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November 2024

Reflections of the Director

The Dominican Family: There’s Room at the Table for Everyone!

By Nancy Mason Bordley

Director, Office of Dominican Charism

Excerpts from the presentation given at the Associate Life Retreat, October 2024

When I was growing up, the kitchen table was the central nervous system of our home. The table was where life was planned, worked out, and lived. We did a lot more than eat meals at the table: there were many hours of conversation; whether it was during the early morning breakfasts my dad would prepare, or coffee with neighbors who dropped in, or the countless Middle Eastern feasts that my mom prepared, or maybe the late-night heart-to-hearts. The kitchen table also served as the community desk, where all five of us did our homework. Our kitchen table always played host to much laughter, some tears, always great food, many jokes, and so much more.

There is something sacred about a kitchen or dining room table. 

A kitchen table isn’t simply wood, varnish, and nails; it is a giant memory box. The kitchen table is the gathering spot where life is shared, where dreams are realized, where vision is cast, and where laughter can be heard. Through my lived experience I have come to understand and appreciate the power of the table. There is no other piece of furniture that holds such memory, history, and togetherness than the dinner table. 

A table is a sign of unity.

A table, whether it be in the dining room, office, conference room, or restaurant, brings people together to share moments in time with one another, be it friend or even sometimes foe. Sitting at the table, family, friends, business associates, or even new acquaintances all share their stories, laugh, cry, conduct business, or engage in debate. Battles have been won or lost all by simply sitting at this object with four legs and engaging in meaningful conversation.

In this Issue

News

- Associate Envisions Places of Healing

- Sister's Calendar Helps Promote Prayer

- Three Candidates for Associate Life

Living the

Dominican Charism

- Barry University Community Embraces Laudato Si'

- In Their Own Words

Sharing at tables is one of the most uniquely human things we do. No other creature consumes its food at a table. And sharing at tables with other people reminds us that there’s more to food than fuel. We don’t eat only for sustenance.

One of the most important spiritual disciplines for us is the discipline of table fellowship. In the fast-paced, tech-saturated, attention-deficit-disordered culture in which we find ourselves, we need to recover the art of a slow meal around a table with people we care about. But unfortunately, “table fellowship” doesn’t often make the list of the classical spiritual disciplines. 

Tables are one of the most important places of human connection. We’re often most fully alive when sharing a meal around a table. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, to find that throughout the Christian tradition, God has a way of showing up at tables. At the center of spiritual life in both the First and Second Testaments, we find a table: the table of Passover and the table of Communion. When Jesus himself wanted to explain to his disciples what his forthcoming death was all about, he didn’t give them a theory. He gave them a meal at a table.

The table is a place to remember the blessing of God. People gather around our tables to enjoy a meal as both a gift and a means of grace. These gatherings don’t need to be lavish spreads. They can be quite simple. But these are the meals where we gather with guests and get a glimpse of the banquet of the kingdom to come, where we get a little foretaste of the Banquet of God promised to us in eternal life. 

At the Eucharist, the table becomes the altar, the place where we are not only in fellowship with God and with each other but where we sacrifice our self-importance and take our place within a communion of saints bound by a covenant of love and forgiveness. The Eucharistic table is where we get a glimpse of our eternal covenant bond with our Creator. As the bread and wine passes from hand to hand, each person who eats and drinks it is reminded that they, too, have been invited to share in the life of Christ when they return to the meals they share around their kitchen tables.

In a culture where phones, tablets, televisions, and media constantly tell us what we are hungry for and how to satisfy our desires, it is a marvel that the central sacramental space of the Christian tradition is a table that beckons us to acknowledge that we have deeper hungers and keener desires. To gather at the table of Christ is a countercultural act that invites us not to simply stuff ourselves with food but with whatever we are craving in the depths of our hearts. 

The table of Christ gives us what we need to sustain us as we go into the world to offer others the feeding that we have found.

So, I believe that a table is a fitting image to use as we reflect on our Dominican Charism! My family table had four legs supporting the tabletop, with each leg important in balancing the table.

In the same way, the four values defining the Order of Preachers, values which Dominic practiced, are the four legs of a Dominican table. These four legs are Community, Prayer, Study, and Ministry. Each of these values is integral and essential to being Dominican. These four legs of the table hold up and support the Holy Preaching, which is the Charism of the Order. United by this Dominican table, all of us as members of this worldwide family are called to preach in diverse ways.  

We all preach from the pulpit of our lives, by doing what we are called to do, whether that be in the home raising children, in the workplace conducting business, or retired and enjoying the later years. We use our individual gifts to meet the needs of the world around us and the number and variety of gifts in our Dominican family are what make our charism so unique and beautiful.

And friendship is the foundation of the equality that we share in the Dominican Family. This Dominican Family is our common home. And it is an open home — everyone belongs. There is room at the table for everyone – there are enough chairs! 

News from the Dominican Family

Associate Shauna Walch at her art exhibit, Who Are the Species in Your Neighborhood?

A backpacking desert tortoise, camping kit fox, mountain biking kangaroo rat, and rock-climbing big horn sheep are among the critters whimsically portrayed in Associate Shauna Walch’s art exhibit Who Are the Species in Your Neighborhood?

“Desert wildlife shows us how to live well in the arid ecosystem we call home. Species like big horn sheep also convey values such as strength, agility, and grace in the face of the insurmountable,” Shuana said. “I painted playful pieces to reflect that Southern Nevadans are, in part, who we are – desert dwellers and outdoor recreational enthusiasts – because our wildest neighbors point the way.” Below each featured animal, she painted rocks bearing the core values associated with each species. 

Who Are the Species in Your Neighborhood? also creates awareness for the Compass, Shauna’s vision to build nature-based grounding sites that promote the mental, physical, and spiritual benefits of spending time in nature and fostering care for the natural world. “As I shared the Compass concept with public agencies, I was encouraged to think about incorporating public art,” she said. “I hope my paintings will invite other artists to imagine sculptures and murals for Compass Points.” 

The divine spark for the Compass came to Shauna on a hiking trail after the October 1, 2017, mass shooting in Las Vegas. “Gazing at the mountains, I felt they circled our community in a warm hug,” she said. “I envisioned a geographic compass that designated places of hope and healing on the Las Vegas Valley’s four distinct mountain ranges.” 

When Shauna drew renderings of the Compass, she included Compass Points on rural, urban, and suburban trails, parks, gardens, and cultural sites. “As an Adrian Dominican Associate and former employee of Dignity Health St. Rose Dominican Hospitals, I believe that accessibility to nature – like access to health care – is important for everyone,” Shauna said. “Compass Points will provide places for individual reflection, small classes, support group sessions, pilgrimages, and other gatherings that help people navigate their inner landscape and the challenging world we live in.”

Compass Point designs, whether new builds or enhancements to existing landscaped areas, will include flat, natural stones large enough to stand or sit on comfortably. The center rock will be etched with the invitational words Be Still. Surrounding rocks will bear core value words like hope, courage, and compassion that echo what we may need to extend, receive, or strive for to experience healing. Each Compass Point will be mapped on a web-based app and include a QR code that leads to site-specific educational and mindfulness resources. Features such as public art will be based on the setting, design preferences, and budgets of public and private organizations that seek to build certified Compass Points. 

A prototype Compass Point is planned for Henderson, Nevada. Shauna hopes that the Compass concept will radiate to communities beyond her home state to create a discoverable network of certified, nature-based healing sites. To learn more about the nonprofit Compass mission and Shauna’s art exhibit, visit thecompassrocks.org. 

Many people and organizations publish and sell calendars to help people keep track of the tasks and events of each day. Sister Maryetta Churches, OP, has for the past five years created calendars that help people make the most of each day through prayer and reflection.

“We all have different ways of praying,” Sister Maryetta said. “I journal every day, and each day I do something different – whatever helps me to enhance my prayer, my listening to God.” She often enhances her reflections with artwork, using creative tools such as clay, markers, or yarn. Her calendars are based on selected artwork from the previous year. 

Sister Maryetta used her creativity during her 25 years of ministry at St. Mary Magdalen Parish in Brighton, Michigan, teaching groups to pray with art and creating All Souls Day posters depicting the parishioners who had died the previous year. When she left that ministry in 2020 – amid the COVID-19 pandemic – and returned to Adrian, she created a calendar based on her artwork as a way to help the parishioners remember her. Now, her calendars are available to a wider audience. 

This year, Sister Maryetta said, she decided to make a change as she created the 2025 calendar. “I wanted to go deeper,” she said. “I wanted to go deeper into my own life, so the questions I asked myself I share with you.” She included reflection questions on the back page of the calendar, numbered to correspond to the relevant month.

Sister Maryetta hopes that people who buy her calendar will use it to help them deepen their prayer lives and their relationship with God. “I invite you to pray with the artwork for each month,” she said. “Contemplating the artwork and how it speaks to you can be another prompt for your prayer. What is the artwork telling you, and can you speak to God about it?” She believes the calendar could also be a useful tool for parishes.

Noting that each day of the year is a gift from God, Sister Maryetta said, “My hope is that this calendar can help you to appreciate that gift and claim it for yourself, and that it can help you to deepen your prayer life.”

The 2025 calendar sells for $15 and is available through the Weber Shop at the Weber Retreat and Conference Center. Visit or call the shop at 517-266-4035 to reserve a copy for yourself or purchase in bulk.



Please join us in prayer and support for our three new candidates who are discerning their commitment to the Dominican Charism through Associate Life:

• Tim Goyette
• Susan Ianstra
• Andrea Marie Poma



Living the Dominican Charism ...

Members of the Barry University community joined in the 2024 Season of Creation celebration, drawing inspiration from Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home. Barry’s observance kicked off with a Mass in Cor Jesu Chapel on Sunday, September 1, the World Day of Prayer for Care of Creation, and concluded with a Mass on Friday, October 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. The closing Mass included a blessing of the animals, celebrated outdoors, in the “Cathedral of Creation.”

The five-week campus celebration included community service and educational events designed to promote integral ecology and provide opportunities for reflection and action. This included a “Come and See” event in the Barry Urban Garden; a community beach clean-up on International Coastal Clean-up Day, September 21; and a screening and discussion of The Letter, a film highlighting how activists from diverse locations across the globe are responding to Pope Francis’s call to care for creation.

Programming also included a variety of opportunities to support local community partners and international climate justice coalitions. Participants in Season of Creation events were invited to sign the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty (FFNPT), which was a key focus for faith communities and activists to advocate for the phasing out of fossil fuel production and the acceleration of the transition to renewable energy sources, aligning with the goal of limiting climate change.

Barry’s Season of Creation programming is part of the university’s strategy to advance its commitment to the Laudato Si’ Action Platform. Events were coordinated by the Adrian Dominican Institute for Mission and Leadership in collaboration with the Department of Ministry and Outreach.

The vision for the Office of Dominican Charism states, “… they envision a future with groups/networks of purpose-driven women and men who are spiritual seekers alive with the fire of being Dominican service to the world.”  

Recently, we had the opportunity to ask some of our Sisters to reflect on two questions:

• What does the Dominican Charism mean to you?
• How do you envision the Dominican Charism being lived out in the future?

We feature a couple reflections for your enjoyment and contemplation.

The Dominican Charism is important to me. God gifted St. Dominic and the Dominican Order with a spirit of contemplation that exhibits joyfulness and freedom. This Charism has been evident to me in the joyful spirit of Adrian Dominicans over the years. 

A motto of the Dominican Family is Truth. Dominicans are preachers of Truth. Preaching is often demonstrated through service. Study is an integral part of Dominican life in order to consistently be in touch with Truth. 

Prayer, contemplative and communal, propel Dominicans to ministry. Another Dominican motto is “to contemplate, and to give to others the fruit of our contemplation.” Forming and being in community is an important part of Dominican life. It enables the members to be in service or Mission to the world. 

– Vicki Dalesandro, OP

Frederick Buechner says what the Dominican Charism means to me when he wrote, “The task of the preacher is to hold up life to us … through which we can somehow see the wordless truth of our lives.” Our lives, intermingled with people and all of creation, enable us to realize we belong to each other, and we are rooted in a Divine Mystery beyond comprehension. Our charism reflects back to people their goodness and the desire to seek the truth of oneself and the world.

This will be lived out in the future with more dialogue, interaction, and engagement with all those who share the Dominican Charism. Laity will minister carrying forth the charism with the wisdom and friendship of vowed religious, having established a strong relationship with them. The charism is what we are to one another, flourishing among the peoples of this world. Our encounters with one another will strengthen our trust in God, our tenderness with others, and our truthfulness with ourselves. It will mirror the community Dominic founded in Prouille of laity and vowed religious contemplating and giving to others the fruit of their contemplation.

– Patty Harvat, OP

Sisters are invited to share their reflections for future newsletters by emailing Liz Keith at lkeith@adriandominicans.org.