Sisters of Providence bid farewell after 71 years

"Goodbye, Sister Barbara!” “God bless you.” “We will miss you, Sister.” 
All these greetings I heard recently as I took leave of friends and relatives after 31 years of ministry in the Diocese of Corpus Christi. In late December, I returned to the motherhouse in the midwest, thus ending 71 years of service to the Diocese of Corpus Christi by my community, the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana.

Their service in the diocese came about when Msgr. George Scecina built a convent and school at St. John Nepomucene Parish in Robstown and petitioned the Superior General in Indiana to send sisters to teach there. In January l946, four Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana arrived in Robstown to open the school, and to provide religious instruction to the young people of St. John’s and of St. Frances of Rome in Agua Dulce.   

Over the years, they built a high school that closed its doors in l970, after 16 years of existence and after graduating 320 students. The grade school continued serving the area until l986. The old high school was eventually moved to serve as the Knights of Columbus Hall on Hidalgo Street.

Besides the years of staffing the school, the 70 sisters who came to South Texas to teach in the grade and high school there, also spent Saturday mornings instructing the children in Violet and Clarkwood. In the years following Vatican II, other ministries evolved and sisters began the Pastoral Institute, worked in the Marriage Tribunal, taught at Archbishop Oscar Romero Middle School and Corpus Christi College Academy, directed the Office of Worship and were DREs at various local  parishes, including, St. Theresa, Most Precious Blood, St. Pius X all in Corpus Christi, and at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Portland. 

In these ministries, the sisters were involved in education, prayer and hospitality; continuing the work of the congregation “that by their service, making visible and tangible God’s providential care for all people.” This the community has been doing this for 177 years in Taiwan, Peru and across the United States.

How did this record of service to the people begin?

Going back to the beginning, in 1839 the Bishop of Vincennes, Indiana requested sisters from France to come and establish a novitiate, and staff a boarding school for the young pioneer girls in his diocese. Six sisters from the diocese of Le Mans, France volunteered to answer that call, and eventually they came by ship, train, buggy and riverboat on a three-month journey toward the forests of Indiana. On Oct. 22, 1840 as the buggy took them on the last few miles of their journey, Mother Theodore Guerin remarked, “It is astonishing that this remote solitude has been chosen for a novitiate and especially for an academy…all appearances are against it.” One hundred and fifty years after she died in May 1856 Mother Theodore was canonized a saint.

As the buggy came to a stop, the priest remarked, “Come down, sisters, we have arrived.” Shocked that the promised school building was not in sight, nor a place of residence for the six sisters and the four young ladies who wished to join them, the group paid a visit to the small chapel which served as a parish church, and prayed for strength to embark on this new mission. Fortunately, a nearby farm family welcomed the group of 10 women, and shared their meager dwelling with them for several months until other arrangements were made for housing.

Their task was to carry on the work begun by their founder, Father Jacques-François Dujarié in l806:  to educate children, to visit the sick, poor and prisoners. In Indiana, led by Mother Theodore, their task was also to “honor Divine Providence by works of love, mercy and justice.” The small community relied on God’s Providence throughout the years of struggle to establish the academy and go out to those in need.

Today, many of the community’s present ministries are inspired by Vatican II, to follow services different from teaching in traditional classrooms. “Although our works of love, mercy and justice have become more diverse, the concept of education remains a constant Realizing that knowledge is power, we continue, both as a Congregation and as individuals, to seek and find new paths to knowledge and enlightenment and justice for the people with whom we work, and for ourselves as we journey with them,” reads their Book of Practices.  

In 2007, the community began a relationship with women and men who wished to become Providence Associates, thus being connected with the congregation. In November, the 10th Year Anniversary of the Providence Associates was celebrated. At present there are 268 committed persons, with candidates who are preparing to become associates next fall.

In the Diocese of Corpus Christi, three persons have professed their commitment to partner—in their place of employment —with the congregation in works of love, mercy and justice. Each Associate is a blessing to the community of the Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods, which continues to be a light and example for all.