Not too long ago we heard in the Scriptures the beautiful words of Isaiah: “God is always waiting to be gracious to you.” And then in the little black book that Bishop Ken Untener put out for Lent some time ago he is quoted as saying: “Keep this in mind: Religion is more about God loving us than us loving God, or loving others, or loving ourselves.” He goes on to say, “The first thing we have to catch is that God loves us, now, as we are. …Before doing anything else, we need simply to let ourselves be on the receiving end of the goodness and love of God. It is a gift.”

As we celebrate God’s abundant love for us in the gift of His Son, Jesus, the Risen Lord, we need to let that truth sink deeply into our awareness. As people of Providence we continually proclaim that loving presence of God in our own lives, in others, and in the created universe. My prayer for you this spring is that you sink your roots deeply in God’s gracious love for you!

I want to share some news with you. The WPC Governing Board met in April and had a very good review and discussion of the Survey Monkey results regarding the future of a Providence Event. It appears that people still would like us to have an event, and have it mainly around Providence spirituality themes. The Board surfaced names of speakers and listened to your suggestions about timing, length, format, and the other two sub-groups “bookending” the Event for their conferences. So all I can tell you now is that there will be another Providence Event and we will be celebrating our 40th anniversary during it. Right now we are working on details, date, place, etc. So watch for news of it on the website www.wpcweb.org under “What’s New.”

The Associate Leadership Group (ALG) will meet the day before the Event. The Vocation/Formation/Leadership group (VFL) will meet after the Event for a day and a half. For now, that is all the information I can share with you. Look for more news in future newsletters and on our website.

The Board had many other agenda items to discuss and decide, such as how to make the new website (www.wpcweb.org) reach more people, evaluation summary of last Providence Event, advocacy statements, Advent and Lenten reflections, dues structure, newsletters, various reports, and electing new officers. It was a full and good meeting. We were in Westfield, MA, at Genesis and had some beautiful spring sunshine to remind us of spring! We decided to take the annual photo outside as you can see in the photo.

Pictured above: L to R back row: Kathleen Popko, SP, Karin Dufault, SP, Barbara
McMullen, CDP, Alice Marie Lyon, CDP, Maria Fest, CDP, Alice Gerdeman, CDP, Judith Desmarais, SP; Front Row L-R: Pearl Ceasar, CDP,
Sandra Shannon,SP, Dawn Tomaszewski, SP.

Read the whole Spring 2019 Newsletter now.

May our Risen Jesus bring you the gift of knowing how deeply and profoundly God first loves us and never stops loving us, and that will be forever. Happy Spring!

Sister Barbara McMullen, CDP
WPC executive director