The Providence Podcast

The birth of the vulnerable, needy Christ child is a profound, important sign that God has given humanity. God became finite and shows us infinite love; God became needy and shows us God’s Providence; God became poor and shows us abundance. You can read the reflection and sign up to receive our weekly newsletter at www. GodSpaceCommunity.com .  At God Space, you can come as you are. You belon...

Let’s rejoice because the reign of God is near and here, among us and within us and yet to come. Let’s allow ourselves to be moved by the beauty of the earth and to rejoice with it. You can read the reflection and sign up to receive our weekly newsletter at www. GodSpaceCommunity.com .  At God Space, you can come as you are. You belong here. God Space is a ministry of the Sisters of Divine Pr...

If you were to envision a world in which your deepest desires (for yourself, your community and family, humankind, and creation) were manifested, what would it look like? What do your longings tell you about yourself? What do they tell you about God and God’s call for you? You can read the reflection here, and you can sign up to receive our weekly newsletter at www. GodSpaceCommunity.com . At God...

Come on, everybody! Let’s act right and wake up! God is inviting you and me into this holy, still, gentle, waiting season of Advent. Let’s open ourselves, seeking God in all things because God wants to be found. You can read the reflection here, and you can sign up to receive our weekly newsletter at www. GodSpaceCommunity.com . At God Space, you can come as you are. You belong here. God Space is...

Christ is not invisible. Christ is not high and mighty. Christ is all around us, in each person we meet, and within our very selves. So, let’s allow Christ the vulnerable king to walk closely with us, and when Christ invites each of us into his kingdom, I hope we say yes. You can read the reflection here, and you can sign up to receive our weekly newsletter at www. GodSpaceCommunity.com . At God S...

I find hope in the fact that hard times will come to an end. Nothing is permanent. I wish all the good things would last forever, but one positive aspect of change is that it also brings hard things to a close. God is very deeply with us even as we move through the worst kind of suffering, and resurrection comes and brings hope too. You can read the reflection here, and you can sign up to receive...

Anyone who’s truly living their vocation, religious, single, and married people, know both love and endurance. And there’s something about sisters who tend to move toward service. In big and little ways, we keep on keeping on. We align ourselves with discomfort and lean into uncertainty and sometimes even run toward danger. In all that we run to and embrace, endure and uplift, we do it for love of...

This reading from the Book of Wisdom can take us pretty deep into the mystery of God and the paradox of God — that God is both infinite and intimate. God holds the universe and all things in it; the magnitude of God is unimaginable. And yet, God is within each one of us and knows us personally. God is the Creator of all, and God is knit deeply within each one of us.  You can read the reflecti...

God wants us as we are. No bravado, no chest beating and discarding our own worth. God receives us – all that we are, our past, our present, our brokenness and giftedness — the whole of each of us. God loves us however we show up. And God always shows up for us. For reflection: On a scale of Pharisee to Tax Collector, where do you fall right now? What makes you think so? What do you need from God...

What an image of leadership – Moses so visibly present on the hill with his hands raised and two of his community members on either side offering support. It seems like a lot of us could benefit from this kind of leadership, especially during these times of transition. We’re no longer what we have been, but we don’t know what we’re becoming. How will we get through this? How are our leaders leadin...

The more that I, and we, live and grow into the fullness of being to which God calls us, the more we belong to God and ourselves. When we belong like that, we’ll find belonging wherever we go. For reflection: Have you ever felt like you don’t belong? What brought about that feeling, and how did you deal with it? When you have that feeling, where is God? Do you feel like you are living fully as God...

Even if we aren’t feeling it and we sort of quiet quit for a minute, God never quiet quits on us — or quiet fire us either. The Holy Spirit will stir things up. It will fuel and fan our fires. Stirring into flame is what the Spirit does.  For Reflection:  How are you doing right now, spiritually speaking?   Have you ever experienced spiritual burnout or dullness or smoldering?&...

Prophets comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and maybe that's what our prophets are doing -- afflicting us until we shift our expectations and attitudes. Attitude shifts are often uncomfortable for me, but that’s okay. A little discomfort never hurt me and, in fact, sometimes it helps me to grow.  For Reflection:  What about you? How do you respond to these readings? ...

Trust is a risk we take. It can lead to heartbreak, sure, but it also brings about deeper intimacy and connection. When we risk a little vulnerability, we see that someone is trustworthy, and so we can risk again. Eventually, each little moment can add up to a deeper relationship and an abiding trust with other people and with God. Learn more about Brené Brown's Anatomy of Trust here: https://www....

Does prayer make you more compassionate, thoughtful, understanding of other people? Does it help you to remember God’s love in the past and to experience it in the present? It does that for me. When I truly open myself, prayer reminds me of how often God has come to find me when I’ve wandered off. It reminds me of God’s grace and mercy, unasked for but abundantly given, and it makes me extend grac...

Listen as Sister Fidelis Tracy, CDP reflects on Trinity as community, community that’s open to all. She keeps it real as she shares about her experiences of community, and she’ll help us to reflect on our own spirituality and relationships as well. Listen to more reflections at GodSpaceCommunity.com and sign up for our newsletter to receive weekly reflections, info on events, and other spiritual t...

The Holy Spirit is what brings together the most unlikely people and unites us as community, even through our many differences, and helps us to hold that paradox of oneness and diversity. The Spirit doesn’t ask us to conform so we’re all alike, but it does help us to communicate through the different languages we may speak. For reflection What stirs in you as you reflect on Pentecost? Do you pray...

The Feast of the Ascension shows us is that the revelation of Christ in the world, even amidst all of this sorrow, is up to us. The presence of Christ crucified and risen is within each one of us. That’s where God is in all of this. Not waving good bye from above, but generating hope from within us -- hope that we proclaim. For reflection · Have you ever held both joy and suffering at the same tim...

I’m working to not let my heart be troubled or afraid, but even if that’s my default, I don’t have to maintain that setting today. I can modify it. And God is always at work in me, rewriting the code that I can’t even decipher and changing my settings from troubled to peace. For Reflection: What are your default settings? Anxiety, negativity, sadness, despondency – or positivity, idealism, pessimi...

God doesn’t just choose to be with us from afar, but intimately with each of us at every moment, with every breath, with every blink of the eye. With every joy and sadness, God is there. by Sister Leslie Keener, CDP  Sister Leslie Keener, CDP is the director of God Space, a community-building spirituality ministry in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. She’s a Sister of Divine Providence with a Mast...

Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice; I know them and they follow me.” Have you ever heard Christ speak to you – maybe to console you, to get your attention, to call you to something? How do you know that it’s Christ’s voice speaking to you? Reflection questions:  So, again, have you ever heard the voice of Christ speak to you? What does Christ sound like?  What brings you peace, joy, lov...

Understanding mission as a project feels helpful, at least to me. Being assigned a project is far less daunting than being sent on a mission. Mission inspires me, but it also overwhelms me. A project is doable, one step at a time. If you would like to read the reflection, you can visit https://www.godspacecommunity.com/blog/2019/5/3/the-christian-project-tzwfc. You can also sign up to receive thes...

Have you ever had an experience that touched your heart and changed your life? Well, here's one. The Providence Project is a summer service program in Mosses, Alabama. Young adult volunteers live together in community with Sisters of Divine Providence and work with children in an educational summer camp. We’ll build in time for community, prayer, and, of course, fun! We’ll also visit some of the h...

Blessed Good Friday. This Way of the Cross prayer is a kind of pilgrimage, a way of connecting the suffering of Jesus with the suffering brought about by injustice in our day. If you’re joining the pilgrimage in person in downtown Cincinnati, you can use this podcast to pray as you go. You’ll need the written program as a guide along the way to know which stop along the Cincinnati Bell Connector t...

Palm Sunday and Holy Week may offer us an opportunity to be with our own suffering and joy, hurt and healing, betrayal and forgiveness, loneliness and connection. As we move through these sacred days, we may see how, as we enter into the Passion of Jesus, Christ has entered into our own passion too, this life we’re living, day by day and year by year. For Reflection: What parts of the Passion stor...