Pioneering...?

Pioneering in 2017...?

In a recent article on religious life sent to us by the Executive Team, the word “pioneer” is used several times. It brought back an image that was used after Vatican II to describe what was happening in the Church as a result of the Council. From being quite “settled” as a result of colonization, writers were calling us to become “pioneers,” a “Church in the World.” So we roused ourselves from our security and “got on the road.” We began to go to public universities. We started talking to folks in other faith traditions. Dominicans founded Network in Washington, D.C., and the term “political ministry” became part of our vocabulary. Women’s Dominican communities took this pioneering call very seriously. 

We are entering a new year. It is 2017. What might the term “pioneer” mean for us now, 52 years from the close of the council? In a time in our history when religious life as we have known it is not receiving candidates? Where are we to “go?” What is being asked of us as we continue “on the road?” What are today’s frontiers, those fringe areas of our culture calling to us?

Pioneering folks have to be ready to leave a familiar place to go to a new one. They gather what is precious to them and set out. They use whatever transportation is available. They pass through unknown territory. In the past they would now and then circle the wagons, build a fire, share food, and tell stories. They may not have known what their destination was, but they trusted they would know it when they got there. They were ready to “be” a new way in a new place, and it would be all right, because they had one another.

Being itinerant has always been part of being Dominican. We go out from our prayer to be truth-seekers and truth-tellers. Our personal prayer is fed by the fact that we gather, hear and share the bread of the Word. Then we go out to bring that good Word to wherever it is needed. Are today’s “frontiers” reaching out to people society would just as soon overlook? Those who are spiritually lost? Those whose lives have lost meaning? Those burdened with shame and guilt? Those belittled and voiceless? Those who don’t know who to believe? Those despairing over the election? We are committed to truth. What can we bring them? We are compelled to justice. How can we prevent it from being trampled?  It’s 2017. A new time, a new situation. Time once again for us to decide how to go pioneering.