September 29, 2023

Dear Sisters and Associates,

Today we celebrate the 172nd anniversary of our Foundation Day! Celebrations are those wonderful times when we celebrate the moments of life that bring with them a sense of what it means to be our truer and deeper selves.

Today we celebrate the great moments of the faith of two holy people, Bishop Ketteler and Mother Marie, who have given us a legacy of light, trust, and hope.  Through their lives they have taken us deeper into what Providence means and given us the sacred task of making Providence visible in the world of our day.  What we do today, how we live today is built on the foundation they gave us.  Together their lives, down through the centuries, have formed and shaped us.  They are the voices we hear in our hearts.  They tie us to our past, but they also free us to find a newer, better future because of the wisdom we have learned from them.

The prophet Isaiah tells us: “Remember not the former things nor consider the things of old.  Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” 

Today we have many opportunities to embark on new and challenging adventures.  As we know, Providence sometimes takes us in surprising and unexpected directions.  The good thing is that we don’t travel this journey alone.  Together we can grow in our understanding of each other, learn more about interculturality, participate in the challenges that come through our Laudato Si Commission to care for our common home, and share our resources among the congregation.

As you read this letter, the Congregational Leadership Team, the Provincials and Mission Director are meeting in Lima, Peru for our annual Board meeting.  On September 29 we are dedicating the new building in Peru and celebrating with our Peruvian Sisters another Foundation Day celebration!  How appropriate that we are there at the beginning of a new venture for them.  Who knows what Providence has in store for their future and ours, too!

With the wisdom of Bishop Ketteler, Mother Marie, and our first pioneering Sisters supporting us, we can see these moments of life with new eyes.  That vision for the new will reveal itself slowly, perhaps, but it will surely spring forth.  When those moments come, they will astound us, transform us, and shout out to us and all that Providence is the very foundation of our lives, here and now, and forever.

Happy Foundation Day!

Sr. Barbara

Sr. Barbara McMullen

Congregational Leader