Your response to the monthly reflections is welcome.  Email:  Sister Karen, Vocation Director  vocations@racinedominicans.org

June 2010

Monthly Vocation Reflection
Sister Karen Vollmer, OP

Celebrating significant days throughout the year kindles life in us. We pause often from our daily routine to remember, to give thanks, and to draw attention to people and events.

May 12th is one of those significant days for our Racine Dominican Community. It is the day we celebrate each year as Founders Day. We remember our founding, our birth as a community conceived in the womb of the Holy Cross Dominican Monastery in Regensburg, Bavaria.

Carried over the waters of faith and courage by Sisters Benedicta Bauer and Maria Thomasina Ginker to the birthplace in Racine, Wisconsin, this community grew and developed through the guidance and promptings of God’s Spirit.

On June 1, 1862 they opened a school for Irish and German children in the basement of St. Patrick’s Church. Two years later St. Catharina’s Female Academy was opened in a 2-story brick addition to the original convent.

During this year’s Founders Day celebration, 148 years later, the community sung the story of our founding. In words created by Sister Brenda Walsh, we were inspired by our “Women of Courage” and strengthened as faithful followers.

     Women of Courage..............Joyfully journey
     Walking your God walk........Heralds of hope
     Pilgrims progressing...........Drink from the wellspring
     Gifting with Good News.......Bearers of Peace.

     Travelers undaunted............Steady your sure tread
     Grounded in God’s love......Givers of life
     Followers faithful..................Comforting, healing
     Hands cupped receiving.....Blessings untold.

Mother Benedicta Bauer was a traveler undaunted with trust and passion to be a giver of life. And as she journeyed joyfully singing God’s praise, she gathered women to be on mission in the Racine Dominican Community.

In her letter written to the community on February 2, 1864, she states her belief:

“Divine Providence has helped us so far, and all has turned out for the best.
So it will be in the future.”

The faith journey continues, inspired by our Founder, by all who have walked and are walking their God-walk in community, and with all future travelers who will journey with us.

May 2010

Monthly Vocation Reflection
Sister Sharon Simon, OP

On the feast of Catherine, a Dominican woman par excellence from Siena, Italy, we celebrate in a Dominican tradition of praising, of blessing, and of preaching the good news of the gospel. From the words of Catherine we pray: Truth eternal, cloth me in yourself.

If the truth is in our heart, it will be expressed in our words and demonstrated in our actions. Catherine preached the truth and detested the wickedness of those seeking self-interest. She was called to nourish relationships and develop bonds of unity among diverse groups. She labored and struggled declaring that whatever her own needs, the love of the other had greater claim on her.

Catherine’s birth in Siena in 1347 brought the number of children in the Benincasa household to twenty-five. From her childhood Catherine showed signs of her desire to belong entirely to God, and by the time she was sixteen, she was experiencing a life of deep prayer. Catherine’s relationship with God manifested a quality of great simplicity.

We are told she was spontaneous, fiery and fearless. History records the fourteenth century in which Catherine lived as a period of great insecurity and disturbance. There was much turmoil and confusion. Often conflicts were settled on the battlefield rather than at the table of peace. Any reading of the life of Catherine brings to its pages, stories of violent conflicts and civil wars causing unrest and division.

With one glance into the fourteenth century of Catherine’s time and then into the twenty first century of our time, we surely can see a reflection of similar upheavals, insecurities and fears. We too know wars and hostilities between nations and ethnic groups. Countless people suffer from famine, homelessness, poverty and oppression. Political corruption, economic greed, a cruel recession, rampant materialism and manipulation of the truth rear their ugly heads with increasing frequency. As well, the church of today is undergoing its own trials and difficulties, and has consequently lost its credibility for many people.

Catherine walked firmly and joyfully on the two feet of love of God and love of neighbor, of contemplation and action. She clearly demonstrates the active person whose life was rooted in prayer, and the measure of her prayer was found in the fruits of her actions and relationships.

One author describes Catherine as a frontier person. Who of us today would be summoned to Rome to give counsel to the Pope? She was always on the watch for new places to preach God’s message of love and mercy and truth. Her Dominican sense of mission continually pushed and drove her to fresh frontiers where the gospel’s transforming power needed to be preached.

We dare to keep our ears and hearts open for the truth, and when responding, always seek the glory of the one who sent us. And in Catherine’s words, “If we are who we are meant to be, we can set the world on fire.”

                                                          April 2010

Monthly Vocation Reflection
Sister Karen Vollmer, OP

She went to the place of death early in the morning, to the tomb where they laid the body of Jesus.  In that place she experienced the power of Resurrection and received empowerment to be on mission proclaiming Good News. 

In the sequence of Easter Sunday, we ask Mary Magdalene to enlighten us: 

Speak, Mary, declaring
What you saw, wayfaring
The tomb of Christ, who is living
The glory of Jesus’ resurrection
Bright angels attesting
The shroud and napkin resting
Christ indeed from death is risen, our new life obtaining
Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning
Amen. Alleluia.

Mary Magdalene in tradition and in literature is gifted with three characteristics: she is the converted sinner, the contemplative seeker and the ardent proclaimer of the Resurrection. We discover through Mary’s response that Jesus calls, that Jesus heals, that Jesus brings the true freedom which enables her to embrace her vocation to holiness. We are inspired to seek and embrace the Risen Christ with that same intensity and passion.

Speak, Mary, to us in our day
helping us to transform the places of death
within and around us
into life-giving gardens
where we can sing and praise
the Risen Christ.
Alleluia!

The Dominican Order chose Mary Magdalene as their patroness in the year 1297. Her active-contemplative life, her all-absorbing love for Jesus, and her call to be a Truth-bearer serve as a portrait of the faithful preacher.

St. Mary Magdalene’s feast day is celebrated on July 22. The intercessory prayers for her feast include the needs of women in our day:
   o For all women who minister in the church,
   o For religious women, who embrace poverty, chastity, and obedience for the sake of God reign,
   o For those who suffer discrimination because of their gender,
   o For all who look to Mary Magdalene as patron of preachers,
   o For all who seek with passion the Lover of Life.

Gracious God, your Son chose Mary Magdalene to be his first messenger of Easter joy. By her prayers and example may we proclaim the Risen Christ and recognize him daily in the garden of our lives. We ask this in his name. Amen.

March 2010

Lenten Discipline
Sister Karen Vollmer, OP

World-wide attention and interest has been directed toward the 2010 Winter Olympic Games! Is it possible that the Vancouver, British Columbia slopes and arenas can give us a portrait of our own Lenten spiritual journey?

At the very beginning of Lent, we watched world athletes gather to “go for the gold” by astounding the crowd with their skill and endurance. Without hours of rigorous discipline and steady practice, these athletes would never be at the top of their sport. Precision and aptitude marked each presentation. Intense focus and direction were required to achieve such an awe-inspiring performance. Is it possible that the discipline and precision of these world athletes can serve as a model for our own Lenten spiritual journey?

World-wide attention and awareness has been directed to Jesus by Christians in this season of Lent which continues through the month of March. In a less visual way but no less striking, we hear the story from scripture of Jesus’ call into the desert. “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was conducted by the Spirit into the desert for forty days.” Luke 4:1-2  Under the urgings of the same Holy Spirit, Christians today enter the desert, the place of intimate union with God. The practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving give focus and sustenance to this time of deepening relationship with God, self, and others. How have you been led into the desert this year? What has been your response?

Although the crowd might not be as large as those gathered in Vancouver and watching on television, we do have a crowd of believers who join us on our Lenten journey. This is a sacred time for Christians to reflect on the life of Jesus. We align ourselves with his mission: “to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind and release to prisoners and to announce a year of favor from God.” Luke 4:18-19  How does this 40-day Lenten retreat with its rigorous discipline and steady practice sustain you for living faithful to your baptismal commitment?

At the closing ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics, the spotlight was on the vast group of entertainers, as well as athletes and the crowd gathered around the fire of the torch. The message that we are global citizens was so clear. One speaker referred to the athletes as ambassadors of friendship and peace. The festivities highlighted the passion people of all nations have to light the world with kindness and joy. Is it possible that this Olympic event could lead to world peace and unity? Where will your Lenten journey lead?