2019 Assembly - Ketteler Award Welcome

Each year, our province gives the Ketteler Award for Social Justice to someone whose ministry reflects Bishop Ketteler’s love and energetic work for justice.

Over the years we have recognized justice advocates for diverse issues which stir our communal passion for justice.

Your program lists the very impressive recipients of this award in previous years.

Clearly, the social justice issue that is in the forefront of our concerns today is the plight of refugees.

So, this evening we are very pleased to honor a number of community members and friends who have devoted themselves to care for the stranger and wayfarer at our sponsored ministry, La Posada Providencia, in San Benito, Texas.

Founded in 1989, La Posada is an emergency shelter for those compelled to flee their homelands because of political oppression, natural disaster, and other life-threatening situations.

We hold sacred their stories of severe hardships, including poverty, unjust imprisonment, even torture.

They seek legal asylum or other legal recourse to begin new lives in this country. La Posada provides resettlement assistance and a safe haven.

For over 30 years, thousands of people from close to 100 different countries have found refuge at La Posada and been welcomed by Hilary, Margaret, Zita, Marlene, and Theresa.

 The brief bios of each found in your program is sure evidence that each of them, in the spirit of Bishop Ketteler, has made God’s Providence visible, both by their advocacy, but also by their compassionate presence. They have helped to open doors of Providential possibilities. Tonight, we are delighted to celebrate each and all.

Sister Hilary Hooks, CDP
Founder and Past Director of La Posada Providencia

Sister Margaret Mertens, CDP
Sister Zita Telkamp, CDP
Past Directors of La Posada Providencia

Sister Therese Cunningham, SHSp
Associate Marlene McClain
Staff Members of La Posada Providenica

Author: 
Michele Bisbey, CDP

Ketteler Day

July 13, 2020

Typically when we gather to celebrate Ketteler Day, we reflect upon our Founder’s tremendous energy, his exceptional oratory, and most especially his unwavering passion for justice. Certainly, all of that is his legacy to us. Even though his death was 143 years ago, his prophetic witness to making God’s providence visible through advocacy and service remains timely and challenging. But there are additional aspects of Ketteler’s spiritual heritage which may be particularly appropriate for us this year when we are challenged to make God’s Providence visible while staying home!

In this sacred space, we are singularly blessed to have the special gift of Bishop Ketteler’s prie dieu. When he was a student of theology, Willhelm Ketteler said that “A very well-used prie-dieu is of greater importance than several volumes of knowledge in the mind.” (August, 1841) Nine years later, on March 15, 1850, Pope Pius IX named Wilhelm a bishop. He was 39 years old, and had been a priest for only 6 years! The Pope said that the appointment was “to provide for Mainz, in the person of Baron Ketteler, a bishop after God’s own heart.” “After God’s own heart” what a stunning designation! But what does it mean?

These are the identical words attributed to only one biblical figure—and that is David. Twice, in the Scriptures, he’s identified “after God’s own heart.” The first time was, when as a youth, he was anointed by Samuel—and the second time, it is the newly converted Paul who puts these words in God’s mouth who declares—“I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart.” (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22).

The fact that these words are descriptive of David’s relationship to God may provide an insight into what it means to be a person after God’s own heart. We know that David ranks as one of the most significant figures in Salvation History. At the same time, he was a notoriously flawed individual. Nonetheless he was a vessel of God’s Providence for the Chosen people.

Clearly, being a person after God’s own heart is not achieved through one’s own merits. We can’t work for it. We can’t earn it. In fact, even one’s missteps don’t negate it or lessen it. It is God’s doing. It is gratuitous. It is grace.

Perhaps Ketteler sensed this truth and marked the realization when he chose to add his second baptismal name, Emmanuel, to his signature —coinciding with the occasion of his consecration as Bishop. From then on he became—Wilhelm Emmanuel, that is, Wilhelm “GOD With Us” or even , Wilhelm God’s own heart.

Now that is the gift and challenge for us during these days —to recognize, to celebrate that we —daughters of Wilhelm Emmanuel are also “after God’s own heart.”

That’s what we celebrate today—

That’s what we proclaim as we stand to renew our vows..,

Happy Ketteler Day!

Author: 
Michele Bisbey, CDP

Trinity Sunday 2024

For this community
of Divine Providence
Trinity Sunday is known as Providence Sunday.

Providence is just one
of God’s many names.
And like any descriptor for God,
it says some things about God,
but not every thing.
God is truly beyond all names.

When we call God
by the name of Providence
we are speaking to the One
who designed,
governs
and sustains the universe.

This God of Providence
is the God of possibilities
who lovingly lures us
yet always
allows us freedom of choice.

Just as God is beyond all names,
God is also beyond
all images or analogies.

For centuries,
theologians have attempted
to explain and/or describe
the trinity.
Most explanations fall short.

However, one analogy
from the early church is particularly intriguing.

It is called perichoresis (perry-ko-ray-sis)
a particular kind of dance
Involving at least three dancers
They start to go in circles,
weaving in and out
in a pattern of motion.
They make room for each other,
move in and through one another,
dance with one another,
in such a way that creates a mutual indwelling
while still maintaining space
for each individually.

They start to go
faster and faster and faster,
all the while staying
in perfect rhythm
and in sync with each other.
Eventually,
they are dancing so quickly
(yet so effortlessly)
that as you look at them,
it just becomes a blur.
Their individual identities
part of a larger dance.

(Let’s listen to that music for just a few minutes)

https://youtu.be/cxeZbKigpd4?si=LXn4RG9CXSIlN5Dq

The early church fathers
and mothers
looked at that dance (perichoresis)
and said,
“That’s what the Trinity is like.”
It’s a harmonious relationship
in which there is
mutual giving and receiving,
Interconnectedness
and interdependence
This relationship is called love,
and it’s what the Trinity
is all about.
The perichoresis is
the dance of love.

Here is the wonderful
amazing
exhilarating
Incomprehensible truth—

We are made
in the image and likeness
of that same divine dance troup—
We are made in the image and likeness of the Trinity,
We are made in the image and likeness of Providence

We are chosen
to mirror the life of the Trinity, which is the dance of love.
The dance of love
is not just about Providence,
it is about us.

In that dance,
none of us are wallflowers
Rather,
we are chosen dance partners with Providence.
As dance partners
we are called,
we are chosen
to make God‘s providence visible
by our providential presence,
by our providential advocacy.

This is what we celebrate on Providence, Sunday,

Now is the time to join the dance.

Author: 
Michele Bisbey, CDP

Holy Thursday Reflection 2025

We gather together this evening, meeting Jesus as we have for the past 40 days.

As He did, we are…together…as friends. 

We come to this table…as friends.
As friends of Jesus, we have been chosen and find ourselves among friends.

We come, concretely aware of the violence and anxiety of the our broken world, at the same time trusting our Provident God and each other.

Jesus said to his disciples, “I have made known to you everything I have heard.” Not as servants…but as friends.

“I do not call you servants,” Jesus said as he “got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself” (John 13:4).
“I do not call you servants,” Jesus said as he poured water into a basin and began to wash their feet and wipe them with the towel.”

“I do not call you servants” he said. “I have called you friends.”
He washed their feet and then asked them to care for each other, not as a master commands servants, but as friends
not as a teacher instructs students, but as friends.

“Why friends rather than servants?” You might ask.
Why friends rather than students? You might ask.

Where there are servants there are masters. Where there are students, there is a master teacher.

 That is not the case in a community of friends. Servants can become masters, but friends cannot.

Friends share with each other as equals. 
They know and seek to be known, with their strengths and vulnerabilities.

Friendship is the deepest kind of love, as Jesus explained, “There is no love greater than that of a life laid down by a friend.”

Tonight, we are celebrating the gift of friendship. 
With friendship, we find genuine community.
On that night, Jesus looked at the room, and gave his friends the imperative “Love one another”.
“Love one another. 
Just as I have loved you. 
Love one another

Author: 
Michele Bisbey, CDP