An overwhelming, universal concern of our times in the number of people "on the move." More than 280 million persons in our world are migrants, victims of trafficking, refugees, internally displaced or stateless persons. The majority of these people on the move are women. How will you continue efforts underway and begin new initiatives to preach the Gospel of warmth and welcome to so many who are uprooted in our world?

Let us recall our Sisters and Brothers along the Texas-Mexico border who at this moment are responding to the needs of migrants from Central America. Remember our Sisters in southern Italy working to assist those risking everything to travel the seas from northern Africa.

In your proposed Constitutions you say:
"Through the search for truth, we strive to create and sustain a more just society, one that reflects the compassion and generosity of God." (#22)

We have considered the current realities of the Earth upon which Jesus came to cast fire; we have considered four fiery forms that your preaching may take: passion; fuel; torch; hearth. Working for a more just world, addressing the hungers of human family, illuminating the truth about our world, and making the Other welcome at the warming hearth are efforts that lead to the creation of a culture of peace. These new fires of your Gospel-preaching can give substance to the new name you claim as Dominican Sisters of Peace.

Now, please permit me to offer some sparks of challenge as you recommit yourself to your Dominican vocation in a new congregation. As you inaugurate a new congregation of Dominican preachers, you have a window -- an opportunity -- to renew the Holy Preaching here in this continent and beyond.

Don’t waste this moment. I remember several years ago a conversation with a former prioress of one of your founding congregations. She said that she overheard one Sister trying to console another about this proposed union. She heard one say to the anxious other, "Don’t worry. We’re really not going to have to change very much." The former prioress practically shouted in the retelling, "If we don’t have to change very much, then why the heck are we going through all this?!"

You have a moment to embrace renewal of our Gospel-preaching mission in a way that few others have. Don’t miss this opportunity. Don’t let the window close. Don’t let the Dominican Sisters of Peace simply be a more efficient way of managing the decline of apostolic religious life in the USA. Don’t settle-in to a more comfortable mode of going out of business -- with fewer elected officials and fewer Sisters in administration, etc. -- a sort of "tidying-up" as you wait in relative comfort for someone else to turn the lights out. You have the chance to be a witness, an example for the rest of us. You have a moment.

There is a story about a congregation in Europe whose members were all very elderly and new vocations were non-existent. These Sisters decided to identify a place where needs were great and to invest all their human and financial resources in responding to these mission needs. They invested themselves somewhere in Latin America; they "went for broke," as we say. The result was the foundation of a new, vibrant congregation in that place. New life came out of the risk they were willing to take.

It is also helpful to recall that -- after decades of expulsion -- communities of Dominican Sisters were refounded in Ireland by a small number of Sisters in their 60’s and 70’s. Additionally, you are already an intercontinental congregation: you have Sisters in Peru, in Nigeria, in Honduras, and histories and relationships with Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Vietnam, Zambia and other countries. How will you build on this international experience in the days to come?

Imagine your patrons and elders standing around the edges of this room: imagine Fr. Samuel Wilson, Sisters Angela Sansbury, Benvin Sansbury, Emily Elder, Agnes Harbin, Catherine Mudd, Mother Mary John Flanagan, Mother Antonina Fischer, Sister DeSales Zavodnik, Sisters Catherine Bostick, Margaret (Zoe) Grouchy, and Mother M. Beda Schmid. Picture Libby, Lorena, Joel -- even Ginger – and all those who’ve walked ahead of us, hoping for this day. Now, see the patrons who have guided you this far: Dominic, Mary Magdalene, Rose of Lima, Catherine of Siena, Zedislava, and Mary, the Mother of God.   Imagine all their hands raised extending a blessing on you. Imagine all of us who are your Associates, Co-Ministers, members of the Dominican Family and other friends here today holding a blessing in our hearts for you.

Deep in this fertile ground now cleared for new growth we find the sturdy roots of great trees: the Tulip Poplar of Kentucky; the Buckeye of Ohio; the Cottonwood of Kansas; the Cypress of Louisiana; the White Pine of Michigan. Deeper still, we find nutrient spirits from Germany, Ireland, the former Czechoslovakia, and the American frontier and bayous. This absorbent soil is ready to welcome new seeds unlocked by the renewing fire of these years of preparation for this day.

We are celebrating the jubilee years of our Dominican Order these days: a celebration that will culminate in 2016 when we mark 800 years since Dominic received formal approval for his Order of Preachers. However, this inauguration of the Dominicans of Peace in 2009 weaves together 870 years of your former congregations' histories. Collectively, you are older than the Order! The theme for this multi-year jubilee celebration for the Order of Preachers is from the First Letter to the Corinthians "woe to us if we do not preach the gospel." (1 Cor:9)

Today, you celebrate and deepen your vocation as Gospel-preachers. Like Mary Magdalen, you are charged to go and tell. Go into the days of chapter and the coming days ahead committed to preach with a new fire. Let us conclude with the words from the first Letter of Peter:
"In this you greatly rejoice,
even though now for a little while, if necessary,
you have been distressed by various trials,
so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold
which is perishable,
even though tested by fire,
may be found to result in praise and glory and honor
at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
and though you have not seen Him, you love Him,
and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him,
you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory . . ." (1 Peter 1)

TONI HARRIS, OP