This Book is overview of Outer executive Departments and 64 Independent Federal Agencies; the Outer Executive Departments are--United States Department of Interior, Labor, Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Education, and Veterans Affairs. In the 64 Federal Independent Agencies, some are larger than many Departments; for instance, United States Postal Services employs 656, 000; ranks third next to Wal-Mart and Department of Defense that employs 700,000 civilians. Accordingly, it had been my journey to know the governmental agencies; for me, the local and states basic social service administration never been satisfactory if I don’t know inside the United States Department of Health and Human Services’ category of its agencies. Because of that, it influences my learning and leads me made further research on governmental agencies. In these ten Outer Executive Department and 64 Independent Agencies--which I put together as “ a Policy of Federal Independent Agencies and Federal Outer Executive Departments”, paved my way to supplementary learning on Public Services and would leads me makes further researches on States, local and Cities governments agencies. This Book can be used by Graduates and Post Graduates students as special topic on Federal Agencies/be second Book in different classes, or be main text in certain levels, and it also can be Handbook for Public Administrators, United States Congress who creates and defines the Agencies’ Policy and Mission, from 2nd to 111th Congresses, and to the Heads of these Agencies, and states Administrators, Directors, Public Managers and any interested individual who want to learn more on Governmental Agencies. The Heads and Staff of these Departments and Agencies may know more mainly on ones’ or more Agencies than the Policy on this Book, but they can easily Master other Departments and Agencies like their owns if they have this Book on hand. Bases on my believe, Graduate students from Public Administration, Political Science, Sociology, Psychology, Social Work, Law, and International Relation etc never apprehend all agencies specifically as how I put and illustrate them; except their Agencies. I always cross these agencies in different books, but nothing enough enlighten me how the Agencies and Policies are; now I am clearly sure on agencies’ policy, roles and organizations, etc. This Pan’s 2nd Book as well as first Book is away beyond Administrative Laws and Administrative Ethic and Leadership. Author: Pan, Jock Lul

This Book is overview of Outer executive Departments and 64 Independent Federal Agencies; the Outer Executive Departments are--United States Department of Interior, Labor, Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Education, and Veterans Affairs. In the 64 Federal Independent Agencies, some are larger than many Departments; for instance, United States Postal Services employs 656, 000; ranks third next to Wal-Mart and Department of Defense that employs 700,000 civilians. Accordingly, it had been my journey to know the governmental agencies; for me, the local and states basic social service administration never been satisfactory if I don’t know inside the United States Department of Health and Human Services’ category of its agencies. Because of that, it influences my learning and leads me made further research on governmental agencies. In these ten Outer Executive Department and 64 Independent Agencies--which I put together as “ a Policy of Federal Independent Agencies and Federal Outer Executive Departments”, paved my way to supplementary learning on Public Services and would leads me makes further researches on States, local and Cities governments agencies. This Book can be used by Graduates and Post Graduates students as special topic on Federal Agencies/be second Book in different classes, or be main text in certain levels, and it also can be Handbook for Public Administrators, United States Congress who creates and defines the Agencies’ Policy and Mission, from 2nd to 111th Congresses, and to the Heads of these Agencies, and states Administrators, Directors, Public Managers and any interested individual who want to learn more on Governmental Agencies. The Heads and Staff of these Departments and Agencies may know more mainly on ones’ or more Agencies than the Policy on this Book, but they can easily Master other Departments and Agencies like their owns if they have this Book on hand. Bases on my believe, Graduate students from Public Administration, Political Science, Sociology, Psychology, Social Work, Law, and International Relation etc never apprehend all agencies specifically as how I put and illustrate them; except their Agencies. I always cross these agencies in different books, but nothing enough enlighten me how the Agencies and Policies are; now I am clearly sure on agencies’ policy, roles and organizations, etc. This Pan’s 2nd Book as well as first Book is away beyond Administrative Laws and Administrative Ethic and Leadership. Author: Pan, Jock Lul

This Book is overview of Outer executive Departments and 64 Independent Federal Agencies; the Outer Executive Departments are--United States Department of Interior, Labor, Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Education, and Veterans Affairs. In the 64 Federal Independent Agencies, some are larger than many Departments; for instance, United States Postal Services employs 656, 000; ranks third next to Wal-Mart and Department of Defense that employs 700,000 civilians. Accordingly, it had been my journey to know the governmental agencies; for me, the local and states basic social service administration never been satisfactory if I don’t know inside the United States Department of Health and Human Services’ category of its agencies. Because of that, it influences my learning and leads me made further research on governmental agencies. In these ten Outer Executive Department and 64 Independent Agencies--which I put together as “ a Policy of Federal Independent Agencies and Federal Outer Executive Departments”, paved my way to supplementary learning on Public Services and would leads me makes further researches on States, local and Cities governments agencies. This Book can be used by Graduates and Post Graduates students as special topic on Federal Agencies/be second Book in different classes, or be main text in certain levels, and it also can be Handbook for Public Administrators, United States Congress who creates and defines the Agencies’ Policy and Mission, from 2nd to 111th Congresses, and to the Heads of these Agencies, and states Administrators, Directors, Public Managers and any interested individual who want to learn more on Governmental Agencies. The Heads and Staff of these Departments and Agencies may know more mainly on ones’ or more Agencies than the Policy on this Book, but they can easily Master other Departments and Agencies like their owns if they have this Book on hand. Bases on my believe, Graduate students from Public Administration, Political Science, Sociology, Psychology, Social Work, Law, and International Relation etc never apprehend all agencies specifically as how I put and illustrate them; except their Agencies. I always cross these agencies in different books, but nothing enough enlighten me how the Agencies and Policies are; now I am clearly sure on agencies’ policy, roles and organizations, etc. This Pan’s 2nd Book as well as first Book is away beyond Administrative Laws and Administrative Ethic and Leadership. Author: Pan, Jock Lul

In 1943 the bell attached to a rope on both floors of a plain box-like convent in Houston, Texas, rang at 5 a.m. The nine Sisters of Divine Providence stationed at the grade school arose, reciting aloud the traditional prayer that began “Live, Jesus, in my heart! My God, I give you my heart. Mercifully deign to receive it and grant that no creature shall possess it but Thou alone.” Continuing to pray aloud for five more minutes, the Sisters who shared small bedrooms began to dress. All had developed in their novitiate a rhythm for this process, which launched each day in a uniform way.
        Over 20 items of dress had to be donned in a certain order. Before Morning Prayer at 5:25 in the small chapel on the first floor, the Sisters also stripped their single beds, flipped the thin mattresses, and replaced the bed linens, trying not to invade a companion’s limited space. Usually it was still dark outside when they started to recite morning prayers unique to the Congregation. This was followed by chanting in Latin on one tone Matins, Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sext, and None from the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Then the superior read aloud some points for reflection, and the Sisters meditated in silence for half an hour. This was the first time of the day they had some relatively unstructured time, and they sometimes experienced “distractions.” Perhaps they planned how to teach something better or recalled problematic students.
        At 6:30 one of the parish priests offered Mass, which was followed by breakfast. The Sisters ate in silence while one of them read passages from the Imitation of Christ. By 8 a.m. they were leading their pupils across the playground to the children’s daily Mass in the parish church.
        In sharp contrast, in 1990 Sister Mary Walter Gutowski, CDP, one of two Sisters living in a small apartment, was the administrator of Our Lady of Guadalupe clinic for low income Latinos and African Americans in Rosenberg, Texas. Sister Walter, who was credited with having delivered more than 3,000 babies under difficult rural circumstances, once remarked, “When someone knocks at my door in the middle of the night, I get dressed in two minutes flat because I never know what will be waiting for me outside.”¹
        What explains this dramatic change of style and ritual in the routines of Catholic Sisters living in mission houses? How did the Sisters move from cloisters to apartments? How did the rigid routines of the nine Sisters of 1943 transmute into the singular and unstructured life of Sister Mary Walter? What are the connections between the bell that rang at five in the morning and the one that sounded at any hour?
        This history examines the period of 1943 to 2000, an era during which the Sisters of Divine Providence redefined their perspective and practices within the context of a changing American Catholic church. It demonstrates that the Sisters were well situated to embrace the shifting demands of religious mission because their very heritage was grounded in ongoing transformations. Those transformations were played out on a highly charged stage of oppression concerning multi-racial relationships, one that further prepared the Sisters for the intense dynamics of modern church life.
When the Sisters celebrated in 1966 the centennial of their arrival in Texas, they were staffing their own college, high schools, and numerous grammar schools in several states as well as hospitals, clinics, and neighborhood centers. They had incorporated a group of women from Mexico and encouraged the independence of a new Providence congregation in the U.S. Responding to Vatican encouragement, after the second Vatican Council they began experiments to update structures and customs so as minister more effectively. The most visible were in the areas of community living and governance and were accompanied by greater collegiality, subsidiarity, variety in prayer forms and ministry, and increased personal responsibility for making decisions. A few examples of new ways of organizing local communities convey the prevalent spirit of renewal.
        Before the second Vatican Council, usually a Sister would be appointed a local superior when her administrative skills, including responsibility and creativity, were noticed and called to the attention of the central administration by someone who was herself a superior. There was no formal leadership training until 1973. Sister Rose Corrine Medica remembered, “We were given tasks that unknowingly trained us for leadership positions later on, tasks that made us come out of our shells and be able to do something.”² Although local superiors communicated with the general superiors and implemented their decisions and advice, they alone were responsible for the local community “out on the mission” where the Sisters spent most of each year. During this period of most intense experimentation, the General Council decided that the term “superior” would be replaced by the term “coordinator,” and for flexibility in government all coordinators would be appointed for one year only.³
        Three or four different motives for experiments with community structures were revealed in a panel on experimental communities that took place in the summer of 1970. Sister Kathryn (Mary Michael) Keefe and former Sister Judy Elder said they chose to leave the large college community to live together for the main purpose of building community. Former Sister Clara Ann Langley reported that in her group the type of work (nursing and teaching remedial reading) was the determining factor for living communally. Sister Margaret Rose Warburton with several other Sisters lived in Mirasol Homes, a federal housing project for low-income families adjacent to the OLL campus. “We came together as a result of wanting to live off campus in a small community in a low income bracket. Even though we belong to the residents’ association, we do not attempt to work among the people but continue with our usual jobs.”⁴ Some Sisters teaching in the Edgewood School district wanted to experience the neighborhood from which their students came, so they rented a house in a neighborhood where crime and gang activities were not unusual.
        Most invitations to experiment with ways of living together came from the general administration. For example, Superior General Sister Elizabeth McCullough sent a letter of invitation in May 1969 to the college community, which was comprised of about 100 Sisters. She asked them to experiment in styles of living in order “to respond to the signs of the times, especially to society’s cry for people who can live community and not just talk about it. The General Council knew, and many of the Sisters there knew, that something had to change.” But among the large number of Sisters were some who were content with the status quo. “Some Sisters were digging in their heels, so we finally had to say, ‘This is what we are going to do. You can sign up freely.’ There was no negotiation possible, but it worked.” ⁵ Sister Elizabeth asked that the Sisters choose not the persons with whom to live but the type of group they preferred: (1) a large community on campus with an appointed coordinator, (2) a large, flexible but structured community on campus in which the group would decide the form of authority, or (3) several small communities on or off campus.
        Some Sisters chose the first option. Those who chose the second option moved to the upper stories of Moye Hall, a student residence hall on campus. They had no coordinator or executive board but elected four representatives to deal with finances and living areas. All the members attended a weekly meeting. They were “aware of the challenges of adjustment; yet this awareness seems to be leading to a very contemporary expression of trust in Divine Providence.”⁶
        Within two years, eight Sisters from this group chose the third option and moved off campus. They took up residence at the convent of St. John Berchmans parish but still considered themselves a sub-group of Moye Hall.⁷ Sister Lourdes Leal, a founding member of this community, recalled “We were going to talk about everything, so we really had to express ourselves. We might start a community meeting at 7 o’clock and go on until 10 o’clock. We might be crying, passing the Kleenex around, or really sharing our souls.”⁸ Soon this community was asking hard questions of the central administration: How does a Sister get assigned to a community? Who initiates the request to change housing, a Sister or the administration? To whom is the request directed? The General Council decided to produce a policy on “admitting new community members to all the different College communities.”⁹
        Sister Jacqualine Kingsbury detailed another experiment.
        Sister Emily Rabalais and Sister Irma Jean Van Gossen were closing the short-lived junior high school at St. Benedict’s parish in Houston, and the leadership of the Congregation asked four of us who had proposed an experimental community, “Would you like to go to St. Benedict’s and do parish work?” We readily accepted and while forming community really dug into the meaning of renewal according to Vatican Council II. We were reading Sisters Today and determined to use our experience of community to avoid what we knew didn’t work well in communities.¹⁰
        Sister Jackie considered her seven years at St. Benedict’s to be “a powerful experience in every way. It was a large program with a huge number of volunteers. Three of us were on the parish team with two priests, and [former] Sister Wilma Zalezak was at Ben Taub County Hospital; but she was involved as much as her schedule allowed. We were really united and did much creative programming.” Sister Jackie felt that personal growth was enhanced as the Sisters “shared profoundly with team members, honed their skills of teaching, and developed new skills in counseling and supervising through in-service training for transitional deacons and seminarians. Interaction with the parish community was fabulous.”¹¹
        The renewal of community life and personal dedication was not accompanied by growth in numbers. During the last half of the twentieth century, many women left the Congregation and few entered. Many of the institutions it owned or staffed closed, and more and more the Sisters worked and lived alone or in very small groups. The unexpected new challenge was dealing with diminishment in personnel, resources, and ability to offer services. Lay collaborators were trained to carry on the work, and men and women were accepted as Associates of Divine Providence. The Sisters and Associates today practice trust in Divine Providence in new ways, discovering fresh meaning in the words of their founder, Blessed John Martin Moye, “If you abandon yourselves to Providence with a total and unreserved confidence, be convinced that it will not fail you. Let us do everything that depends on us, and God will take care of what concerns us.”¹²

-------------------------------------------------- ^{1 Article by Stephen Johnson, The Houston Chronicle, March 24, 1980, Sec. 3, p. 3, located in the archives of the Congregation of Divine Providence at Our Lady of the Lake Convent in San Antonio, Texas. Henceforth, CDPA.
2 Sister Rose Corrine Medica, oral interview, 16 June 2000, CDPA. She admitted “it was the first time I got an inkling of what some of our Superiors General have to go through, which they seldom share with us.”
3 General Council (Henceforth GC) minutes, 9 May 1969, CDPA.
4 “CDP Newsletter,” 1 July 1970:3, CDPA.
5 Sister Elizabeth McCullough, oral interview, 17 Apr. 2000, CDPA. She added that there was no pressure from Rome to do this, and she wrote a letter to the Archbishop informing him of the Sisters’ new addresses in various parishes of San Antonio.
6 “Summer News Bulletin,” 2 July 1969, CDPA.
7 GC minutes, 3 Jan. 1972, CDPA.
8 Oral interview, 8 Aug. 2000, CDPA. This community at first had no superior but later elected three members to serve as a kind of house council.
9 GC minutes, 14 Apr. 1972, CDPA.
10 Sister Jackie Kingsbury, oral interview, 20 June 2000, CDPA.
11 Sister Jackie Kingsbury, oral interview, 20 June 2000, CDPA.
12 Directory (Paris, 1874, U.S. translation, 1983) pp. 81 and 213.}

In 1943 the bell attached to a rope on both floors of a plain box-like convent in Houston, Texas, rang at 5 a.m. The nine Sisters of Divine Providence stationed at the grade school arose, reciting aloud the traditional prayer that began “Live, Jesus, in my heart! My God, I give you my heart. Mercifully deign to receive it and grant that no creature shall possess it but Thou alone.” Continuing to pray aloud for five more minutes, the Sisters who shared small bedrooms began to dress. All had developed in their novitiate a rhythm for this process, which launched each day in a uniform way.
        Over 20 items of dress had to be donned in a certain order. Before Morning Prayer at 5:25 in the small chapel on the first floor, the Sisters also stripped their single beds, flipped the thin mattresses, and replaced the bed linens, trying not to invade a companion’s limited space. Usually it was still dark outside when they started to recite morning prayers unique to the Congregation. This was followed by chanting in Latin on one tone Matins, Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sext, and None from the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Then the superior read aloud some points for reflection, and the Sisters meditated in silence for half an hour. This was the first time of the day they had some relatively unstructured time, and they sometimes experienced “distractions.” Perhaps they planned how to teach something better or recalled problematic students.
        At 6:30 one of the parish priests offered Mass, which was followed by breakfast. The Sisters ate in silence while one of them read passages from the Imitation of Christ. By 8 a.m. they were leading their pupils across the playground to the children’s daily Mass in the parish church.
        In sharp contrast, in 1990 Sister Mary Walter Gutowski, CDP, one of two Sisters living in a small apartment, was the administrator of Our Lady of Guadalupe clinic for low income Latinos and African Americans in Rosenberg, Texas. Sister Walter, who was credited with having delivered more than 3,000 babies under difficult rural circumstances, once remarked, “When someone knocks at my door in the middle of the night, I get dressed in two minutes flat because I never know what will be waiting for me outside.”¹
        What explains this dramatic change of style and ritual in the routines of Catholic Sisters living in mission houses? How did the Sisters move from cloisters to apartments? How did the rigid routines of the nine Sisters of 1943 transmute into the singular and unstructured life of Sister Mary Walter? What are the connections between the bell that rang at five in the morning and the one that sounded at any hour?
        This history examines the period of 1943 to 2000, an era during which the Sisters of Divine Providence redefined their perspective and practices within the context of a changing American Catholic church. It demonstrates that the Sisters were well situated to embrace the shifting demands of religious mission because their very heritage was grounded in ongoing transformations. Those transformations were played out on a highly charged stage of oppression concerning multi-racial relationships, one that further prepared the Sisters for the intense dynamics of modern church life.
When the Sisters celebrated in 1966 the centennial of their arrival in Texas, they were staffing their own college, high schools, and numerous grammar schools in several states as well as hospitals, clinics, and neighborhood centers. They had incorporated a group of women from Mexico and encouraged the independence of a new Providence congregation in the U.S. Responding to Vatican encouragement, after the second Vatican Council they began experiments to update structures and customs so as minister more effectively. The most visible were in the areas of community living and governance and were accompanied by greater collegiality, subsidiarity, variety in prayer forms and ministry, and increased personal responsibility for making decisions. A few examples of new ways of organizing local communities convey the prevalent spirit of renewal.
        Before the second Vatican Council, usually a Sister would be appointed a local superior when her administrative skills, including responsibility and creativity, were noticed and called to the attention of the central administration by someone who was herself a superior. There was no formal leadership training until 1973. Sister Rose Corrine Medica remembered, “We were given tasks that unknowingly trained us for leadership positions later on, tasks that made us come out of our shells and be able to do something.”² Although local superiors communicated with the general superiors and implemented their decisions and advice, they alone were responsible for the local community “out on the mission” where the Sisters spent most of each year. During this period of most intense experimentation, the General Council decided that the term “superior” would be replaced by the term “coordinator,” and for flexibility in government all coordinators would be appointed for one year only.³
        Three or four different motives for experiments with community structures were revealed in a panel on experimental communities that took place in the summer of 1970. Sister Kathryn (Mary Michael) Keefe and former Sister Judy Elder said they chose to leave the large college community to live together for the main purpose of building community. Former Sister Clara Ann Langley reported that in her group the type of work (nursing and teaching remedial reading) was the determining factor for living communally. Sister Margaret Rose Warburton with several other Sisters lived in Mirasol Homes, a federal housing project for low-income families adjacent to the OLL campus. “We came together as a result of wanting to live off campus in a small community in a low income bracket. Even though we belong to the residents’ association, we do not attempt to work among the people but continue with our usual jobs.”⁴ Some Sisters teaching in the Edgewood School district wanted to experience the neighborhood from which their students came, so they rented a house in a neighborhood where crime and gang activities were not unusual.
        Most invitations to experiment with ways of living together came from the general administration. For example, Superior General Sister Elizabeth McCullough sent a letter of invitation in May 1969 to the college community, which was comprised of about 100 Sisters. She asked them to experiment in styles of living in order “to respond to the signs of the times, especially to society’s cry for people who can live community and not just talk about it. The General Council knew, and many of the Sisters there knew, that something had to change.” But among the large number of Sisters were some who were content with the status quo. “Some Sisters were digging in their heels, so we finally had to say, ‘This is what we are going to do. You can sign up freely.’ There was no negotiation possible, but it worked.” ⁵ Sister Elizabeth asked that the Sisters choose not the persons with whom to live but the type of group they preferred: (1) a large community on campus with an appointed coordinator, (2) a large, flexible but structured community on campus in which the group would decide the form of authority, or (3) several small communities on or off campus.
        Some Sisters chose the first option. Those who chose the second option moved to the upper stories of Moye Hall, a student residence hall on campus. They had no coordinator or executive board but elected four representatives to deal with finances and living areas. All the members attended a weekly meeting. They were “aware of the challenges of adjustment; yet this awareness seems to be leading to a very contemporary expression of trust in Divine Providence.”⁶
        Within two years, eight Sisters from this group chose the third option and moved off campus. They took up residence at the convent of St. John Berchmans parish but still considered themselves a sub-group of Moye Hall.⁷ Sister Lourdes Leal, a founding member of this community, recalled “We were going to talk about everything, so we really had to express ourselves. We might start a community meeting at 7 o’clock and go on until 10 o’clock. We might be crying, passing the Kleenex around, or really sharing our souls.”⁸ Soon this community was asking hard questions of the central administration: How does a Sister get assigned to a community? Who initiates the request to change housing, a Sister or the administration? To whom is the request directed? The General Council decided to produce a policy on “admitting new community members to all the different College communities.”⁹
        Sister Jacqualine Kingsbury detailed another experiment.
        Sister Emily Rabalais and Sister Irma Jean Van Gossen were closing the short-lived junior high school at St. Benedict’s parish in Houston, and the leadership of the Congregation asked four of us who had proposed an experimental community, “Would you like to go to St. Benedict’s and do parish work?” We readily accepted and while forming community really dug into the meaning of renewal according to Vatican Council II. We were reading Sisters Today and determined to use our experience of community to avoid what we knew didn’t work well in communities.¹⁰
        Sister Jackie considered her seven years at St. Benedict’s to be “a powerful experience in every way. It was a large program with a huge number of volunteers. Three of us were on the parish team with two priests, and [former] Sister Wilma Zalezak was at Ben Taub County Hospital; but she was involved as much as her schedule allowed. We were really united and did much creative programming.” Sister Jackie felt that personal growth was enhanced as the Sisters “shared profoundly with team members, honed their skills of teaching, and developed new skills in counseling and supervising through in-service training for transitional deacons and seminarians. Interaction with the parish community was fabulous.”¹¹
        The renewal of community life and personal dedication was not accompanied by growth in numbers. During the last half of the twentieth century, many women left the Congregation and few entered. Many of the institutions it owned or staffed closed, and more and more the Sisters worked and lived alone or in very small groups. The unexpected new challenge was dealing with diminishment in personnel, resources, and ability to offer services. Lay collaborators were trained to carry on the work, and men and women were accepted as Associates of Divine Providence. The Sisters and Associates today practice trust in Divine Providence in new ways, discovering fresh meaning in the words of their founder, Blessed John Martin Moye, “If you abandon yourselves to Providence with a total and unreserved confidence, be convinced that it will not fail you. Let us do everything that depends on us, and God will take care of what concerns us.”¹²

-------------------------------------------------- ^{1 Article by Stephen Johnson, The Houston Chronicle, March 24, 1980, Sec. 3, p. 3, located in the archives of the Congregation of Divine Providence at Our Lady of the Lake Convent in San Antonio, Texas. Henceforth, CDPA.
2 Sister Rose Corrine Medica, oral interview, 16 June 2000, CDPA. She admitted “it was the first time I got an inkling of what some of our Superiors General have to go through, which they seldom share with us.”
3 General Council (Henceforth GC) minutes, 9 May 1969, CDPA.
4 “CDP Newsletter,” 1 July 1970:3, CDPA.
5 Sister Elizabeth McCullough, oral interview, 17 Apr. 2000, CDPA. She added that there was no pressure from Rome to do this, and she wrote a letter to the Archbishop informing him of the Sisters’ new addresses in various parishes of San Antonio.
6 “Summer News Bulletin,” 2 July 1969, CDPA.
7 GC minutes, 3 Jan. 1972, CDPA.
8 Oral interview, 8 Aug. 2000, CDPA. This community at first had no superior but later elected three members to serve as a kind of house council.
9 GC minutes, 14 Apr. 1972, CDPA.
10 Sister Jackie Kingsbury, oral interview, 20 June 2000, CDPA.
11 Sister Jackie Kingsbury, oral interview, 20 June 2000, CDPA.
12 Directory (Paris, 1874, U.S. translation, 1983) pp. 81 and 213.}

In 1943 the bell attached to a rope on both floors of a plain box-like convent in Houston, Texas, rang at 5 a.m. The nine Sisters of Divine Providence stationed at the grade school arose, reciting aloud the traditional prayer that began “Live, Jesus, in my heart! My God, I give you my heart. Mercifully deign to receive it and grant that no creature shall possess it but Thou alone.” Continuing to pray aloud for five more minutes, the Sisters who shared small bedrooms began to dress. All had developed in their novitiate a rhythm for this process, which launched each day in a uniform way.
        Over 20 items of dress had to be donned in a certain order. Before Morning Prayer at 5:25 in the small chapel on the first floor, the Sisters also stripped their single beds, flipped the thin mattresses, and replaced the bed linens, trying not to invade a companion’s limited space. Usually it was still dark outside when they started to recite morning prayers unique to the Congregation. This was followed by chanting in Latin on one tone Matins, Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sext, and None from the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Then the superior read aloud some points for reflection, and the Sisters meditated in silence for half an hour. This was the first time of the day they had some relatively unstructured time, and they sometimes experienced “distractions.” Perhaps they planned how to teach something better or recalled problematic students.
        At 6:30 one of the parish priests offered Mass, which was followed by breakfast. The Sisters ate in silence while one of them read passages from the Imitation of Christ. By 8 a.m. they were leading their pupils across the playground to the children’s daily Mass in the parish church.
        In sharp contrast, in 1990 Sister Mary Walter Gutowski, CDP, one of two Sisters living in a small apartment, was the administrator of Our Lady of Guadalupe clinic for low income Latinos and African Americans in Rosenberg, Texas. Sister Walter, who was credited with having delivered more than 3,000 babies under difficult rural circumstances, once remarked, “When someone knocks at my door in the middle of the night, I get dressed in two minutes flat because I never know what will be waiting for me outside.”¹
        What explains this dramatic change of style and ritual in the routines of Catholic Sisters living in mission houses? How did the Sisters move from cloisters to apartments? How did the rigid routines of the nine Sisters of 1943 transmute into the singular and unstructured life of Sister Mary Walter? What are the connections between the bell that rang at five in the morning and the one that sounded at any hour?
        This history examines the period of 1943 to 2000, an era during which the Sisters of Divine Providence redefined their perspective and practices within the context of a changing American Catholic church. It demonstrates that the Sisters were well situated to embrace the shifting demands of religious mission because their very heritage was grounded in ongoing transformations. Those transformations were played out on a highly charged stage of oppression concerning multi-racial relationships, one that further prepared the Sisters for the intense dynamics of modern church life.
When the Sisters celebrated in 1966 the centennial of their arrival in Texas, they were staffing their own college, high schools, and numerous grammar schools in several states as well as hospitals, clinics, and neighborhood centers. They had incorporated a group of women from Mexico and encouraged the independence of a new Providence congregation in the U.S. Responding to Vatican encouragement, after the second Vatican Council they began experiments to update structures and customs so as minister more effectively. The most visible were in the areas of community living and governance and were accompanied by greater collegiality, subsidiarity, variety in prayer forms and ministry, and increased personal responsibility for making decisions. A few examples of new ways of organizing local communities convey the prevalent spirit of renewal.
        Before the second Vatican Council, usually a Sister would be appointed a local superior when her administrative skills, including responsibility and creativity, were noticed and called to the attention of the central administration by someone who was herself a superior. There was no formal leadership training until 1973. Sister Rose Corrine Medica remembered, “We were given tasks that unknowingly trained us for leadership positions later on, tasks that made us come out of our shells and be able to do something.”² Although local superiors communicated with the general superiors and implemented their decisions and advice, they alone were responsible for the local community “out on the mission” where the Sisters spent most of each year. During this period of most intense experimentation, the General Council decided that the term “superior” would be replaced by the term “coordinator,” and for flexibility in government all coordinators would be appointed for one year only.³
        Three or four different motives for experiments with community structures were revealed in a panel on experimental communities that took place in the summer of 1970. Sister Kathryn (Mary Michael) Keefe and former Sister Judy Elder said they chose to leave the large college community to live together for the main purpose of building community. Former Sister Clara Ann Langley reported that in her group the type of work (nursing and teaching remedial reading) was the determining factor for living communally. Sister Margaret Rose Warburton with several other Sisters lived in Mirasol Homes, a federal housing project for low-income families adjacent to the OLL campus. “We came together as a result of wanting to live off campus in a small community in a low income bracket. Even though we belong to the residents’ association, we do not attempt to work among the people but continue with our usual jobs.”⁴ Some Sisters teaching in the Edgewood School district wanted to experience the neighborhood from which their students came, so they rented a house in a neighborhood where crime and gang activities were not unusual.
        Most invitations to experiment with ways of living together came from the general administration. For example, Superior General Sister Elizabeth McCullough sent a letter of invitation in May 1969 to the college community, which was comprised of about 100 Sisters. She asked them to experiment in styles of living in order “to respond to the signs of the times, especially to society’s cry for people who can live community and not just talk about it. The General Council knew, and many of the Sisters there knew, that something had to change.” But among the large number of Sisters were some who were content with the status quo. “Some Sisters were digging in their heels, so we finally had to say, ‘This is what we are going to do. You can sign up freely.’ There was no negotiation possible, but it worked.” ⁵ Sister Elizabeth asked that the Sisters choose not the persons with whom to live but the type of group they preferred: (1) a large community on campus with an appointed coordinator, (2) a large, flexible but structured community on campus in which the group would decide the form of authority, or (3) several small communities on or off campus.
        Some Sisters chose the first option. Those who chose the second option moved to the upper stories of Moye Hall, a student residence hall on campus. They had no coordinator or executive board but elected four representatives to deal with finances and living areas. All the members attended a weekly meeting. They were “aware of the challenges of adjustment; yet this awareness seems to be leading to a very contemporary expression of trust in Divine Providence.”⁶
        Within two years, eight Sisters from this group chose the third option and moved off campus. They took up residence at the convent of St. John Berchmans parish but still considered themselves a sub-group of Moye Hall.⁷ Sister Lourdes Leal, a founding member of this community, recalled “We were going to talk about everything, so we really had to express ourselves. We might start a community meeting at 7 o’clock and go on until 10 o’clock. We might be crying, passing the Kleenex around, or really sharing our souls.”⁸ Soon this community was asking hard questions of the central administration: How does a Sister get assigned to a community? Who initiates the request to change housing, a Sister or the administration? To whom is the request directed? The General Council decided to produce a policy on “admitting new community members to all the different College communities.”⁹
        Sister Jacqualine Kingsbury detailed another experiment.
        Sister Emily Rabalais and Sister Irma Jean Van Gossen were closing the short-lived junior high school at St. Benedict’s parish in Houston, and the leadership of the Congregation asked four of us who had proposed an experimental community, “Would you like to go to St. Benedict’s and do parish work?” We readily accepted and while forming community really dug into the meaning of renewal according to Vatican Council II. We were reading Sisters Today and determined to use our experience of community to avoid what we knew didn’t work well in communities.¹⁰
        Sister Jackie considered her seven years at St. Benedict’s to be “a powerful experience in every way. It was a large program with a huge number of volunteers. Three of us were on the parish team with two priests, and [former] Sister Wilma Zalezak was at Ben Taub County Hospital; but she was involved as much as her schedule allowed. We were really united and did much creative programming.” Sister Jackie felt that personal growth was enhanced as the Sisters “shared profoundly with team members, honed their skills of teaching, and developed new skills in counseling and supervising through in-service training for transitional deacons and seminarians. Interaction with the parish community was fabulous.”¹¹
        The renewal of community life and personal dedication was not accompanied by growth in numbers. During the last half of the twentieth century, many women left the Congregation and few entered. Many of the institutions it owned or staffed closed, and more and more the Sisters worked and lived alone or in very small groups. The unexpected new challenge was dealing with diminishment in personnel, resources, and ability to offer services. Lay collaborators were trained to carry on the work, and men and women were accepted as Associates of Divine Providence. The Sisters and Associates today practice trust in Divine Providence in new ways, discovering fresh meaning in the words of their founder, Blessed John Martin Moye, “If you abandon yourselves to Providence with a total and unreserved confidence, be convinced that it will not fail you. Let us do everything that depends on us, and God will take care of what concerns us.”¹²

-------------------------------------------------- ^{1 Article by Stephen Johnson, The Houston Chronicle, March 24, 1980, Sec. 3, p. 3, located in the archives of the Congregation of Divine Providence at Our Lady of the Lake Convent in San Antonio, Texas. Henceforth, CDPA.
2 Sister Rose Corrine Medica, oral interview, 16 June 2000, CDPA. She admitted “it was the first time I got an inkling of what some of our Superiors General have to go through, which they seldom share with us.”
3 General Council (Henceforth GC) minutes, 9 May 1969, CDPA.
4 “CDP Newsletter,” 1 July 1970:3, CDPA.
5 Sister Elizabeth McCullough, oral interview, 17 Apr. 2000, CDPA. She added that there was no pressure from Rome to do this, and she wrote a letter to the Archbishop informing him of the Sisters’ new addresses in various parishes of San Antonio.
6 “Summer News Bulletin,” 2 July 1969, CDPA.
7 GC minutes, 3 Jan. 1972, CDPA.
8 Oral interview, 8 Aug. 2000, CDPA. This community at first had no superior but later elected three members to serve as a kind of house council.
9 GC minutes, 14 Apr. 1972, CDPA.
10 Sister Jackie Kingsbury, oral interview, 20 June 2000, CDPA.
11 Sister Jackie Kingsbury, oral interview, 20 June 2000, CDPA.
12 Directory (Paris, 1874, U.S. translation, 1983) pp. 81 and 213.}

Imagine you are a seven-year-old attending your local community school. If you live in rural Guatemala, your parents are likely illiterate, subsistence farmers who dropped out of school before the sixth grade. Quite possibly, you have never come in contact with a book, either at home or in school. Further, your teachers probably received little more than a high school education, and lack the training and resources they need to make a meaningful difference in your life. Without adequate reading skills, you will enter adult life unprepared to deal with its complexities, such as understanding a bank statement, a voting ballot, or a newspaper. You will remain a target of exploitation and injustice, and the cycle of poverty and inequality will continue for you and your children. Cooperative for Education (CoEd) is a Cincinnati, Ohio-based organization dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty in Guatemala by providing educational resources and opportunities to underprivileged schoolchildren. Since CoEd’s founding in 1996, it has brought educational opportunities—through books, computers, training, scholarships, and libraries—to approximately 100,000 young people, particularly those living in poor, indigenous Mayan areas.

Imagine you are a seven-year-old attending your local community school. If you live in rural Guatemala, your parents are likely illiterate, subsistence farmers who dropped out of school before the sixth grade. Quite possibly, you have never come in contact with a book, either at home or in school. Further, your teachers probably received little more than a high school education, and lack the training and resources they need to make a meaningful difference in your life. Without adequate reading skills, you will enter adult life unprepared to deal with its complexities, such as understanding a bank statement, a voting ballot, or a newspaper. You will remain a target of exploitation and injustice, and the cycle of poverty and inequality will continue for you and your children. Cooperative for Education (CoEd) is a Cincinnati, Ohio-based organization dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty in Guatemala by providing educational resources and opportunities to underprivileged schoolchildren. Since CoEd’s founding in 1996, it has brought educational opportunities—through books, computers, training, scholarships, and libraries—to approximately 100,000 young people, particularly those living in poor, indigenous Mayan areas.

Imagínese que usted es un niño de siete años asistiendo a la escuela desu comunidad. Si vive en el área rural de Guatemala, es muy probableque sus padres no estudiaron, y son agricultores subsistiendo, ya queabandonaron la escuela en sexto año. Es muy probable que nunca ha tenidocontacto con un libro, ni en casa como en la escuela. Además, sus maestrosprobablemente han recibido sólo educación secundaria, el entrenamientoy recursos son escasos para hacer una diferencia signifi cativa en su vida.Sin una adecuada habilidad de lectura, entrará a la edad adulta sin estarpreparado para enfrentar problemas complejos, como entender lostérminos de un banco, una boleta electoral o un periódico. Será el objetivode la injusticia y explotación, y el ciclo de desigualdad y pobrezaseguirá para usted y sus hijos.

Asociación COED (Cooperación para la Educación) es una organizacióncon base en Guatemala y en Ohio, que se dedica a romper el ciclo de lapobreza en Guatemala proveyendo recursos educacionales y oportunidadesa alumnos desprivilegiados. Desde la fundación de COED en 1996, se hanbrindado oportunidades educacionales, a través de libros, computadoras,capacitaciones, becas y bibliotecas, a aproximadamente 100,000 jóvenes,particularmente aquellos que viven en áreas indígenas mayas pobres.

Imagínese que usted es un niño de siete años asistiendo a la escuela desu comunidad. Si vive en el área rural de Guatemala, es muy probableque sus padres no estudiaron, y son agricultores subsistiendo, ya queabandonaron la escuela en sexto año. Es muy probable que nunca ha tenidocontacto con un libro, ni en casa como en la escuela. Además, sus maestrosprobablemente han recibido sólo educación secundaria, el entrenamientoy recursos son escasos para hacer una diferencia signifi cativa en su vida.Sin una adecuada habilidad de lectura, entrará a la edad adulta sin estarpreparado para enfrentar problemas complejos, como entender lostérminos de un banco, una boleta electoral o un periódico. Será el objetivode la injusticia y explotación, y el ciclo de desigualdad y pobrezaseguirá para usted y sus hijos.

Asociación COED (Cooperación para la Educación) es una organizacióncon base en Guatemala y en Ohio, que se dedica a romper el ciclo de lapobreza en Guatemala proveyendo recursos educacionales y oportunidadesa alumnos desprivilegiados. Desde la fundación de COED en 1996, se hanbrindado oportunidades educacionales, a través de libros, computadoras,capacitaciones, becas y bibliotecas, a aproximadamente 100,000 jóvenes,particularmente aquellos que viven en áreas indígenas mayas pobres.

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Every athlete will testify that not finishing a race is one of the worst feelings they can have. For once started, the aim indeed is to finish, preferably in first place, but finish nonetheless. Like those running a race, when going through a wilderness experience, the determination to endure is what we need most. This book will aid the reader to gain knowledge for those hard times. Providing detailed account of some such as Moses, the Children of Israel, David, Job, John The Baptist and Jesus, who have gone through wilderness experiences in their lives and have left us examples from which we can draw inspiration and learn. Take this journey and gather tools to aid you endure your wilderness.

Every athlete will testify that not finishing a race is one of the worst feelings they can have. For once started, the aim indeed is to finish, preferably in first place, but finish nonetheless. Like those running a race, when going through a wilderness experience, the determination to endure is what we need most. This book will aid the reader to gain knowledge for those hard times. Providing detailed account of some such as Moses, the Children of Israel, David, Job, John The Baptist and Jesus, who have gone through wilderness experiences in their lives and have left us examples from which we can draw inspiration and learn. Take this journey and gather tools to aid you endure your wilderness.

Every athlete will testify that not finishing a race is one of the worst feelings they can have. For once started, the aim indeed is to finish, preferably in first place, but finish nonetheless. Like those running a race, when going through a wilderness experience, the determination to endure is what we need most. This book will aid the reader to gain knowledge for those hard times. Providing detailed account of some such as Moses, the Children of Israel, David, Job, John The Baptist and Jesus, who have gone through wilderness experiences in their lives and have left us examples from which we can draw inspiration and learn. Take this journey and gather tools to aid you endure your wilderness.