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Oxford Dominicans focus on retreats, senior care

By Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published June 23, 2006

Detroit – "Prayer, study, ministry and community are the four threads of Dominican life," says Sr. Gene Poore, OP, councilor on the leadership team of the Oxford Dominicans.

They express themselves "according to the signs of the times," she says, but provide a link between today's Dominican sisters and the great figures of the order's past – whether men such as founder St. Dominic Guzman or women such as St. Catherine of Siena.

Oxford Dominican Sr. Dorothy Ann Blasko works withreligious education students.

Probably best known for the services to seniors on their Lourdes campus in Waterford Township, the Oxford Dominicans have an even longer history of conducting retreats on the grounds of their motherhouse in Oxford, and some sisters carry on the community's first local ministry: education.

The Lourdes campus, which began 41 years ago with the founding of Lourdes Nursing Home, a skilled nursing center, is now also home to a center for Alzheimer's patients as well as assisted-living apartments.

But the Oxford Dominicans' retreat work dates back to the community's early days back in the 1920s, and the sisters now operate three retreat houses – St. Mary's, a retreat center for women, and the Dominican Center for Youth, both on the motherhouse property, and Vivian's Via Rosa adjacent to the Lourdes campus.

All of their ministries are in the tradition of the Order of Preachers, which is what the OP after a Dominican's name stands for. "We preach with our lives, and by our corporate statements, and by our presence with the poor," Sr. Poore says.

In recent years, the Oxford Dominicans have adopted corporate statements on a number of issues. "We were the first congregation in the United States to have a corporate statement against human trafficking," she points out.

Unlike almost all other Dominican congregations in the United States, the Oxford Dominicans – formally known as the Dominican Congregation of St. Rose of Lima – do not trace their heritage back to the Regensburg, Bavaria, monastery, but rather to another Dominican foundation, the Congregation of Blessed Zedislava, of Olomouc, Repcin, in what was once Moravia.

The Repcin monastery — ethnic Slovakian Dominicans in an area that is now part of the Czech Republic – sent four sisters to Pennsylvania in 1913, where they began to attract new postulants.

Then, two sisters came to Detroit from Pennsylvania in 1923, and were invited to stay and teach at what was to become the grade school of SS. Cyril & Methodius (Slovak) Parish (now in Sterling Heights). Over the years the community lived in Warren, then Pontiac, and finally Oxford.

Communications with the mother congregation became difficult with the onset of World War II, and then the post-war communist Czechoslovak government placed severe restrictions on the order. The Oxford Dominicans became fully independent in 1950.

There are currently 37 sisters in the congregation.

For more information about the Oxford Dominicans, call (248) 628-2872 or access their Internet site at www.op.org/oxford.

Cloistered life The Dominican Cloistered Nuns of the Monastery of the Blessed Sacrament have a set routine as they go through the day, observing the ancient Liturgy of the Hours (in italics below). They: • Arise at 5 a.m. to prepare for the • Office of Readings (Vigils) at 5:30 a.m., then have time for private prayer until • Mass, combined with Lauds, at 7 a.m., after which they go to • Breakfast and have a little free time until • Terce, a liturgy that honors the Holy Spirit, at 9 a.m. After that, it's • Work time, during which the nuns go about their duties in the kitchen or altar bread sales department or infirmary, etc. Then, it's time for • Mid-day Prayer (Sext) at noon, as the nuns enter their chapel reciting the "De profundis" prayer for the deceased. They next go to the monastery's refectory (dining room) for • Graces and dinner, followed by Mid-afternoon Prayer (None) in the refectory. They have some • Free time until 2 p.m., then return to work until it's time for • Vespers at 4:20 p.m. After which, they have a full hour for private prayer or spiritual reading until • Supper (or from Sept. 14 to Easter, a lighter meal called collation) at 6 p.m. They then adjourn to their community room for the rosary, followed by recreation – cards, knitting, crocheting, badminton, as examples – until the bell sounds for • Compline at 8:05 p.m., and the nuns enter the chapel singing the "Salve Regina" and "O Lumen." The nuns are asperged with holy water during the singing of the "Salve," a tradition that goes all the way back to St. Dominic. Then, it's time for • Sleep until a new day begins at 5 a.m., except for those sisters scheduled for Eucharistic Adoration. One or two sisters are praying before the Blessed Sacrament at all hours of the day, except during Mass, as the nuns take one-hour shifts.