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Lent 2023   Dear Sisters and Associates,     It hardly seems possible that Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent are upon us!   As I begin this letter, I am looking out the window of my office here at the Generalate and at the landscape before me.  I began to think about our inner landscape and ponder how we might ready our heart’s landscape for the invitations of grace that may come our way during this Lenten season. God invites us to drop any defenses that we may hold up between ourselves and God.  What might be the shackles around us, within us, keeping us from a free landscape?  God offers an entire lifetime of loving us unconditionally, no matter what we have done or think we have hidden from God.  The landscapes we live in shape us.  The landscape of our community has shaped each one of us.  In community we’ve each had transformative experiences…perhaps in the chapel, out for a walk, sitting in vigil beside a Sister’s bed as she makes the journey homeward to God…in our own prayer space.  No doubt we have had moments of encountering the Holy One.  That encounter shapes our dreams and desires and points us in a holy direction.  Our mission and charism shape our response as well.  Our Provident God is loving, insistent, and gently prodding us to come, to listen, to open our heart’s landscape so that we may be embraced as God’s Beloved, for that is who we are.  So what is necessary to ready the landscape?  God asks for cooperation, acceptance, surrender.  God invites us, listens to our questions, graces our responses, and awaits our free, loving, yes.  God asks us to give our mind and heart to the human needs of all people.  Our Provident God invites us to live lives deeply grounded in the life and teachings of Jesus, to let go of fear and uncertainty and to live in the freedom of a true daughter or son of Providence.  But how often do we turn back?  Can we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and follow as He leads?  Can we accept God’s grace that is essential to help make it possible to “not turn back?” Jesus did not turn back; in fact, he readied his own landscape as his life unfolded.  He was grounded in love.  It called him to be authentic, to be true to his message and his witness of the immense compassion of God and the strength of God’s relationship with us.  In the Scriptures we hear how Jesus emptied himself, humbled himself, became obedient, even to the point of death.  He accepted death, which was really the result of all those untruths, judgments and fears.  Yet Jesus remained faithful in love and truth.  It’s difficult to imagine the level of trust Jesus had in his Father.  But we can heed the lesson of Jesus’ trust, of his patient suffering for the sake of salvation, ours and others.  Jesus calls us to follow him to the cross, and through the cross, as we journey to witness God’s power in Jesus and in us who believe.  We know how Jesus’ story ends.  We have the gift of time and history to know it.  We cannot yet know the end of the story of our faithfulness, our own authenticity, our own sharing in the suffering of Jesus and the saving of others.  Time and history will tell that story long after we are gone.  But Sisters and Associates, we can most assuredly trust the end of the story and hope in God’s Providential presence, mercy, compassion and salvation in each of our lives.  For the sake of our wounded world, the suffering in Ukraine, the mass shootings, and in other landscapes across the globe, we must ready our landscape to be a healing presence wherever we are.  The late Pope Benedict XVI said:  “We are needed, we are willed, we are loved.”  That is true for each of us!  During this Lenten season, let us unshackle whatever might be binding us and keeping our landscape dry and barren.  Let our Lenten landscape become lush and green and free.  May each of us find our true inner landscape and fall into the heart of God. With love and blessings, Sr. Barbara McMullen Congregational Leader

Vol. 7-1 NEW BEGINNINGS: ALIVE WITH HOPE   Sister Barbara McMullen Our world is in a state of flux many of us could not even have imagined a few years ago. Rapid changes and extraordinary world crises challenge us every day. However, as Providence people we have the gift of God’s love and Providence to steady us for the journey. That is exactly what the former leadership team and the new team shared as we met together from November 21-23 for our transition days. We knew that God’s Providence would sustain us no matter the challenges. We were warmly welcomed, prayed for and with, treated to a tour of the house, and enjoyed two evenings out for dinner. During the meeting days there were many details to share, blessings and challenges of the six-year journey of leadership. We were missing Sr. Liberata Ricker, who had fallen at the airport in Amsterdam, on her way home from a visit to Peru prior to the transition. The other team members shared their individual responsibilities with us and gave us quite an overview of the work ahead! The new leadership team celebrated Thanksgiving with the Sisters in Kingston. Of course, we were welcomed heartily and it was so good to see Sisters we had not seen for quite some time. When we returned to Wakefield, we had meeting days of our own and discussed individual responsibilities, planned some in-service days for team building in January, and got acclimated to the house and the daily routines. Sr. Maria Kim had arrived on November 20 and plans to stay until January 31 when she returns to Korea. Sr. Barbara arrived on November 20 also and stayed until November 30. During that time, we also had our “official photo” taken. Sr. Barbara returned to Granite City to pack up her things, her cat, and herself to make the long drive to Wakefield.  Sr. Mary Francis flew to St. Louis to help drive back and was an expert at using every little inch available in the car to pack.  The two-day trip was good and we knew many people were praying for our safe travels.  When we arrived on December 10, the newest member of the house, Katie the cat, was greeted warmly by the Sisters and began to explore her new surroundings.  She is adjusting to her new friends and big home! Since the Congregational Chapter in June and the elections, this new beginning has been quietly forming within each of us, ready to emerge.  We’ve been praying for our courage to be kindled as we step into new ground and trust the paths opening to us now.  Our Chapter Directional statements will guide the way, even if all the destinations are not yet clear.  We walk, Alive with Hope, trusting the grace of Providence to lead us.  Pope Francis says: “To live our lives, we need hope.  To encourage our young people, we need to be able to explain our hope.”  He also says this:  “dream our most impossible dream, to hope our wildest hope – and we will not have even begun to imagine what our Provident God has in store for us.  This is what transforms us for others.”  Remember at the Chapter we were all given a small piece of clay and we formed our hearts as we promised one another we would live out our mission, charism, and directional statements.  Along with the hearts in an open bowl, the candle from our Chapter room ritual burns in our chapel, as we remember each one of you in our prayers.  Your hearts are joined with ours as we each strive to walk in hope, courageously, toward our future. We know that the Sisters of Divine Providence are a group of determined and passionate women who want to be the visible face of Providence in our wounded world.  At our Congregational Chapter we forged together this statement:  Impelled by the spirit of Jesus Christ, who is Providence incarnate, and faithful to our charism and mission, we, the Sisters of Divine Providence, commit ourselves to: actualizing intercultural living based on a growing understanding of each other through creative ways, particularly technology; caring for creation and the vulnerable on the periphery; sharing our resources transparently and collaboratively. These are strong, bold words in this statement.  Let us remember what we promised each other and gave our hearts to during the Chapter discussions.  This is my challenge to all of us. “Impelled” – drive, force, urged into action.  The Spirit of Jesus impels us to action, to justice, to responding to the signs of the times in our day.  Together at the Chapter we spoke about the needs of our world today and how best we might respond.  Are we listening to the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and is it impelling us to take some actions where we are, to help those in need in our own neighborhoods?  “Faithful” (to the charism and mission) – loyal, trustworthy, constant, true.  Each of us is called to be faithful, to be carriers of the charism and mission wherever we are and in whatever we do.  If we are committed to this mission, it will change us; it will challenge us; it will transform us.  It will ask us to be that face of love and compassion to all we meet.  If we truly embrace the charism of trust in and openness to the Providence of God and our actions witness to it, truly we can help bring about God’s goodness in our complex world.  How are we embracing this charism in our personal lives? “Actualizing” (intercultural living and understanding of one another) – real, current, existing now.  We spoke about the importance of getting to know one another, of learning about each other’s cultures and building relationships among us.  To do that will take time, effort, and planning.  We can use technology to help us cross those cultures, form intercultural conversation circles perhaps, so that we can share with others our own perspectives and deepest desires.  In order to carry out this mandate from the Chapter we will need willing volunteers who are very committed to this process, who are willing to give their time and creativity to cross boundaries and time zones.  Will you be one of those Sisters who volunteers to be in an intercultural small group?  Will you take a small step with us in order to pave the way for an actual future intercultural living situation where ministry might be shared? “Caring for creation” – serious attention, concern, provide for, look after.  As a Congregation we have most recently shared about our concern for creation and its ongoing care.  We have established an international Laudato Si committee, which is participating in the UISG [International Union of Superiors General] “seven-year platform” in our provinces and mission.  Both individually and communally we strive to care for the Earth, hoping to reduce our own footprint.  Our caring for creation also includes the “vulnerable on the periphery” who are often invisible, discounted, and treated unjustly.  It is good to ask ourselves how we are caring for creation and for those who are in dire need of even the basic essentials of human life.  We promised at Chapter to respond to these social needs.  Are you finding ways to respond, both individually and communally, to these unmet needs? “Sharing our resources transparently and collaboratively”—to hold in common, benefit from jointly.  At the Chapter we pledged to share our gifts, talents, and resources for the sake of the common good.  We discussed possibilities of shared projects and goals that would respond to the social needs of our day.  Are you willing to think about and find creative ways for us to attain this goal?  Each of us is a gift to be shared with one another—how will you share your gift? Providence calls us to these challenges.  We want to shape our future courageously together…we are alive with hope because we trust in our Provident God to lead us in our journey.  Hope empowers us to action!  May we follow in the footsteps of Bishop Ketteler and Mother Marie, who were alive with hope in their day, and call us to be Alive with Hope in our day.   Together we can grow HOPE so alive that Providence will be visible in our world!    .............. To read the full text, see the attachment...............   image: www.google.com

The official visitation to the Peru San Miguel Mission, Oct. 1- 6, 2023

Major Superiors Meeting with Bishop Richard G. Henning was held in Providence, RI on Oct. 23, 2023

Dear Sisters,On Feb. 2 the Church celebrates Consecrated Life Day. Today we are united across the congregation by the very fact of our consecrated lives as well as our mission and charism.I just wanted to let you know that we, here at the Generalate, especially pray for each and all of you as we continue to live the Gospel life in our world. Together, with the guidance of our founders, we continue to read the signs of the times with eyes of faith as we seek to find ways of responding to the needs of our church and world. Let us continue to ask for the breath of the Spirit to kindle our desire as women consecrated to our Provident God to always proclaim the Gospel and to be the face of Providence in our world.Blessings and love,Sister Barbara