My sisters and I here in Kansas are getting ready to say “Goodbye” to our home in Great Bend.  For most of the sisters, it’s been their home for their entire religious lives, a place to return to during vacations from teaching, breaks from nursing, or moves to a new ministry, a new city, a new state.  This moving around is a facet of Dominican life called itinerancy. In Dominican tradition, it’s our commitment to travel from place to place, preaching, teaching, and serving God’s people.  It was the way of our founder, St. Dominic. 

St. Dominic was considered an itinerant preacher traveling around the countryside of Spain, France, and Italy, preaching the Good News of God’s love for us and all creation and refuting the teachings of the Albigensian heresy, which rejected the material world. And while we aren’t sent out to counter a heresy, we are called to use our gifts and charism to spread the Gospel.  

Wherever we’re sent, we build community. A new community of sisters, a new community of friends, and a new community of God’s beloved.  Hence the challenge… we often come to love the folks in these new communities, and it is painful to say ‘Goodbye’ when we must leave. Sometimes, we’re tempted to think that those we serve can’t get on without us.  God invites us to new and wonderful adventures and opportunities even while we mourn our loss.  

One of the joys/challenges of itineracy is the opportunity to let go of stuff we’ve been carrying around but haven’t used for a while.  Finding good homes for our possessions is a joy, and yet sometimes this is not possible.  Throwing away or recycling 40-50-60 years of pictures, our teaching notes, our paper from a graduate course is difficult. But if we let go a little at a time – with each call to itinerancy, we make ourselves a little lighter, a little freer.    

We are blessed each time God calls us to spread our wings (and our gifts) to others.   

To learn more about the Holy men and women who also embraced itinerancy and freedom from attachment in the Dominican Spirit, check out where we minister and consider attending the Sunday with The Sisters on November 1 in St. Catharine’s, Kentucky.  For more information and to register for the program, please visit oppeace.org/events or contact Sr. Ana Gonzalez at a[email protected].