A Reflection for Reception into the Novitiate

Not too long ago, Sister Rose Ann Eaton, who was my postulant director when I entered this community 50 years ago, reminded me of an exchange she and I had during one of our director-postulant sessions that year.

As Rose Ann recounts it, she was talking about the “we” of religious life, and I, at some point in that conversation, said to her, “What’s with this we, Rose?” (that’s my tone, not Rose’s).

Though I don’t remember the specifics of this conversation, I can actually hear myself saying something like this during this time of trying to sort out what it all meant and if I was meant for religious life.

The ‘WE’ Moment

So, I’m not quite sure how Rose Ann actually answered, “What’s with this we?” What I do know is that I stand before you 50 years later and give testimony that this day, this entrance into the novitiate, Ann and Maité, IS THE WE moment of your life as a Sister of Providence.

You are no longer standing on the outside looking in. From this day forward, we are going to call you Sister. You are now part of who WE are in new and powerful ways. And, as your journey continues, you will help shape who WE become.

I’d like to hope that this IS the new heart and the new spirit to which the Ezekiel quote on the front cover of your program refers. I hope, this will be the blessing of this canonical year — that there will be a deepening sense of “WE” within each of you.

Upcoming Goals

Oh, I also hope that all those wonderful things we outline in our Constitutions as the goals of this year will also happen:

• To internalize Gospel values,
• To deepen your prayer and receive spiritual direction,
• To give service, and
• To receive instruction in the religious life, scripture, theology and the history and traditions of our Congregation.

But most of all, I hope the year ahead will deepen your sense of “WE.” Perhaps this could be the transformation to which you are called during this canonical year and to which (Sister Carole Kimes) referred in her welcome.

The “WE” is not only about We, Sisters of Providence, but also, and, maybe more importantly, the “We” of God. Not God as “I and Thou,” but that you would come to know and love God as a divine community of love — God as Source of Love, Word of Love, and Spirit of Love. This is how Franciscan Friar and teacher Richard Rohr likes to describe the Trinity.

And this divine community of love, this ultimate source and example of selfless, relational love extends to All of Creation. There is a “We” to Creation, of which we humans are just one, though not insignificant, part.

I would like to apply this notion about the “WE” to the message offered by the reading from the Letter of James we just heard. James tells us to let endurance complete its work, so that you may be complete and whole, lacking in nothing.

Does not our completeness have something to do with the WE? With the WE of God and All of Creation?

In just a few minutes, you are going to verbalize a commitment to continue the journey into your fullest self with us.

The ‘Imprint’ of WE

Does not becoming our fullest selves have something to do with the WE? With the WE of God and All of Creation?

Each of us bear the imprint of WE, because we are created in the image of God, a God who is a divine community of love, a God who calls us to be that for and with others.

Here is how Pope Francis captured it:

“The human person grows more, matures more and is sanctified more to the extent that he or she enters into relationships, going out from themselves to live in communion with God, with others and with all creatures. … Everything is interconnected, and this invites us to develop a spirituality of global solidarity.”

Let’s call it a spirituality of “WE.” Or, better yet, let’s call it, as we have heard in other contexts, the spirituality that moves us from I to We to ONE. One in and with God, one in and with each other and all of creation. This is God’s desire for all of us, and God needs us to be those instruments of unity and harmony, of oneness in our world. Cor Unum — one heart.

Expanding WE

Today, Ann and Maité, you will join those efforts in a new way. You will expand our WE. You will not just add to our number. The gift of self each of you brings has the power to enrich us, broaden our vision and enlarge our hearts.

How?

Ann, you were born in Vietnam, and immigrated to this country. Because of your presence now in our community, WE, too, become a little more Vietnamese. You remind us of the gift and importance of immigrants in this country.

You spent the last 20 some years of your life as a Sister of Mary Queen, We, too, will be touched by the charism of that religious community because it has helped shape you.

Maité, you were born in Puerto Rico and spent a significant portion of your life there. Now, because of your presence, WE are Puerto Rican.

Your adult life was most recently spent in service at the Benedictine Abbey in Conception, Missouri, and prior to that in adult education serving the Hispanic community. We, too, will be enriched by these communities because of you and by your deep desire to share and nurture such people’s faith.

Ann and Maité, please, do not be afraid to continue to share these parts of yourselves with us. We are already better for your presence.

In so many ways, you both have begun to live a robust WE. The staff of the Mission Advancement Office held quite a breakfast bash for Maité recently. For the past year, she has painstakingly combed their donor data base, identifying and verifying more than 4,000 deceased donors. Hard, tedious work but someone needed to do it.

And I watched Ann and her little band of SPs and Ops dragging supplies, flowers, candles and the like into O’Shaughnessy Hall in June to create a beautiful environment for our Annual Meeting. Your creativity, Ann, has added to our community this year in so many ways.

Both of you have participated in the larger WE of the inter-community postulancy program, during which you joined men and women of various religious communities on a regular basis to explore contemporary issues of religious life. An inter-community novitiate is also part of the larger WE in which you will participate in the coming year.

And I feel certain, other opportunities will unfold not only for Ann and Maité but for all of us to embrace the “WE” that is needed at this moment in God’s Providence.

So, I believe I have answered my own question: “What’s with this WE, Rose?”

‘WE’ is Everything

What’s with this WE is everything. The convergence, the coming together of Providence people is a seed of hope that has the potential to blossom into a harvest of love, mercy and justice for the life of the world.

Welcome, Ann and Maité to that adventure. Roll up your sleeves, put on your work gloves, WE have soil tending and seed sowing to do. And in the process, may you feel the energy of WE and receive it as HOPE for your own journey.

And so, Ann and Maité, I call you now to the next step of that journey. In the words of Mother Theodore to the novices of her own day:

“If … you are quite determined to belong entirely to God, to work with all your strength … I say to you with assurance, Come.”

(Request to Enter the Novitiate)

Ann and Maité what do you ask?

(Reply)

Grateful for the love and support I have received as I’ve journeyed on my path of Providence, I ask to continue the journey into my fullest self with you, my Sisters and Associates, as my guides, companions and friends. Together, may we remain faithful to the unfolding path of Providence in our lives.

(Blessing and Presentation of the Novice Cross)

God of Providence, we ask you to bless these crosses as a sign of your abundant love, mercy and justice. Make holy the women who will wear them. Gift each of them with openness to the transforming grace of the Holy Spirit.

Ann/ Maité, as you wear this cross, may you be reminded of God’s steadfast love for you and the choice you are making today to enter more fully into the life and mission of the Sisters of Providence.

Amen

(Congregation Response)

We rejoice in the God of Providence who has called and loved you from before you were born. We rejoice in Jesus the Christ who has walked with you and whose word you have sought to follow in your life. We rejoice in the Holy Spirit who has gifted you with the fire of love to share with all. And we commit ourselves to walk with you on this sacred journey, confident that Providence guides our every step.