How is God calling you?
God is calling you to live life fully. Is it to life as a Sister of Divine Providence?
God’s call starts deep within your life, giving you glimpses of who you are, seeking to catch your attention and break into your lived reality.
The call is rooted in your relationship with Jesus Christ which can be seen and felt and touched. Have you noticed your inclinations, choices, daydreams, or the mission-oriented activities that give you life? These can be indications of your call.
The women today who choose to explore becoming a Sister of Divine Providence offer God a variety of talents, backgrounds, and experiences with which to bless the world.
Exploring God’s Call Within
We offer you different ways to discern a call to religious life and ways to get to know the Sisters of Divine Providence.
Finding your direction. What comes first?
Inquiry is an important first step. As you search for God’s will in your life, we invite you to participate in any of the discernment opportunities we and your diocesan offices offer. See New Membership Events.
Affiliate – A woman who feels drawn to getting a closer look at the Sisters of Divine Providence and to exploring her “fit” with religious life can request to become an Affiliate. As an Affiliate she continues in her current living, work, and/or study arrangements while devoting focused energy on her call to religious life, and to our Congregation in particular.
Becoming a Sister of Divine Providence
The formation process formally begins with entry into the Pre-Novitiate and is an unfolding of the call of God which began at baptism. Each phase of formation begins with a formal ritual and has its own focus, and continues the discernment and commitment to respond to God’s call.
A Pre-Novice lives in community with the Sisters while ministering and/or continuing her education, from one to two years.
A Novice explores in depth the call to the vowed life as a Sister of Divine Providence, without any other full time ministry or education, for two years. She uses the title “Sister.”
A Temporary Professed Sister professes annually to live the vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience while living in community and working in full-time ministry, for three to six years.
A Perpetually Professed Sister lives the vowed life in community and ministry, in a lifelong commitment to come closer to the ideals we profess.
If you would like more information regarding our discernment opportunities or the Sisters of Divine Providence, we invite you to contact us by email: Vocation Ministry
Basic Requirements
We seek women who have a call to our charism and can contribute to the life and mission of the community. The basic requirements to enter the Congregation of Divine Providence are:
- Woman called by God who is generally between the ages of 21 and 40
- Citizen or a legal resident of the United States
- Receiver of the sacraments of initiation in the Roman Catholic Church
- Woman of good canonical standing in the Roman Catholic Church
- Single and willing to live a celibate lifestyle
- Capable and willing to make a lifetime commitment
- Physically and psychologically healthy
- Capable of successful employment or engaged in higher education
- Free from serious financial debts and obligations
- Capable of successfully passing a criminal background check
Video Vignettes of Sisters of Divine Providence via SisterStory
Kimberly Yosko, ACDP’s “Here’s My Secret” interview re her SisterStory on Sister Elsa Garcia. She is a Lutheran who has learned about Catholicism via the CDP and OLLU: “… open my heart to see the different ways people worship and glorify God.” “Let God bring you through whatever it is..” Kimberly is an OLLU December 2016 graduate, Journalism and English.
Elsa Garcia, CDP on Abstinence: regarding her choice to become a member of the Congregation of Divine Providence — “You don’t decide who you fall in love with, you decide if it is love.”
Pearl Ceasar, CDP on Vatican II: “I want to embrace all the things God has in store and embrace them graciously.”
Michelle Nuñez, ACDP, OLLU student majoring in Social Work and minoring in Religious Studies. Learned how much the Church is involved with the poor via the priests and women religious’ involvement with community organizing.
Joyce Detzel, CDP: Being a Mom: “you have to be a mother in all states of life: you have to be life-giving, life-generating and life-bearing… I love and mother you as I loved and mothered my son, it’s the same love but a different focus.”