When Rachel Conway’s family moved from the urbane world of Montreal to the rustic farmlands of southwestern Wisconsin, did she know that she’d play a role in three Dominican congregations? In 1848, Rachel joined a new community in Wisconsin. For reasons that perhaps even she did not fully understand, 18 years later she followed the Spirit’s lead to a Dominican congregation in Kentucky. When superiors there needed adventuresome women to pioneer a new foundation in Illinois, they looked to Rachel and her five companions.
Sister Rachel’s adventurous spirit lives on in the Dominican Sisters of Springfield, Illinois. Does it live in you?
The spirit of Rachel Conway lives deep in me as I answer that call to journey with and work among Native Americans. Her trust in the spirit allowed her to follow where God called, as if responding to a drum beat deep within. The same drum beats steady within me, too. It calls me to rely on God speaking to me of the Truth that I am called to live through my life of preaching. I count on Rachel’s support as the unison of the drum beat that is the song of my life reverberates God’s love to all those I serve in my ministry.
Sister Barbara Ann is the pastoral associate for St. Francis Church in Bayfield, Wisc., where she works with the Red Cliff Indian Reservation.
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