Blog by Sr. June Fitzgerald, OP[/caption]
This week our Ministry of Welcome – Vocations and Formation teams are meeting to review our year and to plan for the future. We’re taking time out from our usual schedule to step back and take a long loving look at where God is calling us to focus our time, energy, and enthusiasm.
As we do this, I am also preparing to move to Connecticut in a few weeks. I’ll be reopening our Vocation office in New Haven and becoming a member of our House of Welcome community.
This requires me once again to embrace the reality of the itinerant nature of my life and my commitment.
Let me tell you a little about what itinerancy is, and why I believe it is one of the important hallmarks of our lives as Dominicans. Our itinerant lifestyle includes being itinerant in body, mind, and spirit. It is part of my life as a Dominican Sister of Peace and as a disciple of Christ. I can’t say that I like moving – especially the physical part of sorting, discarding, packing, and moving my various and sundry belongings – however, I have come to a deeper understanding of how this is part of how I embrace God’s will in my life.
By embracing my itinerancy I make myself more available to God, my congregation and to those I serve. Not everyone is called to this way of living religious life. Some religious live their entire lives in one or two places. Both ways are good, both have their challenges and blessings.
Why do I commit to a life that has called me to move any number of times in the last 25 years?
I do it because God has called me to my life as a Dominican. From the beginning of the Order, Dominicans have been itinerant. I am open to it because God gives me the grace to do so. I have confidence that I will be where God needs me to be and I do it for the sake of The Holy Preaching – the mission we have been entrusted with. In my faithful trust in God I witness to others the truth of our belief that God will always be with us to the end of time.
Itinerancy goes along with the four pillars of our Dominican life: prayer, community, ministry and study. It weaves them together and draws us closer to each other as we live this life to which God has called us. We are reminded about this in our Congregational Constitutions: “Living communally, we seek the integrity of life characteristic of our Dominican vocation which balances gospel itinerancy with prayer, study, and common life.” (Constitutions III. 16)
Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to leave my forwarding address.
Join us for the adventure of a lifetime as a Dominican Sister of Peace. Contact us to begin the conversation. 