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October 20, 2025, Baltimore, Maryland – Sister Lois Paha, OP, received the 2025 Alleluia Award during the annual conference of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions (FDLC), held September 30, 2025, through October 2, 2025, in Baltimore, Maryland. She was recognized for serving the Federation with distinction, and for “sharing her skills, wisdom, and resources in order to promote sound liturgical practice and to advance the liturgical renewal” of the Second Vatican Council.

Unable to attend the conference, Sister Lois accepted the award with video-recorded remarks, while two deacons from the Diocese of Tucson accepted the award on her behalf. 

Sister Lois served for 16 years as the Director of Liturgy for the Diocese of Austin, Texas, then moved in 2005 to the Diocese of Tucson, Arizona, as the Director of Formation. She added the Worship Office to the ministries of the diocese where she still ministers.  

As a liturgical minister, Sister Lois was active in the FDLC, attending her first meeting in 1989. As a representative of Region VIII, she served on the FDLC Board of Directors, at one point serving as its Vice-Chair. She has also been President of the Board of the Southwest Liturgical Conference (SWLC).

Sister Lois holds master’s degrees in teaching religion from St. Michael’s College in Winooski, Vermont, 1980, and in theology with an emphasis on liturgical studies from the University of Notre Dame, 1989. She also earned a Doctor of Ministry from the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas, in 2012.

In her acceptance speech, she quoted from an early mentor, Adrian Dominican Sister Joyce LaVoy, OP: “Be sure that whatever you sing or say, will help the people pray.” She focused on that mantra as the ultimate goal of her liturgical ministry. 

Sister Lois shared in her talk her early love for liturgy: from her excitement over receiving a prayer book while she prepared for First Communion to her Christmas gift request in seventh grade for the Marian Missal, which displayed the text of the Mass in Latin and English. “God put the prayerbooks in my hand and said go for it,” she said in explanation of her work in liturgical formation.

“For me the greatest blessing is to see the faces and hear the voices of the people with whom I am privileged to minister, to pass on the tools, the encouragement, and the mantra ‘to help the people pray,’” Sister Lois said in the conclusion of her acceptance talk. 

When Sister Lois first served on the FDLC in the late 1990s and early 2000s in Austin, one of the main projects was the implementation of the Vatican II revisions of the liturgical documents. Her role on the Board of Directors was to “bring the reform of the liturgy to the dioceses and regions we represented.”  

In her direct work with parish committees and parishioners, Sister Lois emphasizes that “the prayer of the Church belongs to us, that it doesn’t just belong to the priest or the deacon or the reader.” Before Vatican II, she said, the laity were “silent spectators in the pews, and we watched the Mass. But with the reforms, the full, active, and conscious participation [of the laity] was the call. The reforms of the liturgy were intended to allow everyone to be included.”

Sister Lois emphasized the importance of the laity’s full participation in Mass. The reforms of Vatican II “call us to listen, to respond, to sing if we can, to be attentive to the prayers that are spoken, to take seriously the homily,” she said. “What we do on Sunday has to prepare us for what we do during the week. The Sunday Liturgy is the strength we have and the guide we have for the whole week.” 

In answer to Catholics who say they are not “fed” by the Mass, Sister Lois encouraged them to reach out to those in charge of the liturgy and offer advice on what would nurture them. At the same time, she said, “Sometimes we have to be careful about our expectations and allow God to really surprise us, even in the quiet. If we listen to the words and listen to the silence, what is the message that God is trying to offer to us? … We have to make an effort to be open to the mystery of how God will enter our lives.” 
 

October 16, 2025, Florissant, Missouri – About 20 pilgrims hiked through the wetlands along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers on September 27-28, 2025, to deepen their appreciation of God’s creation, and especially the role of water. They were participating in “Pilgrims of Hope for Creation: The Rivers as Waters of Life,” hosted by the Pallottine Retreat and Conference Center in Florissant, Missouri.

Adrian Dominican Associate Celeste Mueller, DMin, President of the Board of Directors of the retreat center, organized and led the pilgrimage, convened at the end of the 2025 Season of Creation. The purpose was to “walk together to observe, listen and learn from the Rivers and the communities of plants, animals, and humans that depend on these living waters,” according to information on the retreat center’s website.

During the walk, Celeste told participants that they were hiking on “sacred sites” and encouraged them to treat these sites with an expectation that their encounter with them “might change something in us.” 

Laura Law, another Adrian Dominican Associate, also participated in the pilgrimage, and said she appreciated the meditation experience of the retreat. 

Read more about the retreat in an article by Laura Kosta published in The St. Louis Review, newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

Feature photo at top: Some of the participants in the Pilgrimage of Hope for Creation, hosted by the Pallottine Retreat and Conference Center in Florissant, Missouri, take time to pose for a photo.