Happy Jubilee to the Dominican Sisters of the Holy Rosary


This weekend, I traveled six hours to Fremont, California, for the Jubilee celebration of the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose, also known as the Holy Rosary congregation. Somewhere along the drive, between highways and hills, I kept wondering what it must feel like to dedicate your entire life to something bigger than yourself.

When we arrived at the motherhouse, I was immediately met with joy. Not loud or performative joy, but the kind that settles gently into a room after years of love, sacrifice, and community. The jubilarians were celebrated with so much warmth. You could feel how deeply loved they were, not because of status or accomplishment, but because of the lives they had built in service to others and alongside one another. Watching the sisters laugh together, embrace, tell stories, and honor decades of commitment made me realize how rare it is to witness a community that has truly grown old together.

There was something beautiful about seeing women celebrated simply for their faithfulness and dedication to their communities.

I think sometimes society measures a woman's life by what she produces, marriage, children, career titles, and achievements. But these women devoted themselves to faith, service, education, justice, prayer, and community, and it was clear their lives had touched countless people. The room held decades of memories. You could feel it in the way the sisters looked at one another.

Being there made me reflect on vocation more broadly. Becoming a nun/sister is not my calling, but witnessing women my age entering religious life was still moving to me. It takes a kind of courage and surrender I do not think I fully understood before this trip. I found myself wondering if they ever imagined different lives for themselves, or if this life ultimately became bigger and fuller than anything they could have imagined on their own

Photo Credits to Sr.Elizabeth O'Donnell

More than anything, this weekend reminded me of the value of sisterhood.

Not just biological sisters, but the women we choose to love, support, and grow alongside. Women who witness one another through every season of life, youth, uncertainty, joy, illness, aging, and eventually death. There was something deeply comforting about seeing a community of women who had spent decades caring for one another so fully.

I kept thinking about a quote by Maya Angelou:

“Let me remind all women that we live longer and better lives when we have sisters we love — not necessarily born in our bloodline or of our race, but sisters.”

This weekend felt like living proof of that.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Final Reflection

Image
    The Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose and I     Six weeks ago, I arrived in California carrying uncertainty, fear, curiosity, and a quiet hope that this experience might change me in some way. Now, as I prepare to leave, I realize the transformation was happening in the small moments all along. It happened during early morning prayers when the house was still quiet, and the world had not fully awakened yet. It happened around dinner tables filled with stories, laughter, reflection, and honesty. It happened during long car rides across California, inside prison chapels, classrooms, motherhouses, and moments of silence shared between people who genuinely cared for one another. Over these past six weeks, I was not only welcomed into a program or ministry, but I was welcomed into a community.      Living alongside the Dominican Sisters and the women connected to this work allowed me to witness faith not simply as something spoken about, but as some...
Read more

Not Surreal, Just Real

Image
 This week, I finally met Fr. Greg Boyle.  In many ways, it felt like a full-circle moment. When I was seventeen years old, sitting in a high school classroom reading Tattoos on the Heart , I remember being deeply moved by the way Father Greg wrote about people. He wrote about gang members, incarceration, addiction, and violence with so much compassion and dignity that it changed the way I thought about humanity altogether. At that age, the idea of a single person creating a space like Homeboy Industries felt almost larger-than-life to me. So for years, I imagined what it would feel like to finally meet him. And honestly? It was not as surreal as I expected. When I walked into Homeboy Industries, there were already around twenty people waiting to speak with him. Our interaction lasted maybe five minutes. He was kind. He took a picture with me. I introduced myself. And then the moment passed. What surprised me most was not the interaction itself, but my reaction to it. I kept w...
Read more

For the Borders Mami Crossed

Image
When people ask why I chose to come to Los Angeles, I find myself asking a different question: Why am I really doing this? For as long as I can remember, I have carried the weight of my mother's sacrifices. Mami crossed borders and left behind her own dreams so that I could have opportunities she never had. Sometimes I wonder how much of what I have accomplished was born from my own desires and how much came from a sense of responsibility to make those sacrifices worth it. Did I choose these paths because I wanted them, or because I felt I had to? What I do know is this: I have always dreamed of coming to Los Angeles. During my junior year of high school, I read Tattoos on the Heart by Fr. Greg Boyle. Through its pages, I witnessed what God's mercy could look like in action. I read stories of people who had been told they were disposable, only to encounter someone who saw them as worthy of love, dignity, and transformation. Fr. Greg's ability to help people feel seen inspi...
Read more