With Thanksgiving just around the corner, we want to share with you something we are giving thanks for this month — a Silver Jubilee! We had the joy of celebrating Sr. Mary Amata’s twenty-fifth anniversary of profession a few weeks ago, on November 5. We have many reasons to be thankful for celebrating Sr. Mary Amata’s vocation and twenty-five years of consecration, not least of all because Sr. Mary Amata has not always been a member of our community! Sr. Mary Amata entered a monastic community in Michigan and made her first profession there on November 5, 2000. She transferred to our community in 2007, and made her solemn profession as a Nun of the Order of Preachers on February 2, 2012.

But our thanksgiving for her vocation goes further than that. It is a miracle of sorts that Sr. Mary Amata is still here on earth to celebrate her jubilee. Diagnosed with diabetes at a young age, Sr. Mary Amata did not expect to live beyond age 25. But the grace of God was at work in her life in ways yet unseen. God began drawing her to himself when she experienced a conversion and was baptized into the Catholic Church in 1992. After getting to know the monastic community in Michigan through an associate program designed to help women grow in their prayer lives, Sr. Mary Amata entered the monastery in 1999. Sr. Mary Amata has persevered through many serious health challenges in her religious life, including bouts with cancer, most recently skin cancer of the face which led to her receiving a prosthetic nose. As of 2024, she is now cancer-free! Her fortitude in the face of these challenges has been a real witness not only to our community but also to the many doctors, healthcare providers, and others she has encountered.

Msgr. Robert Coleman, one of our community’s regular confessors, offered the Jubilee Mass. Our chaplain, Fr. Elias, and longtime friend Fr. Michael Monshau, O.P., a Dominican friar of the Central Province who knew Sr. Mary Amata from her days in Michigan, both concelebrated.

In celebration of Sr. Mary Amata’s silver jubilee, we enjoyed looking through some old photographs including some very cute pictures of her as a toddler, through her entrance into religious life and up to now. Four sisters performed a few pieces in a violin quartet as musical entertainment.

The novitiate sisters put on a hilarious puppet show/skit/ballet called “Indiana Jonas,” based on the biblical story of Jonah. Opening to the theme music of Indiana Jones, puppet Indiana Jonas made his appearance on the stage. A professor of biblical archeology at Notre Dame, he heard the voice of God calling him to go and preach repentance to New York City. Indiana Jonas tried running away, and boarded a ship on Lake Michigan. Well, as you can guess, that didn’t go well and he wound up being swallowed by a large fish who spewed him out as he went over Niagara Falls. So Indiana Jonas decided to do what God asked and went to New York City to preach repentance. Partway through the city, he ran into a sidewalk ballet performance of “Snake Lake”. (Here an actual short ballet was performed by two of the novitiate sisters, who both trained in ballet in their younger years!) Finishing up his preaching, Indiana Jonas went to Summit, New Jersey to wait things out and see what happened. Well, the New Yorkers responded wholeheartedly to Indiana Jonas’s call to repentance and clothed themselves in sackcloth and ashes, and God had mercy on New York City. (Thank goodness).

It was a beautiful day in celebration of the gift of Sr. Mary Amata’s vocation. Sr. Mary Amata brings to our community not only a quiet joy, but also a particular gift for attention to detail. She has used this gift to serve our community well in various roles, including as vestiarian (the sister who sews the habits), and now currently as depositarian, responsible for accurately counting receipts and money. We are grateful to God for Sr. Mary Amata’s twenty five years of religious profession, and grateful that God brought her here to our community!