Features
Welcome to our features page. Here, we will share with you updates on what is currently happening within our Congregation. Feel free to take time to explore the area.
Our Lady of Providence Shrine celebrates 90 years
Learn how Jesus mother Mary came to be honored under the title of Our Lady of Providence, Queen of the Home, in a shrine at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods.
Volunteers find friendship, inspiration, joy
When you give, it can be amazing what you receive in return. This is what three Providence Associates of the Sisters of Providence have found. The three spend a week at a time at least twice a year volunteering at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods.
Providence Associate Ann Kevin Thesing says volunteering at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods feeds her. “It inspires me. It fills me up. It centers me,” she says. “It’s a chance to soak up the sisters. It inspires me to watch how they live with faith and trust no matter what. You see astounding things in health care,” Ann Kevin said. “It has just been an enormous gift to me.”
Every day an adventure for Sister Betty Smigla
“It’s overwhelming that another human being from another county who is in need puts so much confidence in us. But that’s a blessing. I’m not a psychologist, I’m not a doctor, but I have a good gut. I build them up. They leave a little more energized, a little more peaceful, knowing at least someone was there to listen to them,” says Sister Betty Smigla of her ministry as a “compañera” to Spanish-speaking clients seeking help navigating complex social systems in Chicago.
Baking with Sister Ann Kevin O’Connor
The novice rolls Sister Ann Kevin into the kitchen in her wheelchair and helps her put on an apron. Sister Ann Kevin goes straight to the recipe on the table and gets right to making suggestions about how to begin. It’s obvious she’s in her element. Sister Ann Kevin shares her wisdom, her life stories and her love of baking with Novice Sister Tracey Horan.
On spirituality and aging
Our spirituality is about living our experience of God. We do not “change” spirituality and put on a different one for aging, a different one for work. We don’t change spirituality like we change clothing. Living our experience of God is influenced by each of our temperaments. By our social, financial, educational, denominational and cultural context. And that experience of God, that spirituality, affects our daily living.
Music lessons with Sister Regina Marie
As a new Sister of Providence, Sister Joni saw how important music was to her sisters. She wanted to make sure she honored the rich history of music that dates back to Saint Mother Theodore’s time.
“I wanted to be able to join in the traditional songs and capture the passion the sisters have when they sing.”
Retired sisters share Saint Mother Theodore and her home
“When I think of the challenges facing our Congregation today … it may seem like all appearances are against a vibrant future. I am called to remember what the six founding sisters faced, and that deepens my faith and trust in Providence.”
Devotion at a global level: Sister Mary Rita Griffin
Sister Mary Rita Griffin is a person who radiates passion and takes her ministry to heart. Her role as Our Lady of Providence shrine coordinator, which she took on in July of 2014, is no exception to her single-hearted character.
“I have been amazed by the rich friendships that are happening through my role all centered on Our Lady of Providence,” Sister Mary says. “It’s a growing role for me as more people share their love for her, and I love the international flavor of it.”
Sister Teresa Costello: Love for learning and a healing touch
Among Sister Teresa’s volunteer ministries are offering massage to residents of the sisters’ health care facility and sorting vegetables for their Community Supported Agriculture program. Sorting vegtables takes Sister Teresa back to her childhood in Ireland. “I grew up on a farm, so it is very life-giving to me to get these foods ready for sharing and for selling at the Terre Haute Farmers’ market,” she says.
“I love working with the sisters and other elders in health care. I enjoy learning from them as they share with me as I give them a shoulder massage or rub their hands,” she said. “It is comforting to them.”
Struggles of a saint: Saint Mother Theodore Guerin
Do you know the story of Saint Mother Theodore’s painful relationship with the Bishop Cèlestine de la Hailandière of Vincennes, Indiana? At one point Bishop de la Hailandière went so far as to lock Saint Mother Theodore in the room and excommunicate her from the Congregation.
Enriching the lives of the elderly: Susan Dinnin
“I view those for whom I care as more than clients – they are friends, persons in whose lives I am invested. I assist them with their physical needs but I also pray with them, bring them Eucharist, and have good conversations with them about whatever interests them at that moment,” Sister Susan Dinnin says of the elderly individuals of who she helps provide in-home care.