Dear Friends,

The 2019 Spring-Summer issue of Response carried our first letter to you; this issue brings our last. In mid2019, we were strangers to you and so we introduced ourselves. Now we have been companions on a journey with you for a few years and our paths are about to diverge. We want to look back over the road we’ve travelled, tell you a bit about the road ahead, and especially, we want to thank you for the faithful companions you have been to us and to all our sisters.

You know from the last issue of Response that we gathered in January 2023 to elect our next Province Leadership Team. Sister Kathleen Corrigan was reelected to province leadership and Sister Mary Lou Sullivan will be her new companion on the next phase of our province’s journey. A smaller leadership team reflects our changing reality; we are fewer sisters in the province now than we were in 2018. Exactly what lies ahead for Sisters Joan and Carol is still unclear, but new companions and adventures surely await them.

The Arts section of the Boston Sunday Globe features a Travel page and each week a celebrity traveler is interviewed. The inevitable last question is “What is your best travel tip?” and more often than not, the response is along these lines: “Don’t over-plan; expect the unexpected; be free to explore new possibilities.” Great advice for vacationers, but for a leadership team? Yes!

By 2019, our province had been experiencing dramatic demographic change for some time and this reality impelled us to look ahead, to prepare for our emerging future, to make significant decisions. And so we began our ministry by planning. Nothing could have surprised us more than the COVID pandemic that exploded when we were little more than a year and a half into our term of office and is only now receding. Everything, it seemed, stopped; no plans could be made. We were caught in a vise, trapped between “the fierce urgency of now,” in Martin Luther King’s telling phrase, and an experience that often felt like paralysis. Like you, we followed the spread of the disease, worried about the health of our elders and other loved ones even as we were forced to be distant from them. We could not meet as a leadership team or in Province Assemblies for two years; staff members worked from home. In time, we began to explore new possibilities: we all learned to Zoom! Confidence and resilience grew and a sense of dislocation began to recede. We all “got on with it”, living into our emerging future. Sisters left cherished friends and ministries, moved into more age-appropriate residences, began new ministries; what appeared to be loss and diminishment often called us to “widen the space of our tents” (Is. 52:4). We’ve kept you updated about these developments on our website, our Facebook page and through our podcasts. And you? Through this long and unexpected season, you were so faithful to us, continuing to support us emotionally and financially. We know that you endured as much, and maybe more, than we did. We will be forever grateful to you, our companions on this stretch of our journey. We hope you have felt the support of our love and our prayer for you.

In the great Christian mystery of the Communion of Saints, we will continue to walk side by side with hope in our hearts. Be blessed, dear sisters and brothers!

With

Sincerely,