Our Nature’s Fire

Allison Beyer, Co-director, Dominican Volunteers USA

As we approach the feast day of our Dominican St. Catherine of Siena, Dominican Volunteers USA shares the words of our Co-Director, Allison Beyer, from our annual celebration and benefit last Saturday. Like St. Catherine, Allison challenges each of us to be who we are meant to be and set the world on fire. We are inspired by Allison’s work, words, and witness in living out our Dominican mission.
St. Catherine of Siena said, “For a servant of God, Every place is the right place, Every time is the right time.” Catherine was not “a woman of her time.” Catherine lived in the present but was not contained by the social, family, political and religious expectations or boundaries placed upon her. She was free in the love of God and the pursuit of making this love manifest through her prayer life and love of neighbor. Catherine was not naive in her joy or zeal; she lived fully in the reality of the plague, war, sexism and political despondency.

We, Dominican Volunteers USA, do not run from the injustices and despair of our time. Dominican Volunteers USA was born out of the Dominican tradition, of running towards and with the weary, sick, rejected, forsaken. DVUSA partners with organizations around the country that serve individuals and communities that are the poorest of the poor and marginalized. This is the Gospel call. Dominican Volunteers respond to that call with their very lives.

Gustavo Gutierrez teaches that when Jesus said “Take up your cross and follow me,” he was referring not to a personal cross, a cross of individual sin or suffering, but rather to the cross of humanity, the cross that we all bear, because we are One Body. This is the cross of injustice.

Too many of us are hungry in a country of abundance and waste. Too many of us as children are unsafe, uneducated, and disempowered in a country that prides itself on being the best. Too many of us are forced to leave our home countries and are treated like unworthy strangers by our neighbors here. Too many of us are cold, lonely, imprisoned. Too many of us suffer violence and abuse at the hands of our partners, family members, strangers. Too many of us are without shelter, without clothing, without community, without access to health care. All of us are living on a planet on the brink of climatic catastrophe. This is the cross. Jesus calls us to “Take up the cross and follow me.”

This call is as relevant now as it was some odd 2000 years ago. The Dominican Sisters heed this call now just as they have for the past 800+ years. They, like Jesus, invite each of us to come closer. To take up the cross and walk with them, to see where such a curious, demanding road might lead. We find, like Catherine, that the road is marked by needless, contrived, systemic and inexplicable suffering-- and still we continue.

 We are able to continue this work because of the loving companions who share the load and the journey. We are able to continue this work because it is just. We are able to continue working for peace because we have felt peace in our hearts when at prayer. We are able to continue defending the truth that we are all One Body because we feel the joy of this truth in our beings. We continue to seek new volunteers, women and men to preach God’s love through service. Your continued support allows future volunteers to answer the call, to have the opportunity to be transformed in and by and for Love.

Each year, Dominican Volunteers take the opportunity to live in intentional community, minister full-time and enter more deeply into the injustices of our day through study and prayer. Volunteers serve as teachers, campus ministers, coaches, counselors, nurses. They make a difference in organic farms, the United Nations, the Dominican Youth Movement, refugee communities and immigrant centers. They teach children how to read and encourage them to dream. They help refugees find jobs and teach English as a Second Language. Dominican Volunteers answer crisis lines, hold the hands of the dying, organize celebrations for Day of the Dead, protest and advocate.

We thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for coming here to join us as we celebrate our inspiring partner Sarah’s Inn and for Continuing the Journey with Dominican Volunteers USA. We could not do it without you. Thank you.