Easter, 2025

Dear Sisters and Associates,

Have you ever heard the phrase: “Seeing is believing.”  Anyone not knowing Jesus, or having been in his presence while he was alive, might not believe the empty tomb.  The followers of Jesus, however, see something very different when they behold the empty tomb.  For them it is proof of life!  Jesus lives!  They had witnessed all that he had done; they had been shaped by his words and deeds, and the seeds of hope he planted within them. 

The Risen Jesus now invites his followers to see who he is and proclaim it in their actions.  What follows, as we know, is the disciples healing and teaching in Jesus’ name, even to those who had never seen him.  They become witnesses to the power of life over death. 

Isn’t that who we are now – post-resurrection witnesses?  We put our faith and trust in Providence
as together, step by step, we make choices now that will create our future.  We dream, we plan, we set goals even though we don’t have all the answers now.  But we do know that we are God’s Beloved and that is what gives us courage to forge a future together. 

There is a prayer that I was taught in my Novitiate:  An Act of Abandonment to Divine Providence.  There is a line in there that says: “Peaceful and contented in all, I will allow your Providence to govern my life without worry or over-eagerness.”  I wish I could say I live this way all the time.  Regretfully, I cannot.  However, there are moments when I do feel the presence of God strongly and
I know that in anything I do, God will be with me, and God will love me, and that will be enough.  In those moments of peace and contentment I have a loving encounter with God that shifts the worry because God is enough.  Those moments carry me through any difficult times and allow me to engage the present moment step by step.  Maybe that is what happened for the post-resurrection disciples, and what happens for us today.  We are His witnesses, because as Tony Gittins says: “The mission has us.” In all that we are doing to look at our future, to engage our members, to create new structures…. all is for the sake of mission, that we can continue to be disciples who have seen and believe!

I’m sending a short article with my letter, in the hope that you will not simply read it, but will ponder it.  There is a deeply reflective question in this article that needs pondering: “Do we {you} have enough fire in our {your} heart to let the world know that it is loved?”  That’s the passion we need through engagement and presence “to be living witnesses of what God is doing through us” – to continue making Providence visible in our world. 

Sisters and Associates, we are on this journey together.  It might be a different landscape than we have known, and we might have some anxiety about the unknown, but we can remain steadfast in the knowledge that God has us, and we have one another, and that is enough!

Happy Easter to each of you!

Sr. Barbara McMullen

Sister Barbara McMullen

• Article:  “We Don’t Have a Mission.  The Mission Has Us” by Paula Cooney, IHM.  LCWR Occasional Papers—Winter 2024.