Singing the Divine Office is such a central feature of the community's prayer life – "music is so much a part of our lives, and a part of our prayer life," Sr. Joseph Andrew explained – that it "actually took only three days to set the tracks for the entire CD."
"That's because our sisters sing a great deal, and we also chose selections that are very much a part of who we are, so it wasn't that we were learning new music for this. This is what we sing: if you come to our evening Vespers on Sunday … people hear this music."
She explained that at each of the Sisters' missions, which are located in nine U.S. states, Sunday Vespers are sung at 5 p.m. and are open to the public so that "people can come in and participate in our prayer life."
"It's a very exciting thing going on here in Ann Arbor. It's something that the four of us who founded the community would have never thought we would have done when we entered religious life, but knowing God wanted this community, immediately he began blessing it with many vocations."
Since its 1997 founding, the community has grown to over 120, including its new postulants. The order's mother house is already overfilled, and they are preparing to build a priory in Austin to help cope with the many new vocations coming in.
"The average age of the community is 29 or 30," Sr. Joseph Andrew said, "so it's a very young community with a strong energy and a great love of the Dominican charism in the world today."
She added that the community is sending a few sisters to Rome for the first time this year, some to work as librarians at the North American College, and some to study at the Angelicum, the Dominican-run pontifical university in Rome.
Some of the songs on "Mater Eucharistiae" are a capella, and some are accompanied by organ. Sr. Joseph Andrew, who plays organ on the recording, said that beauty and sacred music are "very near and dear to our community."
She reflected on Blessed John Paul II's comments that the new evangelization must start with the true the good and the beautiful, and Pope Francis' re-iteration that "you begin with the beautiful," because while there is much confusion about truth and goodness, "most people can come to a very common element on beauty."
"So that's kind of a beautiful way to begin an evangelization, of touching their hearts, opening their hearts for God."
"Good, rich beauty in the form of the Church's expression of art, and music in particular, is a common denominator to touch souls, and to move them to be more open, to get outside their own worries and their own frustrations, and move towards an openness, towards the God who dwells inside us."
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Sr. Joseph Andre said that beautiful, sacred music, such as that found on "Mater Eucharistiae," is a way to "open the doors for evangelization" because "good music speaks of God, and of God's personal love for each of us."
Carl Bunderson is the former managing editor of Catholic News Agency.