How our members integrate vocation ministry into their lives

IN THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, Jesus tells a parable about how seeds depend on the quality of soil. Jesus wants his listeners to know that sometimes the “seed” of the Word falls on fertile soil, other times on rocky soil, with consequences according to soil  quality. To create good soil in the field of vocations, it is critical to till the “soil” of relationships with our sisters and brothers in community to maximize our actions as vocation ministers. The “soil” of young adult relationships must also be prepared.

My vocation team and I have been working this soil for years, and I hope to share steps that we—the Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Michigan—have taken to involve all our members in this ministry of engaging women to consider religious life.

The ground

To bear fruit, the soil must be rich enough to support growth. This takes preparation, enrichment, time, and nurture. Gardeners and farmers in relationship with the land care about how it’s doing. Alongside members themselves, our “land” in vocation ministry is young adults. The advice we have all heard from many knowledgeable sources is to go where young adults are and not wait for them to come to us. Some of our sisters do go where they might meet young adults in the course of their ministry. We have asked members to do for vocations what they can do. Some are able to host discerners, touring with them when they visit our motherhouse campus. Others can share a meal or pray with or for them. Some can mentor. Whatever sisters are able to do, we ask them to do. We assume our current members want new members, but we don’t assume that every sister can do everything it takes to initiate someone into the life. This assumption has worked, although it takes some creativity from the vocation team.

Religious life as it is expressed in many religious congregations is not the same as it was when our members were engaged in the same few sponsored ministries as in previous decades. Young people today usually are not familiar with contemporary expressions of religious life. They get a more accurate idea of us by spending time with us. As we interact with young adults, we try to tickle their imaginations and stir possibilities in them. As they witness our communal spirit and our solidarity with those who are poor or on the margins, they may see possibilities for themselves and their gifts.

Sisters in various parts of the country have the experience of meeting regularly with young women in groups known originally as the Nuns and Nones, which today is becoming better known as Sisters and Seekers. These young women, some of them graduate students and young professionals, are in search of something more in their lives, and many have found rich sharing in gathering with Catholic sisters. Conversation with these young women is an example of the accompaniment Pope Francis encourages. These may not be women who will join us as members, but we sense that our conversations are impacting their vocations, which makes our time with them very much a part of our expansive understanding of vocation ministry. 

Another way to “work the soil” has been to invite young women to celebrations such as jubilees. These days can inspire them, not only by the experience of community and the joy among participants, but by the many years our jubilarians and other members have remained faithful to their commitment to religious life. One young woman marveled about her aunt who is a Dominican, “I can’t imagine doing anything for that long!”

We put effort into cultivating the vocational soil of our sisters. Sometimes our sisters say, “I don’t understand young people today.” It’s true young people have been formed in different ways and are dealing with many different pressures and influences than what our members remember from their long-ago ministry years. This reality is why our team has livestreamed workshops on characteristics and cultural influences on young people today. In an effort to understand better, one of our team members committed to listen to current music of the younger generations as one way to keep her abreast of their culture and issues.

Two books by the renowned researcher Jean Twenge, iGen and Generations, have been helpful for our community. Springtide Research Institute, located in Minnesota and accessible online at springtideresearch.org, is another helpful resource. These resources formed the basis of several livestream presentations our team gave to the whole congregation. From the feedback we received, we concluded that sisters were hungry for this awareness. These presentations helped demystify who young people are today and how they approach life and religious practice. A new resource we will be using is the book God’s Call is Everywhere. This is a well-researched book that compiles studies from various parts of the world about women who have recently chosen religious life. It highlights elements they considered as they made their vocational choices.

When it comes to multimedia as a way to convey a synopsis of these resources, we’ve learned that shorter is better. Our team put together several half-hour presentations that we delivered to both live and online audiences of sisters.

Seeds we have planted

We’ve worked hard to educate our membership, and we also consciously give them opportunities to supplement their prayers. The following concrete actions helped our members get involved.

To involve our retired sisters initially, we created a system of monthly sign-ups to be Prayer Partners with the young women who were discerning with us. While not disclosing personal information about the discerners, we asked sisters to sign up each month. This allowed them to opt out in a given month or sign up knowing that we were strictly asking them to pray for a young woman and nothing else. We stopped at the end of a year as interest waned. However, we plan to restart this effort. Being responsible for praying for an individual is something retired sisters can do for vocations.   

Like many congregations, ours developed a prayer for vocations that was simple and short, fitting easily on the back of a card picturing Saint Dominic, our founder. It included our desire to be welcoming to new members. Periodically we distribute them, as throughout the year we use different prayers together at the end of Mass.

During the 2018 Synod on Young People, the Church, and Vocational Discernment, we asked sisters to pray with and for those gathered in Rome. The resulting document, Christus Vivit, holds some key recommendations and talking points for us as religious, but also for the whole church as we accompany young people in their faith journey. Pope Francis recommends in Christus Vivit (241-242) that accompaniment is one gift older adults can offer to younger members of our parish communities. 

Our sisters who minister or are involved in parishes can find out if there’s an active youth group or outreach to youth in the parish. While sisters may be too busy to get involved in the youth group themselves, there are ways to support it. A simple one is to just ask about it and find out what they do when they are together. If the parish is fortunate enough to have a youth minister, a conversation with that person shows interest and support of his or her ministry. From these simple conversations, we may see a way the community can get involved.

For our members who already feel too busy, we suggest these less time-consuming actions. At Mass, try sitting next to the young adult representative on the parish council and see if you can get to know him or her.  Ask a young adult to be a reader or Eucharistic minister at one of your parish Masses. Ask a college age young woman to teach or co-teach one of your parish’s religious education classes. High school age young people can be asked to tutor younger children in grade school, to read stories to the kindergarten class, or help coach a team. Talking with them after Mass or after these activities helps the young person know you see something in them and trust them to carry out a ministry of which they are capable. This could even be a gift to them—helping them be aware of talents they might not recognize in themselves.

A popular activity with our sisters is taking part in our Come and See discernment Retreats. Various sisters talk about their own calls to religious life and their ministries. Some sisters are part of a gospel sharing group, or they have meals and social conversations with the young women who attend the Come and Sees. Still other sisters give presentations about our charism or about how to discern. Some sisters bring in meals when our retreat center needs help; they play a sort of “Sister-Dash” service role.

When discerners come for weeklong visits, sisters readily agree to meet with them for meals or focused conversations or tours of campus. Away from the motherhouse campus, sisters on mission have invited local young women for meals with the community and meet regularly with discerners, helping them think through their choices and praying with them. They also serve as a sounding board when discerners return from visits to the motherhouse.

Adjacent to our motherhouse is one of our sponsored universities, making it relatively easy to secure spiritual companions for Busy Person’s Retreats. Several sisters partnered with these young adults as they progressed through the retreat. 

As Siena College’s campus ministry was welcoming new students to campus in the fall, it seemed natural to host a game night at the University Center. Several sisters came to have fun playing board and card games with the students in a relaxed atmosphere.

During Catholic Sisters Week, the university regularly invites sisters for lunch in the student dining room. A section is reserved so students always know this is the day for sisters to come to lunch where students, faculty, and staff members can gather.

Over the past 20 years, our sisters have been part of the preaching conferences for Dominican high schools and colleges across the country. For a week, sisters accompany students in small reflection groups, workshops, activities, prayer, Masses, and service experiences that enhance student understanding of themselves as preachers of God’s Word, or as Pope Francis calls them, “missionary disciples.” One evening is devoted to meeting sisters for an ice cream social and conversation.

Communicating what’s good

We use several means to keep members aware of what’s happening in vocation ministry. One is a bi-monthly article in our Congregation Communique that lists happenings and mentions sisters who have been involved in a vocation activity. Our team and other branches of the community send out periodic emails requesting actions at vocation-related events. We also highlight actions members have already taken. We regularly ask for prayers for upcoming Come and See Retreats. 

As small governance groups meet, we ask the sisters to talk about what they have done to promote vocations since they last met. Each of these efforts keeps new membership on sisters’ minds. These communications garner positive feedback and often result in follow-up actions. 

I once took a course to learn to walk a tightrope, and  while making the walk, I heard my teammates shout encouraging remarks to me all along the way. I believe our sisters may need just such verbal reassurance from our team, so when members agree to reach out to young adults or attend parish events to meet them, our team encourages these sisters. When sisters agree to accompany discerners on their journey, we offer guidelines that help in the conversations, suggesting they be themselves, reminding them that authenticity is the most important asset they bring to the relationship. Whether addressing life in community, communal prayer, or ministry choices, many ideas come out of our own experience. Whether discerners are interested in social justice issues, theology, scripture, earth literacy, or religious education, the team tries to match them to have conversations with sisters in those specific interest areas. 

Cultivation and nourishment

In our experience, the following activities draw young people together to feed their spirits and uplift them. Young adults tend to be drawn by the idea of a community gathering for a purpose.

Weekly, our university students meet for an evening of Eucharistic Adoration in the university chapel. This draws a group of students, not all Catholics. Sisters join when possible. A limiting factor for our sisters is the time, which is 8 p.m. Students also pray the Rosary together. Additionally sisters invite students to something we call Peace Prayer in our chapel. 

Dominican Youth Ministry-USA is part of an international organization of young adults engaged in their faith, reaching out in justice activities and meeting primarily online. An annual service week draws an additional set of young people to spend a week in some part of the country in need of help. The organization also offers a Leadership Component for six weeks during summers to work the land, pray, and receive spiritual input.

Although our universities offer regular retreats, there is always the option to offer only an evening or day of reflection. These Step Away Days build in quiet reflection time, input, exercises in decision-making, and suggestions for short readings and supportive podcasts. These days are meant to have lasting effect as the young people go through their school year.

A relatively easy experience to organize is an Emmaus Walk, in which several pairs of people walk together, talking and listening to one another share what is important to them. This can be part of a reflection day or a separate event beginning with the story of the two disciples walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus after the resurrection of Jesus (Luke 24:13-35). 

Rocks and weeds

Engaging deliberately with young adults is not always smooth. A familiar pattern for many congregations is that our members are now older adults—the large majority above age 70. As older adults, most are retired from active ministry with young people and have little day-to-day contact with them. However, even those in our healthcare facility have contact with young adult nurses and other caregivers. Recently two newer arrivals at our healthcare center invited two aides to attend a Come and See Retreat. Sisters were already in relationship with them, and the invitation was offered. Sisters have nieces and grandnieces with whom they are very much in relationship. It’s also important for sisters to realize they don’t have to be in relationship with every young woman in the country but rather to pay attention to the young women already in their lives. God may be calling those young women to our life.

Many of our members have learned to be self-sufficient—except when it comes to social media. Some of us  feel lost or far behind. This is a place where younger people are glad to be asked for help. They rather enjoy being ahead of us when it comes to technology.

Technology aside, another stumbling block for sisters is that many young (and not-so-young) adults have stopped attending Mass regularly. This gives sisters and associates less access to them even if sisters are active in their local parishes. However, the young adults they do meet at the parish may be just the ones God is calling. It helps to stay alert for young women with the qualities our congregations are seeking.

New ground

Each spring after our two sponsored universities complete the academic year, a group of students arrive on our campus for a 10-day intensive Environmental Leadership Experience at our campus permaculture site. Students learn about the principles of permaculture gardening and how they align with our congregation’s values of preserving and honoring Earth and her gifts. As part of this experience, several segments of evening time are dedicated to reflecting on these same principles and the values of preserving and caring for our Earth and its gifts. At the end of these 10 days, students gather for a presentation to sisters and participants about what they did with the Earth and why it was important.

This year, we are inviting young women interested in religious life to join us a weekend ahead of this permaculture experience to learn more about religious life and reflect on vowed life as a way to communally commit to justice for the Earth.

A commonality in all of these efforts to cultivate the soil is that we need to use ordinary, secular language  when talking to people outside of religious life, including Catholics. We’ve received feedback from young people asking us to translate our language into terms they can understand. For instance, until they get used to us, we want to say foundations or gifts instead of charism when speaking about our gifts for the church. We want to say  goals or priorities instead of Chapter enactments.  We may even say pray about life decisions instead of discern. This insight came from young people who felt free enough in a conversation to say, “I don’t get it. What are you talking about?”

As we move further into a post-COVID world, we are aware that young people need caring adults in their lives. Research by the Springtide Institute found that if a young person has at least one caring adult in her or his life, that young person does better in school and in reaching life goals. In this post-COVID world, attention to relationships is more important than ever. God has given us this moment in the church to be involved in vocation ministry, and we must enrich the soil, till it, and plant all the seeds we are capable of planting. n         

Related article and videos

“Building relationships with young people” by Sister Tarianne DeYonker, O.P., HORIZON Spring 2020, Vol. 45, No. 2.

“Using all avenues to support vocation ministry.” Publicly available video of a one-hour interactive webinar about communal involvement in vocation ministry. Part of the Religious Life Today series supported by the GHR Foundation. tinyurl.com/544rwtk7

2020 Study on Recent Vocations to Religious Life. Sixteen-minute video summary of the study. tinyurl.com/4dbdskvc

Sister Tarianne DeYonker, O.P. is a member of the Adrian Dominican Vocation Team and lives in Adrian, Michigan. She also offers creative writing workshops.