Reflection on 20/20 Vision Responses

20/20 Task Force
Dominican Leadership Conference
September, 2007

Reflection #4

Honora Werner, OP
(Dominican Sisters of Caldwell)

“. . . (W)hen I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds Thy hands have made. . .”

This old hymn rang through my mind as I read the responses. Throughout the Universe we see beings of all sizes and designs being lured into communion. Yes, each one is one, yet each is called or lured toward communion – so that truly all is one! As humans, we can choose to attend to this allurement or, at our own risk, to ignore it.

For the past 800 years, the Order of Preachers has reflected the outward movement of the ever-expanding Universe. Dominic, when chided for dispersing the friars – even the youngest ones – to distant corners of the known world, remarked, “Grain hoarded rots!” And throughout the centuries we have continued to move to the far corners of Earth preaching through many media from university lecture halls and mural painting to Webpreaching and organic farming! So this outward movement geographically, as well as regards modes of preaching, remains a family trait.

Yet this expansive characteristic could result in disintegration without some union at the core. For the Universe, this may be the power of gravity. Dominican “Gravity” is our Mission: Preaching the Gospel of God as Jesus did! This requires a union with God reflective of Jesus’ union with his Abba. So our contemplative core animates the preaching and holds us in communion with God and one another. Both of these dynamics, expansion and union, balance one another. Neither is dispensable.

This Mission and our joyful presence in it lures others to join in. For more than 800 years we have experienced this reality. People of differing lifestyles: married people, clerics, single men and women, vowed religious both cloistered and apostolic have joined to be The Holy Preaching. People of cultures from every continent have responded. We can expect no less in our time and into the future. We may rearrange units of membership and even redefine terms of membership, so we will be more heterogeneous, but the universal appeal of authentic Dominican life continues to lure new preachers.

It seems that across the Order in the United States we are calling ourselves to ever greater communion, even structurally, and to ever deeper contemplation – for the sake of the Mission. To respond faithfully to this call we must move. Movement, change, can frighten or threaten people. But without movement there is no life. Change occurs whether we live or whether we die! It seems, then, that we are calling one another to move toward ever greater union, despite the fears and challenges that entails. Fidelity to this call will impel us to leave behind what is no longer effective or appropriate – what is dead – bury it with reverence, and move on, nurturing the pieces bearing life, and available to sources of new life. We do this for the sake of the Mission – for Life! This movement requires continual turning, conversion, or, as some sisters put it, “reconfiguration of our minds, hearts and spirits . . . looking with new eyes at our realities and . . . possibilities.” Yet as a preacher recently mused, “In all of Creation’s evolution, with all that has been discovered, no one has yet discovered a strategic plan!” We can be sure that how we live and approach the challenge we face today will shape what our future looks like. For us, the call to ever deeper communion with one another calls us to the asceticism of walking in faith, not by sight!

From the responses of our leadership teams and from our conversations among members in a variety of settings, it seems clear that we are being lured, called to structural communion as well as to a union of hearts and minds. Not every one is ready to move now. But it seems that those who are ought to move. Others may join as the structure emerges, others may not. As we move, we “sit at table” with each other and our associates, and we invite a host of diverse others to join the conversation as we move along. The motivating dynamic is for the sake of the future: the future of community, the future of the Holy Preaching here and abroad, the future of the next generations of Dominican women who will be multi-ethnic and multi-cultural., the future of our world.

The impact of ever more efficient means of communication makes the prospect of membership so widespread seem feasible. Our ministry to those most in need of hearing the Gospel is enhanced already by use of the internet and other technology. Promoters of justice, of preaching and communicators will expedite even more effective ministry as we embrace Dominican Sisters USA.

Why do we wonder about what compels us to take the risk of moving?!! We call on St. Dominic in the lovely words of the hymn, “O Spem miram” – O wondrous hope! We live in joyful hope! The joyful friar who founded us, lived in that same hope – and promises us to help us in our time of need! But even more, the Mission to which we have dedicated ourselves impels us to move forward, to attend to the lure of communion, and to respond with the joy and imagination that has characterized us Dominicans when we are at our best. Last summer at the LCWR Assembly we heard the powerful stories of leaders who had lost everything in the aftermath of Katrina and Rita. Everything, that is, except their faith in God, their charism, and each other. Their experience seems to be a paradigm for our living into the future: letting go of anything except God and our Mission as contemplative apostles preaching the Good News where it has yet to be heard, and – more than ever – holding fast to each other as we go!

Over 20 years ago our brother Jack Hickey remarked:

In the courage of those who suffer,

(for instance, the pain involved in moving and loss)

and in the compassion of those who stand with them,

(for instance, the sisters eager to move more quickly)

people will see GOD at work, and join in!

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