FATHER Wisdom

FATHER ANDREW CARL Wisdom, O.P., VISION Vocation Guide author and promoter of vocations and vicar for mission advancement for the Dominicans’ St. Albert the Great Province, has followed up on his award-winning Preaching to a Multi-Generational Assembly (Liturgical Press, 2004) with a book on discernment, coauthored with Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Sister Christine Kiley, A.S.C.J.: Tuning into God’s Call, published last July by Liguori Publications.

SISTER Kiley

“Through a series of practical reflections,” the publisher says, “this book introduces you to five stages of the discernment process. Though our life purpose may not be understood all at once as doubts and fears may still persist, this book will assist you in making time to discern God's direction. The process of discernment has many facets. If you are wondering what God has in store for you, then this is just the book to help you pray and actively move through your discernment process. It will help you find peace in your prayer and inspire you.”

Congratulations to the National Religious Vocation Conference (NRVC) - on whose behalf VISION is published - for being awarded a $650,000 grant by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. The purpose of this “capacity building” grant is to strengthen and enhance the organizational systems, structures, management, communications, and governance of the NRVC. It is the largest grant ever received by the NRVC.

The Hilton Foundation has identified the NRVC as a key organization with whom they would like to partner in the future in the promotion of one of their foundation’s priorities, namely, support of Catholic sisters.

ANDREW Domini wasn’t the only one at St. Mary-of-the-Woods who wore out his shoes. Mother Guerin and her sister-companions wore wooden shoes, or sabots, when working outside.

Last April Wabash College student Andrew Domini came across a CNN Presents documentary on Mother Theodore Guerin, the French nun and now canonized saint who founded the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana in 1840. The program talked about a miraculous healing that had been part of Mother Guerin’s canonization process, Domini was reminded of an aging friend who had been diagnosed with stage IV cancer six months earlier. “He wasn’t doing well, and he’s the kind of guy who gives so much and doesn’t expect anything in return,” Domini told CNN’s Jen Christensen. “I wanted to do something for him.”

So Domini decided to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of Mother Guerin to pray for his friend, who didn't know abvout the trip beforehand. He could have driven but said he “wanted to walk. . . . I wanted it to be a sacrifice.” With a handful of supplies in a backpack, he left his fraternity house around 5 a.m. The first night “I asked for sanctuary at a couple of churches, but they told me they couldn’t do that,” Domini said. He slept on couch at a student union building, on a park bench, and inside an abandoned building. Twelve miles into the next day's walk his feet were blistered and bleeding, and a couple gave him a ride for about 10 miles. He walked the remaining two miles to St. Mary-of-the-Woods and crawled the last 90 feet to Mother Guerin’s shrine in the chapel.

After praying at the shrine for his friend, he visited the Sisters of Providence’s welcome center. At the museum there, Sister of Providence Jan Craven, who manages the shrine, approached him. “I swooped him under my wing to find out what brought him here,” Craven said. Since CNN’s program on Mother Guerin had run last month, Craven said her workload had tripled as she’d received hundreds of calls, emails, and letters.

After having something to eat with the sisters in the dining hall, Domini was offered a room in the men’s wing of the facility. He spent two days with the sisters, who talked with him about what Mother Saint Theodore meant to them and about their work. “We’ve been told by a lot of people that when they come onto the grounds, they feel a real sense of peace that we are this oasis in this modern jungle,” Sister Craven said. “We feel this, but because we live here sometimes we need a reminder. Andrew did just that.”

“I’ve been inspired,” Domini said. “I trusted in Providence to get me through this just like [Mother Guerin] did with her journey. We are here to make the world a better place, just like the sisters do every day.”

Read the complete CNN story.

Read more about the Sisters of Providence, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, IN.