St. Clair Shores — Sr. Catherine Marie Compton, OP, has always been inspired when her students transition from simply saying “what’s church got for me?” to “my faith is a precious gift and I have a mission to share it.”
“It is powerful to see,” said Sr. Compton, a Dominican Sister of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, a religious order based in Ann Arbor. “They are so young and they want to do such great things for the world.”
This fall semester, Sr. Compton will be part of the first contingent of her order to serve in an Archdiocese of Detroit parish or school as she takes over as principal of St. Isaac Jogues Elementary School in St. Clair Shores. Her fellow Dominican sister, Sr. Gianna Marie Borchers, OP, will join St. Isaac Jogues’ faculty as well.
“We’re very excited to be coming to the community of St. Isaac Jogues,” Sr. Compton told The Michigan Catholic. “The people there have been very excited and very generous to the sisters. I can’t wait for the school year to start.”
The Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, were canonically established in 1997 by Cardinal John O’Connor of New York, under the guidance of Mother Assumpta Long, OP. Not long after, Bishop Carl Mengeling of the Diocese of Lansing invited the sisters to establish a permanent motherhouse in Ann Arbor — hence the common nickname “Ann Arbor Dominicans.”
From their founding with merely four sisters in 1997, the order has grown to about 110 sisters within the past 17 years.
Currently, the average age of the sisters is 29, and the average age of women entering the order is 21. The sisters have come from across the United States and many provinces in Canada and teach at a number of schools throughout the U.S.
Sr. Compton explained that Dominican religious have a mission to teach — even the letters after their names, “OP,” means “Order of Preachers.”
And teaching the Catholic faith correctly in today’s society is crucial, she said, pointing out that many people are faithful Catholics, but lack a “personal encounter with the person of Christ.”
Seeing Jesus as a person, “living the faith as opposed to just learning it,” is what the Dominican sisters hope to impart to their students, Sr. Compton said.
Sr. Borchers said she is particularly excited about St. Isaac Jogues’ school building being attached to the church, where she can bring her students to visit Jesus in the tabernacle.
“We’re a culture that knows about him, but doesn’t know him as a person,” she said. “What better way (to get to know him) than spending time with the Eucharist?”
Sr. Borchers explained that children have a “knack for sensing the divine” in ways that adults cannot.
“We jaded adults take a sunset for granted; (children) see it as the most beautiful work of art,” she said.
Additionally, Sr. Borchers said she looks forward to implementing the Dominican sisters’ new “Disciple of Christ — Education in Virtue” program in the school, which focuses on teaching the virtues with the goal of living as a disciple of Christ.
“I’m so honored that Archbishop Vigneron invited us,” she said. “I am excited to just see how the Spirit works.”
Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist
- Visit www.sistersofmary.org
• Follow on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dsmme
• Call the mission advancement office at (734) 930-4222
• Write to Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, 4567 Warren Road, Ann Arbor, MI, 48105
• To learn more about the sisters’ new curriculum, “Disciple of Christ – Education in Virtue,” visit www.educationinvirtue.com, call (734) 904-3381 or email [email protected].
