At the 2016 General Chapter, the Sisters of Providence created a chapter direction to increase the Congregation’s “awareness that we are an international, multi-cultural community.” Our New Membership Team has been reading the book “Living Mission Interculturally: Faith, Culture, and the Renewal of Praxis,” by Anthony Gittins, which discusses a way of intercultural living underpinned by faith, virtue and a range of new skills for faith communities.

It was Providential, then, last June, when we received an invitation from LCWR to participate in a 30-month project called Engaging our Diversity: Interculturality and Consecrated Life, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Consecrated Life at Catholic Theological Union. We applied and were accepted along with 24 other religious communities.
A team of five SPs was formed to move the idea forward: Sisters Editha Ben, Tracey Horan, Joni Luna, Janice Smith and myself. We attended the conference on November 2-5, sponsored by the Hilton Founda-tion. Each Congregation was to prepare a case study prior to attending the workshop and then three case studies were reviewed by participants.

Sister Teresa Maya, LCWR president, and one of the conference presenters, cited a study led by Notre Dame de Namur Sister Mary Johnson. “By 2026, a quarter of sisters in the United States will be foreign-born, up from 8 percent today. And with that slice comes huge implications for formation, ministry and community,” said Sister Teresa.

Each Congregation prepared a proposal to increase awareness and discussion on living interculturally for their community. Our General Council had already be-gun planning to initiate a conversation on the topic of Interculturality at our 2018 Annual Meeting and had been in the process of selecting a presenter. The Interculturality Team is very energized by their learnings at the conference, and are eager to share this with the broader community.

The conference was a wonderful opportunity to be gathered with men and women from all over the world. It was a good reminder that as religious, we need to explore what it means to live interculturally, lifting up the giftedness of current members and em-bracing the diversity among us.