Health Care Gift
left to right: Roger Wright, Chair University Hospitals Kingston Foundation, Sr. Pauline Lally, Sr. Diane Brennen, General Superior Sr. Kathryn LaFleur, Sr. Sheila Langton and Denise Cumming, Ex. Dir. University Hospitals Kingston Foundation.The Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul, founders of Providence Continuing Care Centre (PCCC), have made a major donation to hospital-based care that includes Hotel Dieu Hospital and Kingston...
10th Anniversary – NACAR
Close to 500 vowed Religious and Associates from religious communities across North America recently celebrated the tenth anniversary of the North American Conference of Associates and Religious.(NACAR) Sr. Diane Brennen, Council liaison for Providence Associates and Providence Associate Alayne Scanlon attended the historic conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. The conference celebrated the achievements of NACAR, including the development of a...
Music Conference
Marg Spooner, Director of Music, HeathfieldSudbury was the location of the 2006 Ontario Liturgical Commission Summer School in early August. The conference was unique in that it was a bilingual event, involving 110 musicians from Ontario and one from Newfoundland. The well-planned week was a great opportunity for social interaction with other church musicians. Father Murray Kroetch gave the keynote address, Many Voices, One Assembly. He told us...
Northern Connection
Sr. Una Byrne at the Baptism of a Neskantaga First Nation child. The child is in a tikinagan, a traditional cradle board that the mother carries on her back.The smell of smoke these mornings reminds us of the ever-present danger of forest fires in the north. Although Moosonee is far from the fires right now, some of the communities in our diocese are being affected – from James Bay west to the communities north of Thunder Bay. All except one of...
Service Honoured
General Superior Sr. Kathryn LaFleur receives the Distinguished Service Award from Rev. Anne MacDermaid, Chair of the Board of Management, Queen’s Theological College.General Superior Sr. Kathryn LaFleur received the 2006 Distinguished Service Award from Queen’s Theological College. During the October 16th presentation, the following citation was read by Rev. Anne MacDermaid. A woman who exemplifies “faith in action,” Sr. Kathryn LaFleur has...
Commitment Ceremony
Pictured from left to right: George MacDonald, Maureen MacDonald and Marie O’Neill.The Sisters of Providence welcomed three new Associates at a Commitment Ceremony May 27th. Sister Theresa Moher mentored the trio in preparation for their Commitment. The evening prayer took place at the end of the Associates’ spring retreat featuring guest speaker Anne Patri zia Shore, the director of the Pastoral and Education Ministry at Assumption University...
Teaching A Mission
Sr. Marian McCallum is the head of Religious Studies at Holy Cross Secondary School.In the corner of a second floor classroom at Holy Cross Secondary School in Kingston, a handful of male students huddle to discuss the previous night’s high school hockey play-off game between rivals Regiopolis and Holy Cross. As the chatter amplifies, teacher Sister Marian McCallum is able to hush the boys with one soft-spoken word, “gentlemen!” Another student...
Inter-Faith Gathering
A sizeable crowd showed up to Memorial Hall on May 24th to take part in an Inter-Faith Gathering to discuss Religious Faiths and the Poor: Call and Response.Those who have faith and do righteous deeds, – they are the best of creatures. Qur’an, 98:7 A sizeable crowd showed up to Memorial Hall on May 24th to take part in an Inter-Faith Gathering to discuss Religious Faiths and the Poor: Call and Response. Sponsored by Kingston’s religious...
Welcome Tara
Tara Kainer joins the staff at Providence Motherhouse as the executive assistant to the Co-Director of the Justice and Peace OfficeWho knows how we become the people we are? I can’t say for sure what happened to turn my attention to social justice, or why I’m compelled to try to leave the world a better place than I found it. Ours was a large family. We discussed the state of the world over supper and this probably nurtured a social conscience....
What is Trafficking?
Trafficking in persons means the recruitment, transportation, harbouring and trade of persons, by means of threats, force, abduction, fraud, deception, and abuse of power for the purpose of exploitation. That exploitation may be sexual, forced slave labour, or even the removal of bodily organs. We might think slavery is a thing of the past, but in today's world two million women and children are being bought and sold before our very eyes. But...
Being Present To Others
When members of the Sisters of Providence leadership team visited Sr. Una Byrne in her ministry, they found that spiritual life in Northern Ontario is anything but frosty. The weather, however, was certainly chilly when Sisters Jeannette Filthaut and Sandra Shannon visited Moosonee in January of 2001 as part of their ongoing connection with congregational members in their areas of ministry. Because travel in the North often involves skidoos and...
Let’s Save Our “Eco”-onomy
BY SISTER PAULINE LALLY The following article by Sister Pauline Lally appeared in the Kingston Whig-Standard on October 19, 2002. Some provincial governments, under encouragement from Alberta and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, are putting forth reasons why Canada should not sign the Kyoto Treaty. The main reason, they claim, is the economy. I agree, the economy is our bottom line. But I refer to another economy, the primary economy, our...
Pilgrimage from James Bay
The Moosonee group, including Sister Una Byrne, at the Native parish in Toronto by the teepee.BY SISTER UNA BYRNE World Youth Day, who can describe such a experience? It is best described by the Holy Father’s dream, as expressed in his Evening Vigil, that it would be “a powerful moment in which the young people of the world could meet Christ, who is eternally young, and could learn from him how to be bearers of the Gospel to other young...
Religious Archivists Gather
Photo by Rob Mooy, Kingston This WeekReligious archivists from across Canada gathered at Providence Spirituality Centre to discuss ongoing efforts to preserve a vital piece of Canadian history. Too often the importance of preserving our past is overlooked until it is too late, noted keynote speaker Roy Bonisteel as he addressed the conference theme of Wisdom For Today And Tomorrow. “Often it is not just lack of vision, it is sheer...
New Book Focuses On Justice
The Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul hosted a launch for the latest book by a well-known Kingston author and social justice advocate. The congregation’s Office of Justice and Peace sponsored the launch of Faith and Freedom: The Life and Times of Bill Ryan SJ, co-written by Kingston writer Jamie Swift. Swift and co-author Bob Chodas spent more than a year researching this detailed biography of a Jesuit priest working for a better...
Sister Celebrates Milestone
By Peter DeWolfARNPRIOR, ONT/The Chronicle Guide The following article and photographs originally appeared in the Arnprior Chronicle-Guide on Sept 18, 2002. They are reprinted here with permission. Over 300 parishioners and well-wishers were present at the parish hall in Arnprior on Sunday Sept. 15, as Sister Nancy Wilson celebrated 50 years of service to the Sisters of Providence and to the church community. “I have enjoyed every year of my...
Solidarity With The Earth
"We desire and commit ourselves individually and corporately to consciously live non-violently our present reality. This will be manifested in our relationships of mutuality and solidarity with God, ourselves and all creation." - From Chapter'99 Outcome StatementSisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul While the Chapter '99 Outcome Statement gives "new life" to each person associated with the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de...
A Visionary Leader
Sister Irene Forrester is being remembered as a compassionate and visionary leader who inspired others to work for the dignity of all humanity. A Sister of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul, Irene Mary Forrester died on February 16, 2001, after a difficult battle with cancer. She was in her 45th year of religious life. Sr. Irene spent a decade in congregational leadership, serving as general superior from 1989 to 1994. Her approach to...
A Call To Service
BY SISTER SHEILA LANGTON The following is an excerpt from an address Sister Sheila Langton made this February to members of Holy Family Parish during Vocation Week in the archdiocese of Kingston. A favourite question people have for a Sister is “Why did you become a nun?” For many years I would go blank when anyone asked me that. I didn’t know how to answer. It was a mystery to me. How did such an ordinary and very young person as I was, know...
Archives Preserve Past
The Sisters of Providence have long made a commitment to preparing for the future by preserving their past. Nowhere is that more evident than at Providence Motherhouse, the Kingston, Ont., home base of the congregation, where an archival program has been in place since the 1970s.For the past decade, the Motherhouse archives staff has been offering expertise and support to the congregation’s sponsored health care institutions as they began...