The Sisters of Divine Providence from Allison Park, PA used their building to give witness to hope during this time of the pandemic. The Sisters of the Marie de la Roche province reached out to their friends, supporters, and partners in mission during the pandemic to unite in their mission of making God’s Providence visible in the world. Through emails,…
Our Divine Providence Sisters and Associates were asked to reflect on how we are experiencing Providence in the Pandemic. One of our Sisters, Marilyn McMillin, wrote about time and its gift to us in these challenging days. I wanted to share her reflection with all of you. “Julie Andrews had a television show many years ago. At the end of…
The other day I was out for a walk and happened to see a rainbow. It made me think about God’s love for us and the faithfulness of God’s covenant with us. It made me think about something I had written some years back in my book, Soul Stretching: The Inner Landscape of an Ordinary Life. In these days of…
In these times of the corona virus people are experiencing grief in many forms. Social distancing has kept us from loved ones and social circles. Life has changed on all levels and people are searching for meaning. You hear more timeless questions being asked, especially as we experience Holy Week this year as never before. There seems to be a…
Not too long ago I read a story about the “Joy of Turtles” by Joni Woelfel. In it she told the story of finding a mother turtle who had laid eggs in her flower bed. The turtle deposited her eggs after digging a deep hole, carefully covering them so no trace could be found, and then within an hour she…
This is the last of the six images used by Sr. Pat Murray at the annual assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) this past August. Image six is: Listen for the Long Note. Sister Pat recalled a seminar on leadership in which she participated some years ago. At the end of one session, a fiddler played a…
This is a continuation of Sr. Pat Murray’s talk at the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) last August. Her fifth point is: Engage in web-watching and web-weaving. Sr. Pat referenced the Mennonite theologian and peace activist, John Paul Lederach, who used the term “moral imagination” to describe something “which calls people beyond what is immediately apparent and visible.” Lederach…
In her presentation at the annual LCWR assembly, Sr. Pat Murray, IBVM gave six images for leadership in a global world. I have written about the first two of them. This one is the third: Embrace Vulnerability. She was speaking about religious life and our institutions and how we are experiencing a greater fragility and vulnerability. She said: “In a…
Sister Rosa Nguyen is a Sister of Providence from Mother Joseph Province in Seattle, WA. She ministers at Providence High School in Burbank, California. She has ministered there for more than four years but she is the only remaining Sister of Providence working there today. She grew up in a Catholic family in Viet Nam and entered the Sisters of…
In the late 1970’s, after Vatican Council II, religious orders were asked to identify their founding charism, their special gift in the Church. After a long process and many workshops, we articulated our special charism as “Serving with Compassion, Trusting in Providence, We Walk in Hope”. Notice this is not a mission or a vision or a values statement but…