Rooted in Faith, United in Mission: Our Experience at the Dominican Preaching Conference

This past week, the Dominican Preachers had the opportunity to attend the Dominican High School Preaching Conference at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan. We were sponsored by the Dominican Sisters of Springfield and also had the chance to visit the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ community. Throughout the conference, we participated in a variety of activities designed to give us a deeper understanding of what it means to be part of the Dominican community, also known as the Order of Preachers. The goal of the conference was to teach the Dominican tradition of preaching and spark a greater desire to preach through leadership opportunities. These programs helped us—and everyone who participated—share, explore, and integrate the Dominican Catholic faith into our relationships with others: our friends, families, and eventually our school community. These traditions not only taught us how to become better preachers, but also helped us continue our own search for the Lord within a Dominican community.

The conference was centered around the four Dominican pillars: prayer, study, community, and preaching. We explored how these pillars apply to all areas of our lives as students, both inside and outside of the Rosary community. At the conclusion of the conference, we created a Dominican Preaching Action Plan that outlined how we would actively live out what we learned back at school. As a group, we focused our plan on the pillar of community and brainstormed new prayer ideas to strengthen our Rosary sisterhood. One of our ideas was to introduce a prayer intercessions box, where students could submit written intentions. As Dominican Preachers, we plan to use these intentions during daily morning prayer and monthly all-school Mass.

Another idea was to incorporate prayer in our “heart languages,” meaning praying in the language that is most familiar and meaningful to each person. We hope to implement this during Friday morning prayer and at monthly Masses. Lastly, we aim to encourage more student leadership in school retreats. These retreats—including their schedules and activities—will be primarily planned and led by Dominican Preachers, working in collaboration with the Campus Ministry Team before presenting ideas to adult moderators.

As a group, we are so grateful to have had this opportunity to deepen our understanding of the Catholic faith through the Dominican lens. We thank the Dominican High School Preaching Conference, the Siena Heights University community, the Adrian and Springfield Dominican Sisters, and especially our mentor, Sister Denise, for making this experience possible. We feel truly blessed to have learned so much from this trip and are committed to actively living out what we’ve learned. We hope to fulfill our roles as members of the Order of Preachers by preaching not just with words, but with our lives.