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January 17, 2025, Southfield, Michigan – Three Adrian Dominican Sisters participated last month in a meeting of the Gamaliel Nuns’ Caucus, a coalition of religious Catholic Sisters and lay community organizers working together to bring about “transformative justice” in society. 

Sisters Cheryl Liske, OP, Xiomara Méndez-Hernandez, OP, and Janice Brown, OP, participated in the afternoon session of the Nuns’ Caucus, held at the end of the Fifth Biennial Race and Power Summit. The summit drew affiliates and leaders of the Gamaliel Network, along with invited allies and partners, to the three-day event. The theme was “A Pivotal Moment in Time: Resistance, Persistence, Insistence.”

Founded in 1989, the Gamaliel Network trains community and faith leaders “in building political power and creating organizations that unite people of diverse faiths and races” in work for justice. The network is made up of 44 affiliates and state offices in seven states. 

Participating in the Nuns’ Caucus meeting were sisters and organizers who attended the Race and Power Summit and others who participated via Zoom.

Sister Theresa Keller, FSPA, of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, opened the meeting by explaining that the Nuns’ Caucus began about two years ago with a letter of intent. In their work for justice, the Sisters intersect with community organizers represented by Gamaliel. This intersection led to the proposal for a more formal network of sisters and community organizers within Gamaliel.  

“Historically, many Catholic religious sisters came to this country to serve the many immigrant communities,” said Sister Cheryl, a community organizer who served Gamaliel as National Training Director and a senior trainer. “They supported the common good by building social infrastructure,” such as hospitals, schools, and universities. 

In spite of the good that Catholic sisters brought to the United States, Sister Cheryl admitted that in many places, sisters were “complicit in racism and segregation. We lament in regard to such things as not being significant voices,” she said.

Sister Cheryl pointed to NETWORK, a social justice lobby formed by Catholic sisters about 50 years ago to serve as a voice for people suffering from poverty or other forms of injustice. “We renew our efforts to support the common good,” she said. “Today’s sisters, rooted in the Gospel and ancient practices, persist with our call for transformative justice inside and outside the Church structures.”

Sister Xiomara, a native of the Dominican Republic and Executive Director of the Dominican Sisters Conference, related her own experience of racism when she came to the United States to enter the Adrian Dominican Congregation. She expected the people of the United States to be good people because of her experience with the Adrian Dominican Sisters who ministered in her country. 

“I was privileged in my country because I was a light color,” she said, but she experienced the biases of some people in the United States. “I was feeling less and less and didn’t know why.” She learned that she was experiencing racism. 

Sister Xiomara educated herself on the biases in the United States and became involved in the Congregation’s efforts to root out racist attitudes. In its Toward Communion Circle created to work towards the Congregation’s 2016 Enactment on Racism and Diversity, “we wanted to undo racism among us to raise diversity,” she said. “We wrestled a lot, and some of the stories were painful.”

Sister Xiomara cited the efforts of the Revolutionary Love Project with its three practices: See no stranger; love others, but first tend to your own wounds and fears; and adapt the practice of a midwife: push for new life. The project was founded by Valarie Kaur, a civil rights leader, lawyer, educator, activist, and author.

“I refuse to see myself as a victim,” Sister Xiomara said. “I want to see all of us as a beautiful creation of God. I want to see myself as more than a survivor but a thriver.”

Sister Janice spoke of prayer as a basis for religious life. “Prayer is where we find our ground, where I open myself to a greater world,” she said. Contemplation “is a time to step aside and be with God. You stop and contemplate and just let that sink in … bringing you to a higher level of consciousness.”

Study is also an important part of the Dominican tradition and the tradition of other congregations as well, Sister Janice said. It involves understanding the world and discerning where God is and what God plans for us. 

Prayer and study bring us to spiritual activism, “the act of transforming oneself,” Sister Janice said. “Prayer is a breath of life that holds us as a community and as a unique child of God. It brings us back to the essence of who we are and whose we are.”   

The meeting concluded with a discussion on how participants were sustained by prayer and their mission, and on ways that community organizers and Sisters can work together and learn from one another. 
 

Caption for above feature photo: From left: Sister Cheryl Liske, OP, Sister Xiomara Méndez-Fernandez, OP, and Sister Janice Brown, OP.

January 10, 2025, Providence, Rhode Island – After nearly 40 years of ministry at Providence College and 50 years living in Rhode Island, Sister Gail Himrod, OP, received a special gift to remind her of the long-time connection as she was preparing to move to the Adrian Dominican Sisters Motherhouse in Adrian, Michigan. 

Sister Gail was presented with the Laudare Medal as a sign of gratitude for her years of ministry at Providence. Father Joseph Guido, OP, Prior of the U.S. Eastern Province of Dominican Friars, made the presentation at the conclusion of Vespers in the chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas Priory. The friars founded Providence College in 1917.

“I was very surprised and overwhelmed,” Sister Gail recalled. Sister Gail holds a bachelor’s degree in music and English from Siena Heights College (now University) in Adrian, a master’s degree in music history and musicology from the University of Michigan, and a doctorate in music education and music history from Boston University.

While taking a semester of courses at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., Sister Gail often went to the Dominican House of Studies for liturgy and to use its library. While there, she met a Dominican Friar from Providence College and told him about her newly completed master’s degree. “He told me they were trying to start a music major at Providence,” Sister Gail recalled. “He asked if I was interested, and I was because I wasn’t doing anything with my degree.” In November, the friar asked her to submit her resumé. 

Sister Gail began her ministry at Providence College in the 1974-1975 academic year. By that time, she said, Providence was offering music courses but still needed to develop the degree program – a project in which she became heavily engaged. Tasks included studying music programs at nearby colleges, writing materials, and created proposals presented to the Committee on Studies.

“There were specific history and theory courses outlined for a music major,” Sister Gail recalled. Students needed to take the courses and private lessons for their instrument to be declared a music major. 

Sister Gail also led the Music Department’s efforts to gain accreditation through the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM). “The initial accreditation inquiry began with my attending the yearly national meetings in order to determine whether we were ready for this step,” she recalled. She directed the department’s self-study and drew up the required documentation. After the NASM visiting team’s report and Providence’s response, the college was accredited to offer music major, Sister Gail said. 

In her ministry at Providence College, Sister Gail taught courses including History of the Middle Ages, Music in the Classical Era, Women and Music, Music and Society, and Music Appreciation. She also chaired the Music Department at various times and served on the Faculty Senate. Her committee work included the Diamond Jubilee Committee, preparing for the celebration of Providence’s 75th anniversary, and the Centennial Committee, planning for the college’s 100th anniversary in 2017.

Sister Gail also played the organ for nearby parishes. For about five years, she served as assistant organist for the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, often substituting for Dr. Alexander Peloquin (1918-1997), the Cathedral organist and Director of Music Ministries, as well as a noted composer, director of the Peloquin Chorale, and composer-in-Residence at Boston College. Sister Gail has been gathering material for a biography she hopes to write of Dr. Peloquin.

While she served the college in a variety of ways, Sister Gail has also placed much focus on the students themselves and is pleased with the lives of many of her students after graduation. “You hope they will become proficient in whatever areas they were involved in,” she said. Her former students have not disappointed her. Many are music educators in public elementary and high schools and some became private teachers for instruments or voice, conductors, and performers.   

Sister Gail’s identity as a Dominican Sister was also key at Providence College, a Catholic and Dominican school. Her work at the college and her mission as an Adrian Dominican Sister have never been separate, she said. A major part of her ministry was her Dominican presence. “Whether it be in a classroom or walking around campus or something else,” the presence was always important, she said. “I was a Dominican – not just Gail Himrod but I was Sister Gail Himrod. I was a Dominican Sister working alongside the Dominican men and women.”