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  • DSI General Assembly 2010

    FOLLOWING the SIXTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the
    DOMINICAN SISTERS INTERNATIONAL (DSI)

    The Prioresses General of DSI gathered in Rome over six days, from May 14th to the 19th, to look realistically at religious life as it is today.  For the sake of their preaching mission, they dare to prepare for the future together. They hope to overcome anxiety about the decreasing number of religious women in some continents and to make room instead for the desire to cultivate community life and to give renewed meaning to religious life. As appropriately stated by Fr. Felicísimo Martinez, OP: "Some facts indicate that the level of quality of life or personal satisfaction is low in some members of religious life. I am not talking about the moral level, bad people or unfaithful people, dissolute religious… I am simply talking about the possibility that a lack of meaning may bring about the deepest crisis, the most profound origin of a sadness that is encrusted in the soul."

    Sr. Viviana Ballarin, OP, through the biblical characters of the Samaritan woman and the woman with a  hemorrhage, exhorted Members to rediscover the depth of their being religious women, with their own identity and mission: "The future of Dominican life goes through the acknowledgement and realistic welcoming of the poverty of the present moment, a poverty that lets itself be found like the Samaritan at the well of Sicar and which becomes a daring presence of hope for those living in the city.  Today, we need a great deal of poverty to welcome the challenges of the mission, of interculturalism and intercongregationalism, challenges which open up before us as future prospects.  There are beautiful experiences of daring hope among us, experiences telling us that this path is possible, experiences that are told through facts of which we must also speak during these days."

    As they face the reality of religious life and the challenges of a globalized society, Assembly Members also considered the possibility of having new organizational structures, rather than many congregations and communities – especially as numbers of Sisters decrease in some continents. One of the Prioresses raised this possibility with the following question: "What would you say if one day, we Dominican Sisters of Apostolic Life were no longer divided into 153 Congregations but united in a single government structure aimed at Preaching? Isn’t there already in DSI the seed of one global Congregation of Apostolic Dominican Women?"

    The assembly was truly a Family “get-together”, in an open, serene and conversational environment. This atmosphere of sisterly exchange helped the Sisters to share and to feel less isolated, especially those who are engaged in places devastated by war and violence. The richness and depth of conversations clearly revealed that, in spite of the language and cultural differences, many Prioresses live and face common challenges.  There was truly strength in unity.

    The presence of the five young sisters (less than forty years of age), coming from all five continents, fed the dialogue through their perspective, as they asked for greater trust and room for collaboration.

    The assembly voted for the DSI Coordinating Council for the next three years, re-electing four of the coordinators and welcoming a new Sister for North America into the team.  Sincere thanks were extended to Sr. Patricia Simpson, who completed her term, for the work performed over these years with commitment and perseverance.  The DSI Coordinating Council is now composed of the following Sisters: Africa, Sr. Michael Mdluli; Latin America and the Caribbean, Sr. Irene Díaz; North America, Sr. Rose Marie Riley; Asia Pacific, Sr. Cecille Espenilla; Europe, Sr. Sara Böhmer.

    Sr. M. Fabiola Velasquez Maya, the International coordinator, concluded her talk with these words which we hope will accompany our work over the next three years: "Hope, a universal feeling that is increasingly longed for, is the most ancient theme in literature, in theology, spirituality, in the Bible. . . in the arts recited by poets, painted by artists, from which writers draw inspiration and that mystics and God’s people chant . . . hope is an eternal theme because, not only does the human being live on hope, he or she actually is hope."

     

DSI Assembly 2010


 
 
 

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