A Day of Historical Proportions

Today is a very historic day. Today, I leave for pre-postulancy. Even though, since I'm driving down to Georgia, I won't be arriving until Monday. In fact, I'm literally in the car driving right now (if all is going according to schedule). I wrote this blog post ahead of time and scheduled it to be posted now.

But it's not just a historic day for me. It's also a historic day for the Daughters of Charity - and no, not because I'm entering the community. (Did you really think I thought I was THAT important?)

Vincent de Paul, our founder, sends the first Sisters on mission.
Images from Vincentian Image Archive

Today, four provinces in the United States become one, named the Province of St. Louise. Sr. Denise has a great blog post about it here. It covers all the East of the United States, from St. Louis east and as north as Canada and as south as Florida. This may seem like no big deal....okay, some provinces are merging, so what? Well, it heightens the mission - to serve those in poverty - and allows the Sisters to be even more mobile, to expand the mission even further. It allows for lots of unity between the Sisters in the United States, which I say is pretty darn awesome. I obviously know most Sisters in the Emmitsburg province but I can easily count on one hand the Sisters I've met from the Northeast (Albany, NY) province and I've never met any from the Evansville, IN province or the St. Louis, MO province. To know that today we'll all be together again is amazing!

And the new province already has a new mission! Yes, the Sisters are going to Greensboro, NC to serve in a parish. And some Sisters are already being moved around to places that used to be a part of another province. One I personally know is going to Niagara Falls to be a physician's assistant at a clinic.

The new province now includes over 500 Sisters and I can only imagine the celebration they're having in Baltimore right now! Even the leadership is there - meaning the Superioress General from Paris and the Superior General of the Vincentians from Rome (who is also our superior) is also there! Speaking of the Superior General, he's a native Baltimorean and is staying with his family some five minutes away from my house. I was hoping to run into him at the grocery store or something but, alas, it never happened ;)

Back to a more selfish note, I myself am really wrapped up in this historic province. I was the last of those in formation to be accepted by the Emmitsburg province and I am the very first (and I mean first - I move in the day after the province is formed!) in formation under the new province. Well, this might just be too much pressure for some, personally I think that's pretty cool!

Please, if you can, pray for me and pray for this new great province of the Daughters of Charity!