This was presented by Sister Laetitia Anne Campbell, OP (Kentucky) as part of a four person panel presentation at the Dominican Alliance Tenth Year Celebration held in St. Louis October, 2007.

Question: How was my experience of Katrina shaped by the Dominican Alliance?

Some years back an article my Mary Ann Fatula, OP (Columbus) appeared in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS.  In that context I experienced a call to see Dominican Community Life in a new way.  Women united in mind and spirit and heart: a gospel community, an apostolic community formed in and with and through the Word for the sake of the preaching of the Gospel.  A life was consonant with the Mission.

The kernel of that writing never left me.  It was planted in the same ground that received the seed of the Alliance.  The first expression of the Alliance that came to my ears and held my heart was "closer union."  Not just my own congregation, but a new way of being in mission with my sisters, our sisters in the Order.

Community meet8ings on a regional level now had a new life when our leadership shared the fruits of their prayer and reflection.  We joined them in prayer and rejoiced with them when the Alliance was birthed.  woman sharing a communion of life in the Word.  Women, whose focus in mission, would be graced by the life and gifts and prayer and creative energy that would emerge in our collaboration for Mission.

In so many ways I was not actively engaged in collaborative efforts.  But I believe we share a communion of life in and with and through the Word and that fidelity to life bears fruit in the preaching of the Gospel.  I believe it is an integrity of life that makes the mission viable and fruitful.  It is that integrity that allows God to work in us.

Alongside the Alliance, my Congregation entered the Cluster.  I had the experience of two parallel streams flowing in my life, both a source of energy and hope.  I began to think in terms of our sisters, our order, our life in communion.  I began to experience an expansiveness of mind and heart.  I felt the seed of new life was being birthed in the heart of the Alliance and in the heart of the Cluster.  I could speak of the "holy preaching" with comfort, I could humbly claim my life in the Order and pray to be worthy of the Mission.

It was at this point that Katrina devastated the Gulf area.  Word came of our sisters and the tragedy of their plight.  It was our president, Joye Gros who said, "Come, our home, is your home."  I can only imagine what it was like for our sisters from New Orleans!  It is only out of my experience that I can speak.  I thought they would be our guests for a period of time.  we are still graced with their life among us.  But it has change for me.  They are our sisters.  In a mysterious way their lives and ours have become a new tapestry; our histories stand side-by-side in our archives.  We have laughed and cried together; we have broken the bread of life and Eucharist together.  we have cared for our sick and buried our dead together.  We have shared the fruit of our faith and our study together.  we have prayed for our leadership and Chapters together.  We have shared the uniqueness of the Kentucky Derby and Mardi Gras together.  I believe we have become Mission together.

I am grateful to Mary Ann Fatula for the call to look at our Dominican life as Communion of Life in the Word.  I am grateful that the Alliance has been a source of energy and new life for Mission; that it had a transforming power under grace to move us more deeply into the call to preach the Gospel.  I am grateful to Joye Gros, our sisters (EMDs and Kentucky) for embracing the pain of grief and loss in such a grace filled response that the Mission of the Order was a Light for the Church.  I sing "O Lumen Ecclesiae" with great joy!! --Laetitia Anne Campbell, OP (Kentucky)

the jonquil will take you back to the Tenth Year Celebration