When I was in the fourth grade I felt God calling me in the whiff of a warm breeze. I had left a party in the living room and went to my mother's bedroom window, opened it and breathed in the scent of honeysuckle. Ah-God--I thought, I want to do big things for you. I shut the window and returned to the party. The seed was planted. It grew and blossomed as I found my way to the Amityville Dominicans and lived an active life of teaching, hospital chaplaincy and spiritual direction.
Since returning to the Mother House in my retirement, I have greater leisure for coming to an understanding of my call to religious life. The desire to do big things for God has taken a different shape. Now I see that it is God who is doing big things for me. I have the time now to relish silence and prayer without
Dominican Sisters of Caldwell
the pressure to meet expectations (mostly my own) and achieve goals and make every minute count. I am being drawn more closely to that pearl of great price. I have sought since childhood. God is here in the moments of each new day, in the community with whom I live, in the pleasures and frustrations of all things human; in the glories of nature, music, writing and reading. How grateful I am for the way God has brought me far beyond any power of mine to find Him.
It is still a challenge to remember Who is doing the search--to let go of my need to make things happen and to surrender in thanksgiving to the gift of God's presence. I want to share this joy with my brothers and sisters.
Stories of Our Sisters
bring the Charism to Life
Here are Our Stories for March 2009
Dominican Sisters of Amityville
Sisters' Stories
March 2009
Dominican Sisters of Amityville
Dominican Sisters of Caldwell
Dominican Sisters of Sparkill
Dominican Sisters of Blauvelt
Dominican Sisters of Blauvelt
Dominican Sisters of Sparkill
What inspires and energizes me to continue to live Dominican vowed life? The prayerful support and companionship of other Sisters in the community help me to live a faith-filled life of service for Jesus through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.
As I look back on 50 years of service, I realize that I have taught in many schools, but the surprise element comes from being missioned in the Bahamas and in Alabama. I would never have guessed that I would have the opportunity to teach children on Abaco Island in the Bahamas, or Bayou La Batre, Alabama. These were adventures that I will never forget.
I have been a Dominican Sister of Blauvelt for 23 years. From my early years, I was drawn to both religious life and teaching. In college, I became involved in campus ministry, and learned about lay ministry. Before graduation, the religious life question started stirring in me again. I came to clarity about the call in a moment of enlightenment about the meaning of consecrated celibacy. I had developed a deep taste for contemplative solitude, and suddenly realized that, as attractive as a whole array of lay ministry opportunities might be, as attractive as marriage and family life still was, this particular way of consecration was the life to which I was most called.
But I did not know where. In the interim, I joined the New York Archdiocesan Parish Mission Team, a community of lay people, religious, and priests who lived and prayed together while conducting parish missions. There I met the Dominican Sisters of Blauvelt through a woman on the team who was in discernment with them. Thus the call crystallized as a call to be Dominican in a
The members of the Dominican Congregation of Our Lady of the Rosary Come together to proclaim with John the apostle the words of Christ:“I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full.”
In late August, I attended the ceremony of a recent graduate who entered the Pax Christi Sisters. That gathering occasioned a flood of memories of my own entrance in1961. My “call” or vocation was an ordinary experience. It was an ongoing nudge during the two years I was a 9-5 secretary. I am a lifer in terms of my education by the Dominican Sisters of Sparkill.
From a brief experience of the pre-Vatican structure of religious life; from the poets and singers of the Vietnam era to the congregation’s corporate stand response; from the classroom to the “board room” as a member of the congregational administrative team; through the life, death and resurrection experiences as a member of a family, congregation and human community, I believe I have lived life to the fullest these past 47 years.
The address at a recent assembly focused on our world view and how it changes and expands through one’s experience. Membership in my congregation has been a powerful force in shaping me into the person I am.
My primary ministry has been in high school education. Each experience has been a response to a call to be a changing force and influence in the lives of high school students at a crucial time of growth. For the past 15 years, I have been privileged to minister at our congregational high school–Aquinas. It has been particularly rewarding as we carry forward the Mission of the Dominican Sisters of Sparkill in this congregational school founded in 1923. It is in this place and time that I commit myself to “proclamation of the reign of God through a ministry for justice.” Each day brings new surprises and is never boring. The interaction with students, partnership with parents, and the collegiality among faculty and staff enable us to do together what could not be done alone. We educate young women in a community of faith and learning rooted in the Catholic tradition and committed to excellence in the education of young women–mind and heart, body and spirit (Mission Statement). The work is challenging, the rewards abundant. Through the legacy of the Dominican Sisters, the giants upon whose shoulders we stand and extraordinary leadership and dedication of the many men and women who have joined us in the ministry of education, we have and continue to make a difference. The hope of the future is in the hands of the young women we send forward to make this world a better one
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+ Amityville + Blauvelt + Caldwell + Sparkill
Religious life for me was and is very much connected with ministry- nine years teaching followed by retreat work, parish and religious education, and then service as Vocation and Associate Director. Presently, I am a Pastoral Care Counselor and work for Global Justice.
My vocation is very much about relationship and community. In 1971, through the Charismatic Renewal, my relationship with God became very real. It has been the renewal in my life that has carried me through “thick and thin”. This work of the Spirit has revitalized the prayer, study, community and ministry, which have been so much a part of my life. I have been able to make real the Dominican motto, “To contemplate and to share with others the fruit of our contemplation”. Without a deep relationship with God, others, and myself, there would be little authentic fruit to share and I am very grateful.
