Installation Reflection 2026                    

For over a year now, we Sisters of Providence have called ourselves to be faithful and courageous sowers of seeds of hope for the life of the world. More recently, during the Chapter this summer, we challenged ourselves to co-create a world where the dignity of every person is honored and the sacredness of all creation is upheld.  I believe that the readings which we have just heard give us a roadmap for doing just that.

The widow of Zarephath, Mother Theodore’s counsel to her sisters, and Luke’s account of the mission of Jesus each offer us a clarion call: to listen intently for God’s voice and to turn over our lives with perfect abandonment to the Providence of God…not knowing what the future might ask of us.  Certainly, these readings are fitting for the installation of new general officers! But they speak just as powerfully to every person gathered in this church or listening by Livestream or closed circuit television. For they beckon ALL of us to be on fire for the mission to which we have been called as persons of faith, and to abandon ourselves to Providence, to give over our lives and respond with a wholehearted yes, to the challenges of these times.

I don’t know about you, but I am intrigued by the story of the widow of Zarephath.  As we heard, she and her son were living in the midst of a famine, with only enough flour and oil for one last meal together.  Then Elijah, a foreigner from Tishbe in Gilead, came along, asking for a cup of water and a piece of bread.  She explained her predicament, that she had only enough for one last bit of bread for herself and her son, before they died.  Yet Elijah asked her to trust the promise of God…that “The jar of flour would not be used up and the jug of oil would not run dry until the day that God would send rain on the land.”

So she went away and did as Elijah had asked.  And there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her son. [For “the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry,” in keeping with the word of God spoken by Elijah.]

 … I have found myself thinking a lot about the widow.  When Elijah came along, she did not know that Elijah was a prophet.  For all she knew, he was simply a starving stranger asking for the little she had left. What a choice she faced: to hold tightly to her final meal for her son and her –or to risk trusting that her generosity would open a way where none seemed possible.  In her fear and desperation, she chose to hope, to abandon herself to a call from God through Elijah to give over all that she had. 

But I am also fascinated by Elijah.  We know little about him, except that he had received God’s word concerning the famine and had been directed where to find food.  Elijah, too, risked everything.  He went where God sent him without knowing what awaited him.  And little did he know the seeds of hope that his obedience would provide.  Surely there were seeds of hope in the abundance of bread that came forth from the widow’s generosity.  But there is more!  What part of the story we didn’t hear is that the widow also provided housing for Elijah, and sometime thereafter, her son took ill and died. Trusting in God’s abundant love, Elijah begged God to save the son…and the son lived…and it was in that resurrection moment that the widow knew without a doubt that Elijah was a prophet of God.  Certainly, both the widow and Elijah abandoned themselves to Providence, and the seeds of hope planted by the widow’s unconditional yes to God through Elijah and by Elijah’s unconditional yes to God bore abundant fruit.

That same hope amidst uncertainty — that willingness to abandon all and place the future in the hands of God’s Providence — was the hallmark of Mother Theodore Guerin!  In her instructions to the sisters on February 2, 1849, the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus, Mother Theodore challenged her sisters to that same kind of abandonment of themselves for the future, noting that it would take great courage, but that they ought to aspire to it.  Through the years, that aspiration of perfect abandonment of oneself for the future has often been a driving force in the Congregation. 

How many times in our Congregation history books, do we read that our sisters lived VERY simply, sometimes doing without their own basic needs, eating bread and water, so that whatever small earnings they received could be sent back to the motherhouse so that schools and orphanages could be built, young women and the poor might be educated, orphans might be cared for, and the sick might find relief.  At other times, they responded to a call to begin a new mission, sometimes against all odds, not having a clue what difficulties might befall them along the way.  And how often do we see our sisters whose lives have been affected by physical limitations, give over their lives to ministering to others from their wheelchairs. Truly, over and over, our Sisters have aspired to place the care of their own future in God’s hands and trust that God’s love and grace would be enough for them.

Luke’s Gospel tells us clearly where we being called to place our lives, our resources, and our influence at the service of God’s mission.  He reminds us of the words of Isaiah that Jesus himself proclaimed in the temple.  We are called:
  to proclaim good news to the poor;
  to proclaim freedom to prisoners;
  to announce recovery of sight to the blind; and
  to set the oppressed free.

So who are the poor, the prisoners, the blind, and the oppressed in our time? Once again, so often we find them at the margins, where the vulnerable are forgotten and their dignity is denied. They are the wounded heart of humanity, desperate for hope, as was the widow at Zarephath.  Regretfully, we don’t have to look hard to find them!

We live in a world in which war is increasingly waged from a distance and amid civilian populations, bringing devastating consequences to families and communities in war-torn countries.

Every day, around the world, migrants flee their homelands because they lack the basic necessities of life or face violence, persecution, or environmental disaster.  Many are denied a meaningful opportunity to seek asylum; others, while waiting for a hearing, face detention or deportation.

Around the world, countless people in desperate need of food and medical care are suffering and dying as humanitarian assistance goes wanting, is obstructed, or withheld.  Once again, the gravest consequences fall upon those who are already most vulnerable.

In our own communities and across the nation, racism and xenophobia continue to wound the human family.

And in our pursuit of comfort, convenience, and technological progress, we continue to consume Earth’s resources at an unsustainable rate, accelerating climate change and threatening the communities least able to withstand its effects.

Sadly, the list goes on and on. 

So, amidst all the formidable issues and problems of our times, what is ours  to do?  In 2013 Pope Francis called women and men religious to “Wake up the world,” noting that the distinctive sign of consecrated life is prophecy. He identified prophecy as the priority that was needed: “to be prophets who witness to how Jesus lived on this earth.”  But he went on to say: “Radical evangelical living is not only for religious: it is demanded of everyone. … (29 November 2013).

Francis described prophets as those who receive from God the ability to scrutinize the times in which they live and to interpret events: they are like sentinels who keep watch in the night and, denounce injustice, and stand beside the poor and powerless.

Earlier this week, Pope Leo called on us to cast aside all passivity and indifference in the face of current events, in the face of history and people’s lives, saying:  “We cannot remain ‘disinterested spectators’; rather,…believers, united with Christ and sustained by his Spirit, must commit themselves to listening with their hearts and allowing themselves to be challenged, accompanying and helping those in need, especially the poor and those who suffer from injustice, discrimination, and violence.”

Perhaps today, then, more than ever before, we are called to become the prophets that Francis described: people who are willing, time and time again, to speak out for those at the peripheries; to stand with the poor and powerless, and to bring hope to those who have lost all hope – knowing that God stands there, too.  We are challenged to abandon ourselves to our Provident God and “set the world on fire” with a passion for love, and mercy, and justice that knows no bounds.  And we are invited to continue to faithfully and courageously tend the seeds of hope that we plant along the way.

Today, our new general officers accept a particular responsibility for helping the Providence Community listen and discern together where Providence might be leading the Community.  But the responsibility is not theirs alone; and the call is not only for consecrated religious. I believe that we, all of us together in this church and ALL people of faith, are being called to be prophets of hope as we join with others to co-create a world where the dignity of every person is honored and the sacredness of all creation is upheld; to be prophets who have the same hope and trust in God that enabled the widow of Zarephath to give all that she had… the courage of abandonment of ourselves for the future that Mother Theodore called us to live… and the love for those at the margins that defined the mission of Jesus and ultimately cost him his life.  

There’s no time to waste!  Now, this very day, may all of us offer ourselves wholeheartedly to the work of being prophets of hope, trusting that the jar of flour will not be emptied, the jug of oil will not run dry, and God’s love and grace will be enough for us!