Saturday, June 27, 2026 - Link to recording of Jubilee Liturgy
Isaiah 12:3-6
Philippians 1:3-6, 9
John 15:9-17

Happy Jubilee! Feliz Jubileo! Maligayang Pagdiriwang ng inyong Jubileo!

It is a great to joy for all of us gathered here to celebrate each one of you, in great gratitude for your 25, 40, 60, 70, 75, and 80 years of religious life in loving service to God’s people and our larger Earth community. Most of you entered as Adrian Dominicans and some through the doorways of the Edmonds Dominicans, Our Lady of Remedies, and the Felicians, bringing the richness of those textures into our communal life.

Today’s readings speak of abiding love, of joy, of good work bearing fruit. They speak of the heart of the call so vibrantly alive in each of you.

Jesus makes this call clear to his disciples in John’s gospel. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” As followers of the Way of Jesus, this is our call – and that call to love has borne fruit in incredibly rich and diverse ways among you.

Jubilarians, a significant way your love for others has borne fruit is through education. So many among you have been magnificent educators, from grade school to high school, from colleges and universities to seminaries. You have served as elementary and high school teachers, principals and deans of students; as college and university administrators, academic deans, librarians, campus services coordinators, and as professors, teaching theology, music, history, homiletics, science and mathematics, among other subjects.

You have mentored and supported young people in your role as campus ministers, guidance counselors, guidance directors, and as house managers and rectors. You have molded students into athletes through physical education and offered gifted students needed guidance.

You have given of yourselves in support of our hospital ministries whether by providing hands-on healing through respiratory therapy or by supervising health services and serving as directors of volunteers and of hospitality.

You have brought your love in extraordinarily generous service to our church as pastoral administrators, pastoral ministers, and pastoral associates; in lay ministry formation; as directors and coordinators of religious education; as liturgists; as catechists; as parish life directors and facilitators; and in diocesan administration.

Our call to love one another has engaged some of you in adult outreach and education, ministering to adults with disabilities, volunteering with hospice patients and adult literacy, developing sabbatical programs centered in healing arts and spirituality.

You have shared your abundant leadership gifts in service as a superintendent of schools, as executive directors and development directors of various national and regional nonprofit organizations, as directors of retreat centers, centers for women, literacy centers, Earth and eco-spirituality centers. You have lent your skills to nonprofits through website development and computer consulting.

The call to love one another often call us to work for justice. Among you are Jubilarians who have served as justice and peace coordinators and promoters, in social justice action on ecology, as an assistant public defender and criminal justice specialist, as the United Nations Dominican NGO representative, as a critical ally in solidarity with a community experiencing systemic racism in a horrific water crisis.

You have walked with people in need as rural missionaries, as social workers, as clinical and psychiatric social workers, as spiritual companions, as allies providing meals and other basic needs to people on the margins.

A number of you have generously shared your love of community by accepting the call of your Sisters to serve in elected leadership as General Councilors, Administrators, Treasurers, Chapter and Mission Prioresses, and Co-Provincials.

Some of you have said “yes” to accompanying women called to this life, sharing its values and meaning as Directors of Formation and Directors of Candidates, Novices and Temporary Professed.

Over your many years of itinerant Dominican life, the call to mission and ministry has taken you, collectively, to nearly every state in the union – from Alabama to Washington – and to Puerto Rico, as well as the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Taiwan, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa.

In your ministries you have walked with richly diverse communities from rural white Appalachia to urban Black cities and Latino barrios. You have accompanied indigenous Aetas in the northern mountains of the Philippines and Native Americans in the United States. You have especially supported women – unwed pregnant women, victims of domestic violence, and women at risk of trafficking.

As we take in this collective picture of the amazing gift of your lives in mission as Dominican Sisters of Adrian, let us also look at it in the light of today’s Gospel. In John’s Gospel, Jesus speaks to his followers as “friends,” as ones he has chosen, calling on them to love one another as he has loved them, and to abide his love.

The authors of the wonderful Wisdom Commentary, write that this passage “describes the ultimate revelation of Jesus’s mission, which is to draw believers into the communion of life and love that he shares with God.” ¹

Jubilarians, you have lived your lives in fidelity to that mission – entering into the communion of life and love that is God’s gift to all people. Through your loving ministry, you have invited countless children, women, men and people of faith and no faith into the communion of life and love to which you so beautifully have given witness.

As we women religious – of all ages – now face another season in life when we are being called to much letting go, with all its pains and challenges, I believe we also are being called to enter into a deeper communion of that life and love that is at the heart of our mission.

I found words that capture this beautifully in the latest issue of LCWR’s Occasional Papers. I’ll close with them. Former LCWR President Mary Ann Zollmann, BVM, writes:

I want to believe that every surrender of cherished buildings, familiar governance structures, customary patterns of being, living, and serving, even our congregations themselves, is making space for a larger love to inhabit us.²

Jubilarians, may the love you have so generously shared these 25, 40, 60, 70, 75, and 80 years be the ground of a communion that opens us all to a larger love – a love that inhabits us, for the common good of all God’s people and our beloved Earth home.

 

---

¹Wisdom Commentary: John 11-21, (Barbara E. Reid, OP, ed.), “John 15:1-17,” describing the thought of theologian Klaus Scholtissek, p. 418.

²The Occasional Papers, The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, “A Love Letter to What is Emerging” by Mary Ann Zollmann, BVM, Summer 2026.

 

Liturgy for the Solemn Closure of St. Dominic Chapel 
(formerly Lumen Ecclesiae Chapel) at Siena Heights University
Monday, June 15, 2026
1 Kings 8:22, 27-30
Psalm 84:1-5, 11-13
Ephesians 2:19-22
John 14: 1-3, 15-20, 27

Holy Ground. We’re truly standing on Holy Ground as today we assemble to remember the sacred history of this holy place. We contemplate in gratitude for all that God has done in us and for us here. We celebrate in joy all that God has done in us and for us here, and we compassionate one another for the inevitable sense of loss that the closing of these holy doors creates in us.

Our first reading recalls Solomon’s prayer as he stood before the newly completed Temple in the presence of the whole assembly and praised God passionately for God’s fidelity to the covenant love shown to the people in the very place in which they were standing, and he pleaded that the Temple, “this place” as he called it, might always be a special locus of the presence of God. And so it was. As this passage suggests, Temple worship held a place of immense importance to the people of Israel.

And yet, if we compare it to the sacred history of what has happened here in St. Dominic’s Chapel, for almost three quarters of a century, it pales by comparison. For here, at the command of Jesus, the Church’s absolutely unique and incomparable prayer of thanksgiving, the Eucharist, was celebrated countless times, and we, the faithful, were fed with the very life of God.

Also, we’re all aware, I’m sure, that many other extremely significant rituals and ceremonies have been celebrated here, folded into the Eucharist. As our membership grew rapidly, literally hundreds and hundreds of us received the Dominican Habit and pronounced our first and final vows in this holy place. Many funeral liturgies were offered here, retreats were preached in this chapel. General Chapters have taken place here, and many of us have happy memories of wonderful Jubilee celebrations with friends and family within these walls.

But, we would be seriously remiss if we did not also mention the many Siena students, faculty, staff and friends who made it their spiritual home all the while they were with us. Many were in attendance at daily and Sunday liturgies. Baccalaureate Masses celebrated here were a high point, and many a gowned student processed down these aisles at Commencement.

The Chapel was actually a connector between the Motherhouse and the University. And often, while going in one direction or the other, passers through felt invited to stop a brief moment and pray quietly.

In addition, droves of us came back to Adrian every summer to study, and we prayed our daily Office together here. There were so many of us that we were assigned shifts, to come and go on schedule, so that there would be room for all. Sometimes we needed to add chairs to the ends of our pews to accommodate all of us.

The use of St. Dominic’s name, or “Lumen Ecclesiae,” as it was known for many years, kept before us sisters our Dominican heritage of the “Holy Preaching,” which flowed from our contemplative orientation and our own personal relationship with God. Dominic’s compassion for the deeply misled Cathar heretics, whose dualism convinced them of the necessity of abusive penitential practices to placate a vengeful God, has always called us to preach that God is boundless love, tenderness and mercy, with whom we can be ourselves, transparent, trusting and free. This tends to foster in us a spirit of joy and of lightness of heart, that other people often observe in us, and that is sometime called “Dominican Gaudium.”

In the second reading, the Pauline author describes a still deeper and more amazing reality: Not only is God present among us in our holy places, but we ourselves, all of us, are “members of the household of God built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone... in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” Do we really believe the staggering implications of this truth? Just think of it! In communion with one another, we ourselves become the dwelling place of God. Never mind temples or chapels or churches, as important as these are.

And finally, we spoke earlier of compassionating one another upon our almost inevitable sense of loss as we gently close the doors of this holy place that has meant so much to us for such a long time. As we look at John’s gospel and listen to Jesus addressing those he loved in the most compassionate and comforting of terms, about his approaching departure, we know that he’s speaking to us as well, when he tells us to “not to let our hearts be troubled;” he will remain with us always; he will not leave us orphans, and he will send his Advocate, God’s own Spirit, to dwell with us forever. Jesus assures us that closing the doors of St. Dominic’s Chapel will open new doors for us, and behind them, he will always be waiting.

In closing, I’d like to share the last verse of a poem by Rilke called “The Last Supper.” It’s context is very different from ours, because it deals with the disciples’ fear and desire to flee at the arrest of Jesus. This is certainly not our experience as we come together today. But listen for the last line, because it belongs to all of us. I quote:

He had bid them come to this last meal.
Their hands on the bread tremble as he speaks / tremble in sudden silence as a forest does when a gun is fired. / They long to leave, and they will (depart). But they will find him everywhere.

We, too, will find him everywhere!

---

Note: A news article with highlights video of this solemn liturgy can be found here: 
https://adriandominicans.org/News/siena-heights-community-adrian-dominican-sisters-solemnly-close-st-dominic-chapel-during-liturgy

Sunday, April 5, 2026
Acts 10:34a, 37-43
Colossians 3:1-4
John 20:1-18

Good morning and happy Easter wishes on this day that has fallen back to a winter feeling. Over these last few days, our liturgical lives have experienced a disruption. Mass was earlier last Sunday because we had a procession. On Thursday, Mass was in the evening and there was another procession. Friday’s quiet mass was non-existent. Last night, we had a beautiful liturgy, but one that was far from normal.

Jesus was a great disruptor. As written in the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus went about doing good and he healed—and advocated—for the oppressed. He disrupted the status quo.

And so it was that Mary Magdalene’s life had been disrupted. She had been a faithful follower of Jesus, but the last few days had been tumultuous. Jesus had been arrested and he died after suffering brutally. His body had been placed in a tomb and she was left in utter disruption. All that she believed and hoped for and dreamed about had been turned upside down. We have all had our lives disrupted by our own illness or disability, by deaths of loved ones, or the state of our country and the loss of simple decency. In these instances, our baseline normal was disturbed for a while.

Mary Magdalene turned her disruption into some sort of time to mourn, to grieve, to find solace in being close to the one she loved. She decided to visit Jesus’ burial site. Sometimes just standing there, remembering, gives a new hope. But that tomb was disrupted—big time. There was no body. Mary left the gravesite, fetched the men who returned with her and perhaps they remembered what Jesus had often promised. But the men left and Mary took a second look—maybe hoping that there had been a huge mistake. As she turned around, another person was standing there. They engaged in a brief conversation and Mary realized it was Jesus, her friend, her teacher, her mentor. One can only imagine this disruption! The emotions of the last week had been so intense. The two spoke briefly and he commissioned Mary to “go to the others” and tell them that you have seen me.

Mary’s life was disrupted once more. Sadness turned into happiness. She had been chosen to share the good news. It’s what we do with disruption that matters. Mary Magdalene did not let disruption paralyze her. We need to remember that. All week we recalled important moments of the disruptor Christ. Today, in this celebration of the resurrection, may we regard our own disruptions as opportunities for growth and possibility. And then, true to the message of Jesus, let us reach out and share these new learnings as our gifts of hope and love.

 

Saturday, April 4, 2026
Genesis 1:1 - 2:2
Exodus 15:1-2, 19, 20-22
Baruch 3:9-15, 32-4:4
Romans 6:3-11
Matthew 28:1-10

The Easter Vigil – an in-between time, a thin place, a vigil that marks the moment between the actual death of the human Jesus AND a totally unique and unexpected inbreaking of new life.

The pattern of the whole paschal mystery is borne out repeatedly in creation. Scripturally, we have God encountering chaos and, with a powerful word, bringing forth order and abundant life – that is all seen as very good!

Interweaving the scientific perspective, evolutionary cosmologist Brian Swimme says, “The explosion of a star is the primary revelation of God's love. The star dies — its final act of generosity — and in that gift, life in the universe is born. The Paschal mystery is woven into the very fabric of the universe.”¹

We see this pattern of the paschal mystery repeatedly in our lives. We are in a time when many precious sisters, friends, and family members are passing on to new life. There is deep sadness over our loss, and, at the same time, gratitude for their lives, and eventually, a new relationship – since we know and trust that we are still connected, though in a different way.

Just like for the two Marys at the tomb in today’s Gospel. They went to anoint Jesus’ body. They had no hope beyond caring for the body of their beloved friend and guide. But they were open to see the unexpected. The guards were not prepared for what they saw and they became as if dead. They could not take in this new life, this new possibility, this presence of the divine before them.

But the women could. They heard unbelievable news that Jesus has risen. They didn’t understand it, but in the midst of their fear they also experienced the joy of hope, and they went forward in spite of all logic. And because they believed, they saw – they saw the risen Jesus – they saw a possibility that was unimaginable only moments before. They were welcomed, loved, and sent forth to preach.

Now we know all reality did not change at that moment. The oppressive Romans would still be in charge for many years, and persecution of those who followed Christ would begin. But, in a sense, everything did change – this is the moment the reign of God which brought hope began in a new way – a way that gave people courage, a way that gave people the ability to see the deeper divine reality of all creation, a way that inspired people to strive toward the fullness of the reign of God.

We are still in that thin place – a place of liminality between the presence of the reign of God that Jesus announced and its fulfillment.

And we are called to continue the journey, much as the women in today’s Gospel did.

We understandably may feel fear, and we can also feel joy in the trust of the ultimate promise and goodness of God.

Our current situation in religious life and in our Congregation can be quite dauting at times. We may feel sad at what we are losing and fearful of what will become of us. But like the women at the tomb, we also remain open to the unexpected, to God breaking in where we never imagined, and we can witness to joy in all the service and love that we have given and received, and still do, knowing that there is an eternal aspect to all we have lived.

The suffering of our world is excruciating for so many and brings us deep sadness. At the same time the paschal mystery tells us not to despair, to be bearers of God’s reign in our own circles, to see and name those who are striving for good, and there are so many, and to know that, just as things can collapse into chaos, so can they rise to justice and goodness – with our cooperation and the Spirit’s inspiration.

We and all of creation live in the Paschal mystery of the Easter Vigil. We know the suffering of Good Friday, the lost feeling of Holy Saturday, and we know the joy of the promise of resurrection – we know it in Christ, and we have tastes of it in our lives and in our world. We remain open to and watchful for the marvelous and unexpected inbreaking of God each day. We may have moments of fear, but we go forth in joy! Alleluia!

 

---

¹ https://www.ciis.edu/news/explore-mystery-cosmic-christ

 

Friday, April 3, 2026
Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12
Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9
John 18:1 - 19:42

Is Jesus dead or alive? If he is dead, the gospel tells us something about his life. If he is alive, Jesus speaks to us today through the gospel. He speaks to us as clearly as he spoke to Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb, calling her by name, sending her forth to partner with him in a new way to proclaim the Good News to all.

Is Jesus dead or alive? If Jesus is alive, what is he saying to you and me through this Gospel as we follow Jesus today?

In John’s passion narrative, we see Jesus opposed by religious leaders and the political forces of Imperial Rome, who squelch his mission to establish God’s reign of love, justice and peace. With his arrest and public execution, he is crushed in agonizing defeat. The victorious cries of “Hosanna in the Highest,” quickly became “Crucify him! Jesus hangs naked on the cross, crucified between two criminals. As our first reading states, “so marred was his appearance…. despised and rejected by others.” The betrayal of Judas, the denial of Peter, and the flight of his disciples intensifies his unbearable suffering.

Jesus on the cross, reveals the excruciating reality of human suffering that none of us can escape. Too many are crucified today: those suffering violence and discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, those suffering domestic abuse, those on death row, those suffering war and poverty, forced to migrate from their homes, those in the throes of injury, illness, and death. The Earth, too, is crucified by global environmental devastation. Jesus on the cross shows us a God who joins us in our suffering, a God who welcomes us with outstretched arms, a God who renews our perseverance to make God’s cause our cause for the redemption of Earth community.

Jesus on the cross, crying out “I thirst,” reveals a God, thirsting for our wholeness, thirsting for friendship with us in intimate union. Jesus reveals a God who patiently listens to us, receiving the sour wine of our grief, anger, shame, and self-deprecation. God thirsts for our healing and our renewed commitment to make the world a home where all are welcome as Emmanuel: God with us, God in us.

Unlike the synoptic gospels, where the women following Jesus stand far off in the distance, barely visible, John’s gospel, places the women front and center at the foot of Jesus’ cross. The three Marys, with the beloved disciple, courageously stand by Jesus. Jesus looks tenderly upon his mother Mary as she embraces his suffering, her heart ripped open in grief. Can we even imagine the searing soul exchange that passed between them? You may recall, that according to John’s gospel, Mary initiated Jesus’ public ministry at the wedding in Cana when she said to him, “they have no wine,” and then to the attendants, “do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2: 3-5). Now she stands by him in his final hour when he consummates his mission by freely laying down his life for us all. Out of abiding love for his mother, Jesus entrusts her care to his beloved disciple.

As I reflected on Jesus, gazing lovingly at his mother, I recalled Mary’s annunciation story when she encountered the Angel. She was only a teenager, living in Palestine under the perilous military occupation of Rome. She responded to the Angel’s invitation with a bold yes to God, yes to a call she could not possibly comprehend, yes to the risk of being publicly exposed to the religious sanction against unwed mothers, yes to a vision of a mission for herself and her little boy that would scatter the proud and gather the humble, bring down the powerful from their thrones and lift up the lowly, that would fill the hungry with good things and send the billionaires away empty (Lk 1:51-53), her yes to a life that jeopardized her safety and the safety of her son.¹

Jesus’ total yes to God held high on the cross echoes Mary’s yes. Jesus’ gift of self in love of God and neighbor honors Mary’s self-gift to God. As Rachael Held Evans writes, “Before Jesus fed us with the bread and wine, his body and blood, Jesus himself needed to be fed, by a woman. He needed a woman to say: ‘This is my body, given for you.’ Jesus and Mary call us to do likewise.

After Jesus states, “It is finished,” and breaths his last, John’s gospel is the only gospel to recount that the soldier pierced Jesus’ side with a spear. Then in the presence of his mother and the small community gathered at the foot of his cross, Jesus gives birth to something new as blood and water flow from his pierced side. From the side of Christ, the Church is born with the proclamation that all people pass with Christ from death to new life. Now 2000 years later, we the Christian community stand at the foot of the cross in dark times when evil once again is having its hour. Our challenge, in the words of Ilia Delio, is to “Stay the course of love in a world that resists love, fears love, and rejects the cost of love.” Jesus on the cross proclaims that love does not end in death. Rather, love never fails!

Today, in our Good Friday liturgy, we will venerate the cross of Christ. We venerate the Cross to honor God’s saving commitment to our earth community. When we venerate the cross, we are called to commit ourselves to self-giving love. As followers of the Crucified and Risen Christ, we are lifted up on our own crosses daily. Father James Wallace says it this way, “To venerate the cross is to sign ourselves as a people who are committed to the dying and rising with Jesus alive today for the life of the world.”

 

---

¹ "Mary's Wholehearted Call" by Rachael Held Evans

 

 

Thursday, April 2, 2026
Exodus 12:1-14
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-15

One of the most common things I hear these days is the sincere wondering and worry of how we can put an end to the fear, the violence, and the overall destruction of Earth community that is happening daily.

Sometimes, it feels so overwhelming.

One response we have is that we gather in public spaces, bringing our signs – creative, imaginative messages – expressing the hope that change will happen. Or joining in prayers for the good of our world.

We are connecting with one another, we are grieving together, we are seeking to form a community intent on bringing the fullness of Divine Love into our world.

Jesus spent his life doing this very same work – forming a beloved community, tending to the weary and brokenhearted, healing the sick, offering community and hospitality to all – making known to all the presence of the Holy One.

Jesus, as he pursued his mission, ran into the same challenges as we do today. Yet he persisted in Love.

In our Gospel reading tonight, Jesus realizes his time was coming to an end. He knew it was time to turn over his mission to those he loved. He gifted them with a model to be carried forward.

He washed their feet. And in that one simple act, he startled them. He shattered cultural norms. He made space for Divine Love to transform our world.

Then, he invited them – he invited us – to do the same.

We now continue his work, his mission, in our time. We do what is needed to create spaces for Divine Love to enter our world. We reach out to neighbors. We continue to gather with our signs in public spaces, filled with hope and belief that change will happen.

This evening, we follow the sign given by Jesus to us. It is a simple sign. Walter Brueggemann calls it "the drama of the towel"¹ that fills the space between us.

In mirroring Jesus, may we grab our towel this evening, becoming foot washers in our world. For even small acts such as these can spark a quiet revolution.

 

---

¹ A Way Other than Our Own: Devotions for Lent by Walter Brueggemann, 2017

 

Sunday, March 29, 2026
Isaiah 50:4-7
Philippians 2:6-11
Matthew 26:14 - 27:66

About three weeks ago, PBS had a promotional fund raiser using the album of Barbara Streisand called Timeless. The title struck me as so appropriate. I think most of us would agree that Barbara Streisand is timeless, as well as her songs. What does it mean to be timeless? One definition is “not appearing to be affected by the passage of time… Enduring… Does not change as the years go past.”

Once again we gather in worship to tell and listen to the timeless story of Palm Sunday, which begins the week of the timeless narratives of Holy Week. However there is one caveat. As the French-American essayist Anaïs Nin wrote, “We do not tell stories as they are. We tell them as we are.” We are not the same as we were last Palm Sunday and Holy Week. Even if we go back to Ash Wednesday and recall Jesus saying to us, “I think I know you. Got some time to catch up?” And yes, these 40 days of Lent were the acceptable time. Hopefully we have come to know Jesus in a deeper way.

So the story of Jesus, the triumphant entry, the donkey, the palms, is timeless. The story hasn’t changed but we have. What do we hear, notice, feel about this day different from before because of where our life has been since the last Gospel narration? Because of where our world has been?

This is a week of contrasts. We begin with joy and end with pain and sorrow. Within the liturgy itself today, we hear of people shouting and acclaiming Jesus as king. And the following reading is the pain of the Passion, and then we have everything in between those times. It’s sort of like the bookends of our lives: joy and sorrow.

I wonder, as Jesus rode on that donkey amid the crowds, if he didn’t have the thought as in the musical Hamilton, “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story, …my story?”

Is it not us? Is it not us so many years later who share this timeless story with family, friends, co- workers and strangers we meet this Holy Week, asking ourselves how will we live our lives faithful to the memory of God’s love?

It’s interesting that Matthew ends the Passion narrative saying, “So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.” That’s where we are going this week: to the cross, to the tomb, where we let go of what has given our life meaning and value.

Our dreams will be shattered into fragments of cold and gray. Our palms left behind on a dusty road. Something deep inside of us will be shattered, waiting to be put together so we can tell the timeless story once again with the passing of time into another year.

 

Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
Sunday, December 28, 2025
Preaching by Sister Patty Harvat, OP
Sirach 3:2-14
Colossians 3: 12-21
Matthew 2:13-23

On this feast of the Holy Family, we remember that Jesus was born into a family – the author Diana Butler Bass writes, “Mary and Joseph’s new family, the family of the people of Israel, and the human family. This child, who knew memory and celebration and family and probably bittersweet relationships, too, is the One whom Christians believe embodies God with us. Yes, God is with us – with our memories and hopes, our sorrows and fears.”

Might these be the thoughts of so many of our families throughout the world today? Very reminiscent of our Gospel today.

Matthew writes quite a story about this newly formed family of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. Life is off to a rocky start for them: Fleeing to Egypt to avoid Herod, then an angel telling Joseph to go to Israel, but fear drives Joseph to a new and foreign place, Nazareth, where he has to find a new place to live and establish new relationships. This is a story of displacement and upheaval.

What appropriate words to describe the reality of our world these years: Displacement and upheaval. And we see how in the midst of all that happened centuries ago – and what happens yesterday, last week, a month ago – God’s faithfulness never fades, never disappears. We read that Joseph had dreams, just like Ernesto, Miguel, Fatima, and Ingrid today have dreams. Dreams where fear is warded off and confidence bestowed upon the dreamer. The angel says to Joseph, “Rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt.” And then later the angel says, “Rise and take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel.” Those dreams are repeated today. All we need to do is substitute a different name for the country being fled from.

The Holy Family was born out of displacement and upheaval. But it was also born out of dreams, dreams that transformed fear into trust.

Dreams that “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.”

Let us pray not for ourselves, but for the minds and hearts of those displaced families:

O God, you keep them waiting for the right time in which to discover who they are, where they must go, who will be with them and what they must do. And in all this, you keep them. Through hard questions with no easy answers; through the patience and the dreams and the love of others, you keep them. For you are Faithful Still.¹

Amen.

---

¹The Iona Community Worship Book, 1991, Wild Goose Publications.

 

Thursday, December 25, 2025
Preaching by Sister Lorraine Réaume, OP
Isaiah 52:7-10
Hebrews 1:1-6
John 1:1-18

As many of you know, the Congregation placed billboards around our county this summer with three words: "Love is Kind," from 1 Corinthians. We wanted to put positive and encouraging words out into the world as a counterbalance to so many divisive and cruel words we are hearing.

At this year’s city display of hundreds of themed Christmas trees, we continued the "Love is Kind" theme with our Adrian Dominican Tree. A number of Sisters here made hand-designed ornaments with more encouraging words. The tree also offers passers-by little “Kind bars” to take and eat.

Someone even made a front license plate with the "Love is Kind" design and gave them to a few of us. I don’t have the attachment that enables me to put it on the front of the car I drive, but I intended to get one. Yet something made me hesitate. I am embarrassed to admit this, but I thought, “If I have those words on my car, I’d better be really mindful of being kind wherever I go, and of driving kindly.” I would need to be sure to enflesh the words.

Because words matter. Words matter. Words shape our reality. Words are meant to be true.

As Dominicans, as people of the Word, as Gospel women whose identity is to preach good news, what we say and do matters.

Wonderful Dominican preacher and teacher Ann Garrido says we have experienced a year in which "words have been gravely abused.” She says that “the abuse of language is moral in nature. It violates what John has proclaimed [in today’s Gospel]. Our God has chosen to come among us as ‘Word.’"¹

I recently came across a powerful example of using words toward God’s purposes. One of our Associates sent me a video – it was of 24 different Lutheran pastors in Minnesota speaking out in support of their Somali neighbors who we know have been targeted. They repeat, “no one is garbage,” “every neighbor is beloved.” Just like Isaiah in our first reading, one says, “God gives us the boldness to proclaim from the mountain tops: every human being is God’s beloved.” They speak of their strong experience of community and say they want “to protect the miracle of people living in peace.”²

Words can destroy and words can build up. The true Word, emanating from before the beginning of time sustains all things, holds the cosmos, comes from the bosom of the divine creator bringing life and love.

And just to help us get it, to help us understand the message, that Word took on human flesh and dwelt among us, showing what it is to live as a human being with grace, with truth, with love. That Word was Jesus.

Scripture Scholar Donald Senior, CP, tells us that John "...reaches back into the vastness of the universe before creation and time began, into the very life of God, and there finds the ultimate origin of Jesus (Jn 1:1-18). The 'word' spoken by God, a word that perfectly expresses God’s love, arches into time and creation and takes flesh. Jesus’ life and ministry began in the timeless love of God for the world.” ³

That Word, that cosmic Christ, still reverberates with love for all, still invites us into deep communion with all creation, still calls us to generosity, to love, and to be and speak words that are true, are healing, words that make for peace, words that are kind.

This day, when we celebrate that the eternal Word took on human flesh and dwelt among us, take some time to think about what words you are being invited to enflesh for yourself, for all those around you, and for our world.

May the Word be with you.

Merry Christmas!

 

---

¹https://discerningdeacons.org/es/possibilities-for-christmas-preaching/

²In Support of Somali Neighbors on Vimeo

³Senior, Donald. Jesus: A Gospel Portrait (New York: Paulist Press, 1992, p.27)

 

Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Preaching by Sister Elise D. García, OP
Isaiah 9:1-6
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14

 

This is the night we have been anticipating, waiting for, in hopeful expectation through the weeks of Advent. It is the night of the inbreaking of Divine light into our lives. It is a night we relish each year in stillness and renewed wonder – astonished by the unexpected particularity of God becoming one among us. “God’s infinity dwindled to infancy,” as Gerard Manley Hopkins so memorable writes.

One particularity we are just awakening to, as we step back into deep space and time, is God’s dwindling to infancy right here in our common Earth home. This ordinary yet extraordinary particularity is reflected in Christmas cards that depict our wondrous blue-green planet against the inky darkness of space. Our imaginations can picture our Earth home orbiting the outer edge of the Milky Way galaxy – one of trillions of galaxies in an expanding cosmos that emerged out of nothingness. It was sparked into being nearly 14 billion years ago by the same Divine light that incarnated as human flesh some 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem.

As we hone into the particularity of the Divine inbreaking that Luke narrates in his Gospel, we see that is fraught with peril. The Divine child is born into a time of empire to an unwed teenage mother. It is a cold winter’s night in Judea with no room at the inn. She finds shelter in a dark stable smelling of manure and warmed by the bodies of barnyard animals. She and her fiancée, already exhausted having traveled for days as migrants from Galilee to Judea, were following an imperial decree to become documented in the town he descended from – Bethlehem, in the house and family of David. In his narrative, Luke depicts no other women in the scene to help her through the hours of painful labor to bring this firstborn child into a dangerous world.

Such is the inbreaking of Divine light – into an obscure planet in the vastness of space and in a lowly manger at a time of peril.

The revelation of this Divine inbreaking is equally unexpected. It comes to poor shepherds tending to their flock in the fields outside of Bethlehem. An angel appears, shining with the glory of God – and terrifying them.

According to Luke, the angel calms their fears by delivering the good news that on this day a Savior, Jesus, the Christ, was born. The angel says that the sign by which the shepherds would recognize this Savior is a child bundled in a manger – in a feeding trough for animals.

Luke then tells us that a multitude of heavenly host join the angel, giving glory to God in the highest heaven and on Earth peace.

There is an enduring hopefulness to this Christmas Eve story that arises from its particularities:

• From the humble and ordinary character of those chosen to bring the Divine light into being – and of those to whom the good news is revealed.

• From God’s coming into human flesh, embraced by the warmth and smell of other forms of Earthly animal flesh.

• From the circumstances of the Divine birth taking place “in a land where imperial might holds sway.”¹

These are enduring signs of God being with us, at all times and in all circumstances. Especially in times that are perilous, like the one we are in now where imperial might seems to hold sway – with enormous suffering for millions of innocent people and for our whole beloved Earth community.

It is on nights like this that we are invited to look into the vast depths of time and space that have brought all of us into this present moment. Through that deep lens, we are invited to view the particularity of that one moment in time and place more than 2,000 years ago when the abiding light of Divine love appeared in our world, calling each of us from that day forward into the fullness of our being as bearers of that Christ light for the common good of all.

It was on a night like this, on Christmas Eve of 1914, that British and German soldiers – in trenches across from each other on the Western front at the start of a brutal world war – somehow felt the transformative pull of that call.

It started with Christmas carols – Silent Night/Stille Nacht – in English and in German echoing across the front. The sound of shooting ended with voices raised in song. On some parts of the front, soldiers ventured into no-man’s land, recovering the dead bodies of their friends and then exchanging food, tobacco, caps and buttons with those they had earlier in the day fought. Some soldiers wrote letters home about having played soccer with each other that night, before the brutal war resumed the next morning.

What child is this – that would summon such a response?

It is the same child that calls us, this Christmas eve, to enter into the fullness of our being as bearers of the light and love of Christ – for the common good of all – especially in perilous times such as these.

 

---

¹Wisdom Commentary: Luke 1-9, edited by Barbara E. Reid, OP, and Shelly Matthews, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2021 (pp. 63-64).