Associates of the Congregation of Divine Providence celebrate golden jubilee and new members

Laura Keener

Editor

On the 50th anniversary of the Associates program of the Congregation of Divine Providence, Melbourne, Bishop John Iffert celebrated Mass, June 28, in the chapel at Holy Family Home.

The Mass was joyful and filled to near capacity with both Sisters of Divine Providence and many of the over 80 Associates. During Mass, two women, Jerri Abrams of Newport, Ky., and Rachel Alonzo of New Mexico, were received as new Associates.

In his homily, reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the Associates program, Bishop Iffert connected the milestone to the wider witness of consecrated life and God’s abundant love. Consecrated life, he said, gives “witness to the universality of God’s love” and to the way God “shares his love prodigiously.”

Drawing on the image of a garden, Bishop Iffert noted that while people carefully place seed in prepared soil, “that’s not the way God sows seed,” adding that “the whole world is his garden.”

“God shares his love prodigiously, right, with a fecundity and an amazement that just takes hold of the world,” Bishop Iffert said.

For the associates marking this jubilee, Bishop Iffert described their commitment as a decision “to be associated with that” generous love and to share in it through their own vocations. He emphasized that this love reaches beyond family, community and national boundaries, calling believers “to love everyone in a crazy, prodigious way” and “to share that with the world” as fully as they are able.

Founded in 1976, the Associate program invites women and men, including priests, to grow deeper in their spiritual life as associate members of the Congregation of Divine Providence.

Two women shared their story of a call that came in very different ways but led to the same place — a deeper life with God, the sisters and one another.

Mary Helen Bertolini, an associate since the early years of the program, said her path began long before she made her commitment. She had once been in the convent with the Sisters of Divine Providence for 10 years. When she left, she said, the way things were then made the break feel final. “It was like, okay, you left, the doors closed,” she recalled.

Then Divine Providence Sister Mary Catherine Hunt invited former members back for a reunion day. For Ms. Bertolini, it was a moment of grace.

“You could feel the healing in the air,” she said. “The comfort, the welcome.”

After that, she became more connected with the sisters again. When the associate program became part of her life, she said, “It was like kind of coming home.”

For Jerri Abrams, who was received as an associate during the anniversary celebration, the call grew slowly. She had known the sisters as teachers, parish leaders and friends of the community.

“I’ve always found them to be women that were inspirational and fun,” she said. “The seed was planted long ago and just had to wait for the right timing.”

That timing came in a simple way. After Mrs. Abrams made a comment at church, another associate heard it and passed her name along. Soon she received a call.

“I was like, I didn’t call this person, but this person called me,” she said. “How did that happen?”

The story of the Sisters of Divine Providence begins in France in 1762 with Blessed Jean-Martin Moye, a parish priest who saw poor villages where children, especially girls, had little chance for school or faith formation. He sent women into those forgotten places to teach and to serve. They traveled with little security except trust in God. That trust became the heart of the Congregation of Divine Providence.

Today, sisters and associates try to live that same Providence charism. Their daily life is grounded in four fundamental virtues: poverty, simplicity, apostolic charity and abandonment to Divine Providence. For associates, those virtues do not take them away from daily life. They help them live it more deeply.

“You don’t do anything different in the life that’s yours,” Ms. Bertolini said. “This helps you just go deeper.” She said the associate life gives her a community for “walking the gospel path,” with sisters who are “support and friends and prayer partners.”

Mrs. Abrams said the virtue that speaks to her most right now is Abandonment to Divine Providence. As a mother and grandmother, she knows the pull to worry and hold on tight. The sisters’ charism, she said, reminds her to “let God be the leader” and to follow.

“You have to kind of let go of something to get something new,” she said. “You have to empty out to fill up with something refreshing.”

Both women spoke of the sisters not as distant figures, but as real people whose lives show faith in action. Mrs. Abrams said she has come to see how much the sisters have done for “Church families, children,” for people in need, and for justice. “They go beyond that,” she said. “Social justice and fairness and rights of others.”

What draws her most is their joy and closeness. Many have known one another since they were young sisters. After years of teaching, nursing, serving and praying, they now share daily life together. “They’re truly a community of love,” Mrs. Abrams said. “They just are so cool. I just love being around them.”

For Ms. Bertolini, the associate life unfolds one day at a time. “Each day has its own call,” she said. Each morning she asks God to help her “show Christ to others” and “walk the gospel path.” At night, she said, she asks forgiveness for the times she did not, and asks her guardian angel to urge her back when she starts to turn away.

Prayer also keeps associates connected even when they are far apart. During the anniversary celebration, associates drew names and promised to pray for another associate for the year. Ms. Bertolini said that kind of prayer “brings people together as community, whether they’re physically together or they’re not.”

That sense of Providence carried through the weekend. “God’s there,” Ms. Bertolini said. “Providence was right in the midst of it.”

Fifty years after the associate program began, the call continues in quiet, personal ways: through a reunion, a teacher, a church comment, a phone call, a prayer. For Ms. Bertolini, it was homecoming. For Mrs. Abrams, it was a new step on a long faith journey. For both, it is a way to share the sisters’ mission in everyday life, with joy, trust and open hands.

For information about becoming an associate, contact Marilyn Schleyer, ACDP, formation coordinator, at (859) 380-6155 or [email protected].