week Environmental Leadership Experience, two of the program’s directors shared that experience with yet another group. Elaine Johnson, Permaculture Specialist for the Adrian Dominican Sisters, and Paula Dias, Program Manager of Mission Engagement and the Division of Student Affairs at Barry University, spoke about the program June 23 to faculty members and administrators from Dominican colleges and universities across the United States.

Now in its second year, the Environmental Leadership Experience draws interested students to the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Motherhouse Campus in May after the close of the school year. Through teamwork, hands-on experiences, talks, meditation, and tours of local sustainable programs, the students learn about eco-systems and the principles and practices of Permaculture, a system of learning from and working with the systems of nature in designing and implementing agriculture. The students are expected to use what they’ve learned to develop environmentally sustainable practices at their school in the Fall.

Elaine and Paula gave a special presentation, “Environmental Leadership Experience: Engaging Students in Caring for the Earth,” in a Saturday break-out session at the 2018 Dominican Higher Education Colloquium, at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island.

During their presentation, Elaine and Paula spoke on the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ 2016 General Chapter Enactment to “sacrifice to mitigate significantly our impact on climate change and ecological degradation” and on the environmental sustainability efforts of the Adrian Dominican Sisters, Siena Heights University, and Barry University.

Elaine and Paula also spoke of their vision for the future of the program, including possible credit options for participants and a reciprocal trip to the campus of Barry University in Miami to study the tropical ecosystems.

Read a fuller description of their talk. Please note that Karen Stalnaker, listed in the schedule as a panelist in the presentation, did not participate in that particular presentation but made a presentation during a different part of the Colloquium.

Feature photo: Elaine Johnson, right, discusses hugelmounds – raised beds that include organic matter that ultimately decomposes and fertilizes the crops – with the 2018 Environmental Leadership Experience participants.