Community Living
Community: a place for sharing, love, acceptance, support. A place to be challenged, to be strengthened. For Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, living in community and being part of a larger spiritual community are integral to life. Are you seeking community? Become a Sister of Providence. Or join the larger community as a Providence Associate.
Entrance to center dedicated to Sister Wendy Workman
Sister Wendy Workman taught at the Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College
Steeped in tradition: The Saint Anne Procession
'This takes place in fulfillment of a vow.'
Warning, this album may contain photos of sunbathing nuns
There’s a really neat photo album scrapbook that Sister Jean Fuqua has put together of St. Joseph Lake and its revitalization project over the past decades. Some of the photos from the album were just too fun not to share. So I offer you a sampling here.
“Sister” gathers the bills at the theatre
Most of us would be hard pressed to come up with an idea that would net the Sisters of Providence $130,138.67 for their retirement fund! Yet that’s the result from an idea some 15 years ago and the efforts of Mary Zentmyer.
Life lessons from Ebony
'Leave this world a better place for our having been in it'
Grateful for the gifts of each day
The days have gently slipped by, and I have only a few more weeks with my loving sisters in this small village on this beautiful island of Sri Lanka.
We walked, climbed, and gazed, almost always in the hot sun. To enter into the area around any of the shrines, one had to remove shoes and hat, which meant that one was even more vulnerable to the blazing sun and the hot paving stones and sand that surrounded the shrines. At the end of each day, we were exhausted but grateful for its gifts.
French fries with a fork: yes — crossed legs: no
Recently, a Sisters of Providence communications staff member unearthed a “Sisters of Providence Etiquette” booklet in our archives and proudly brought her find to my desk. Dated 1968, the booklet gives detailed instructions on how a Sister of Providence should look, sound and act in a variety of situations, from car rides to meal times to classrooms and even Superiors’ offices.
Inspiring exercisers
I dread going to the gym to workout on the machines this time of year because it’s like a race to the finish to try to get a treadmill before they’re all checked out by others. Group fitness classes are another story. I love a room packed with people moving together and jumping to the beat of some loud music. Either way, there’s something good about the community aspect of it all.
These thoughts got me wondering if I could find any Sisters of Providence who work out. Whew! Did I ever. And it was more inspiring than I imagined.
Baptism by horseback
“I call it my first horseback ride,” Sister Marceline Mattingly (82 years a Sister of Providence) said of her adventurous journey to baptism. Marceline went on to describe the scene that day — 99 years ago this very week. The only way to cross the creek to get to the church was via a plank bridge that could only hold a horse with one rider. It was decided that her grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Hall, would be the one to take her across the creek on horseback to be baptized at St. Peter’s Church in Waverly, Kentucky. The plot thickens as grandfather Benjamin balances a baby on horseback and encounters name confusion on the other side of the creek...