Who are we...after the 800th Anniversary?

We’re a community of vowed religious women, right? Right, and we are surrounded by associates who want us to challenge them to be everything they can be in their life-styles. Right?

Our communal life-style is shaped by three gospel counsels: living simply so that others can simply live; loving to white-hot intensity with open hands; and binding ourselves to develop an ever-deepening listening heart. Right?

But other religious women’s communities do the same; and other communities have associates who draw strength and guidance from these women who live these counsels. So who are we as a community of Dominican women religious, who have associates? Who are we just having celebrated 800 years of Dominican identity? What is the distinctive mark we bring to the wider Church as we turn our faces to the future?

I’m going to suggest that we stand among the Jesuits, the Franciscans, the Mercy’s, the Redemptorists…carrying our own distinctive foot-washing towel. It has a monogram on the corner. It is “OP.” What are its threads? Why is it an “OP” towel, when all the others have towels too…but with different monograms and different weaves?

Our weave is indeed distinctive. There is none quite like it. Yes, we all have towels, because it’s all about mission in the end; it’s all about service. But there is no weave quite like the Dominican weave.

There are four distinctive threads, and no other religious community weaves them in quite the same way: there is common life, common prayer, study, and finally mission flowing from the linking of the other three. Those in formation call these the “four pillars.” I’m going to use the more flexible metaphor of “threads.” We’ll consider these in future reflections.

Why do I favor a more “flexible” metaphor, even though “pillar” is very firm and secure? Because flexibility is one of our most distinctive Dominican characteristics. We live our lives bending and flexing like dancers. Nothing in Dominican life binds under pain of sin. What? How in heaven’s name are you going to keep these Dominicans in line? How are you going to get them to do what they ought to do? Dominic wanted to put the weaving shuttle in our own hands. The Joyful Friar reminds us who we are as beggars, lovers, and listeners by our vows. Then he expects us to make responsible adult choices. He believed that living with a penalty hanging over your head kept you fear-motivated, and he was a joyful lover, and love drives out fear.

So we begin with flexibility. We are dancers, who bend and sway, bow and turn. We are the weavers of our own Dominican religious life. We dance to the Spirit’s music holding the shuttle in our own hands.