Sister Dolorita Martinez, OP
2025 – 69 Years a Sister
Prayer Ministry
Pray for immigration reform and undocumented women.
“…for I know well the plans I have for you, says the Lord.”
~ Jeremiah 29:11
As I ponder in gratitude the many graces and blessings that have been showered upon me, I have come to discover God’s loving Mercy and an unfolding plan for my life.
I was born in a small mountain village in northern New Mexico, named Truchas. I am the youngest of nine children. I was born into a loving and religious family, and can now look back and see that my vocation was nurtured from the beginning within this family. My parents, Victor and Agueda, never dreamt I would choose religious life, and were as surprised as I was by my calling. After a year of college, at age 19, I joined the Grand Rapids Dominican Sisters. I am ever grateful for my Dominican vocation, my loving and supportive family and the privilege of sharing my life with my Dominican Sisters.
I am especially grateful for the many and varied opportunites for ministry that have allowed me to share my personal gifts inmany diverse communities and locations.
I started first as a teacher in Junior High and High School. Early on I was called into Hispanic Ministry. I served on a diocesan and parish level as pastoral life coordinator, evangelizer/preacher, and spiritual director. I have served primarily in immigrant, marginalized Spanish speaking communities, and have been greatly enriched by these experiences.
I am most grateful for the opportunity for study and travel. I have lived a very full life, and have always been sustained by God’s grace and by the many friends with whom I have lived and/or ministered over these sixty years of religious life. I praise God for all these blessings.
Read Sister Dolorita’s vocation story.
“My father felt it was important for women to be educated, and he wanted it for his daughters,” said Sr. Dolorita Martinez, OP.
“He would plant our farm in Truchas in the Santa Fe Mountains in the spring; then we would move to Peñasco where he worked in the copper mines. That is how my older sisters were able to go to school, and where we met Grand Rapids Dominicans. They not only educated children in Peñasco but children in the villages around it. The people are so very proud of their education – and we are grateful to the Dominican Sisters for coming to our home state to serve as teachers.
“I taught a total of six years in New Mexico,” said Sr. Dolorita. There, I taught Pueblo Indians (Ohkay Owingeh) in San Juan. It was a bilingual and bicultural community. I learned what it meant to be enculturaterd in somebody else’s culture. Little by little, I was invited into their homes to pray. I prayed what they prayed, in their language. I tried really hard to learn and speak their language; but my tongue did not always work well. At one point, they said, `We have a name for you’: Mountain Flower. It was because, from the Pueblo, we could see my birth home in the mountains. My heart was full.” Read more
