Blog
Welcome to our blog. Here, we will share with you stories of our lives as Sisters of Providence. We invite Providence Associates to write in this space also. We hope you find these posts enjoyable and inspirational.
Reclaim the season of Advent
Advent is my favorite season of the Liturgical Year. I love this quiet time before Christmas.
It isn’t a penitential time like Lent. It is a time of quiet anticipation.
Anticipation is naturally in the air. Children certainly anticipate Santa Claus and time off from school. Adults anticipate a break from work, getting together with family and friends, the chance to kick back and relax from the frenzied pace of life.
Advent is the season of waiting and longing. Our society makes it almost impossible to wait.
I noticed that Christmas TV programming began in early November. Certainly, Christmas advertising and shopping crept in even earlier — before Halloween!
The greatest challenge in Advent is to refrain from celebrating Christmas. Christmas is coming and it will be more than a day. In fact, there are 12 days for celebration, as the song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” suggests (Christmas Eve on Dec. 24 through Epiphany on Jan. 6).
String pulled on the Ginkgo tree this week
My favorite tree – and I have hundreds to choose from here at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods – is the huge Ginkgo tree in front of Corbe House, where I live.
The tree is huge! Sister Rose Ann Eaton and I just went out to measure the circumference of the trunk – 205 inches! While engaged in this pursuit, Rose told me a story she had heard from Sister Marceline Mattingly now in her nineties. Marceline remembers when the Ginkgo tree had only a single trunk. A storm broke the tree down near its base. As the tree regrew, it developed the multiple trunks very evident today. The tree’s shaggy bark, many trunks melding into one another and the sheer width of the branches lend distinctiveness, character and interest to “my” tree.
Frances Ginther: a partner in Providence
This year's Guerin Outreach Ministries Leadership and Advocacy Award winner Frances Ginther has a long association with the Sisters of Providence, one that helped to shape her life-long dedication to people in need.
A change of habit for Sister Marilyn Baker
In this video clip Sister Marilyn Baker shares her story of transitioning from the religious habit to common clothes. "I loved my habit," she shares. But she transitioned with the community as they were asked to be more a part of the modern world. Even without an outward garment, there is just something different about women religious, Sister Marilyn says. "She is identified by the work she does, by the ministry she does, by the fact that people can recognize God through her. And that, to me, that is the habit," she says. See the full clip below.
Never consent to take our books
I can not imagine life without books. My parents tell a story of when I went missing when I was two years old. My mother checked on me in the middle of the night and found I wasn’t in my…
Surrounded by the dead
I always think of my maternal grandfather, Alex “Casey” Gutgsell, on Halloween. He was very German and very stern. But he also had a mischievous side.
As kids, we went first to “trick or treat” at my grandparents’ home. Someone always dressed up like a witch and wore a treasured, horrific mask to complete her costume.
Without fail, Grandpa Gutgsell would remove the mask from the little witch, put it on and proceed to scare us. It so delighted him and so annoyed my grandmother.
Mother Theodore was just here…
Mother Theodore is always present in our day-to-day lives. This fact was made all the more evident after attending the Saint Mother Theodore Fest this past weekend.
“The Promised Land of Providence”
Happy Foundation Day! 173 years ago today, Saint Mother Theodore Guerin and her five companions finally arrived in Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. This lovely, old poem written by Sister Loretta Therese Bierman (1886-1919) tells of their first view of the “deep forest.”
Wherever one Sister of Providence is … we all are!
On Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 25, a large number of Sisters of Providence gathered in St. Joseph’s Chapel in Owens Hall to share in a simple prayer of “missioning” and blessing for Sisetr Arrianne Whittaker as she transitioned into her mission novice year.
Sister Arrianne shared these reflections:
“When I reflect on my experience of the missioning prayer ritual, it can be summed up in two words — sacred connection — a sacred time, in a sacred place, with a community of women who share a sacred spirit.
As we began the prayer service with our Prayer of Reunion I felt that sacred spirit surround me. I felt connected in a way I had not noticed before. Maybe it has slowly, unassumingly seeped into my bones over the past two and a half years, but this day it was very clear to me … I am a Sister of Providence!
Joyful experience in Taiwan
Two of the most privileged and sacred moments I enjoy in my ministry as general superior are receiving the vows of our newer members and praying the blessing prayer at the funeral of a deceased Sister of Providence. Each experience touches me deeply and evokes feelings of profound wonder and gratitude.
I’m thinking the above because I just returned from Taiwan and first profession of vows of one our Asian novices. What a joyful experience!
The sea is madre
Where can I run from your love? If I hide in the farthest corner of the sea, you are there, guiding me, protecting me from harm. The bottomless depth of your maternal love… The sea is madre. Sister Carol Nolan, who ministers in California, writes about her retreat near the Pacific Ocean.
Former student rescues sister from Florida accident; saves her life
Sister Ann Paula Pohlman and Sister Margaret Louise Bernard were planning a day of adventure at the Port of Tampa (Fla.) to see some tour ships that were open at the aquarium. Shortly after noon on March 15, 2013, they…