2017
General Chapter Orientations

The Sisters of Providence have their General Chapter every five years. Sister-delegates from all the entities of the Congregation gather for this meeting, in which they discern orientations for the next five years. These orientations guide the Congregation in its decisions and actions. Here are the 2017 General Chapter Orientations.

Inspired by the Holy Spirit, we joyfully welcome God’s Dream for our Congregation and the world. We desire to live out transformational experiences in community life, mission, formation and governance.

Thus we commit ourselves:

IN COMMUNITY LIFE, to deepen our sense of belonging to the whole Congregation and the local community by:

creating healthy local communities according to the spirit of the Constitutions and Rules and the model of governance;
deepening a life of prayer, and personal and communal discernment;
cultivating dialogue, respectful listening and trust in each other;
exploring our community ways of living sensitive to our various ministries and adapted to our cultural and our intercultural realities.

IN MISSION, to respond to the emerging needs related to all forms of poverty by:

taking innovative risks to find responses to unmet needs, such as immigration, refugees and violence;
collaborating with others to find solutions to situations of injustice;
being involved where we are according to our abilities and possibilities;
deepening our understanding of integral ecology;
being engaged in creative approaches to healing our suffering planet.

IN FORMATION, to develop initial and on-going formation that is open and flexible, inspired by our charism and the heritage of St. Vincent de Paul, as it is expressed in our Providence spirituality by:

deepening our understanding of the Constitutions and Rules;
collaborating actively in the ministry of vocation promotion;
being open to the learning of other languages.

IN GOVERNANCE, to make our own the model of governance adopted by the General Chapter by:

developing an attitude of openness and flexibility towards this new model;
participating actively in its implementation.