The New Zealand Dominican Sisters met in Chapter  during 2-7  September 2014 and 2-7 February 2015.  The theme of the Chapter was Called to Hope. The Chapter began with helpful and challenging input from Margaret Mayce OP, Amityville Dominican and the NGO representative of the US-based Dominican Leadership Conference. The fruit of the Chapter is expressed in the Chapter Call below.

Chapter Call

In this time when we are fewer and older
we have unexpectedly found ourselves called to hope.

We have opened ourselves to an invitation to see our lives
as part of the ongoing mystery of the evolving universe
and to place ourselves on the side of its life and protection.

We choose to be part of a turning towards life,
a future we will not see but for which we sow seeds.

This call has awakened us to a new awareness of our soul,
the deep place of our identity as New Zealand Dominican Sisters,
like a great river that flows through our history,
no less itself as it draws closer to the sea.

We draw on and reaffirm our commitment
to justice, the poor, te tiriti, to women and small Pacific nations,
joined with humanity to cherish our one small planet
and to be part of the turning that will preserve its life
for all beings of land, sea and air.

We are reminded that what we do is less important than the fact of our commitment
which each will express in her own circumstances.
‘It is who we become that changes the world – not what we do.’

Our awareness and commitment are embedded in contemplation,
which they nourish and are nourished by. They are strengthened in loving conversation.

We treasure the Dominican life we have been given,
which we have expressed in different ways through the years,
and which calls us again today.
Living true to this calling will be the legacy we leave.

Like our ancestors, Julia and Mary, we too set sail for a land that is both home,
the deep place of our soul, contemplative and compassionate,
and at the same time full of the unknown.
We walk in hope, we walk in truth, we walk together.

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Dominican Sisters in Committed Collaboration: opscc_climate_change

NZ Dominican Sisters,  February 2015