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Reviewed by:
  • New Lights from Old Truths: Living the Signs of the Times by Sister Maureen Abbott, SP
  • Margaret M. McGuinness
New Lights from Old Truths: Living the Signs of the Times. By Sister Maureen Abbott, SP. Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, IN: Sisters of Providence, 2013. 668pp. $22.00.

New Lights from Old Truths, the fourth volume chronicling the history of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, focuses on the years from 1926 to 1966 in the congregation’s life and ministry. The first chapter offers a brief synopsis of the history of the community from its 1840 arrival in the United States – under the leadership of Saint Mother Theodore Guerin – until 1926. The second chapter offers a brief synopsis of both U.S. society and the American Catholic Church in the 1920s; and Sister Maureen Abbott, SP, devotes several additional chapters to placing the Sisters of Providence within the context of both the larger culture and the church in the United States during the period under discussion.

The remaining chapters relate the history of the congregation from the perspective of both its educational ministries – including Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College and a number of secondary and [End Page 83] elementary schools – and the changes in community governance that developed during this forty-year period. The story documents the great demand for sisters to staff the growing number of parochial schools being built to serve Catholic children whose families had moved to the suburbs, as well as the beginning of the closing of some of these schools due to declining enrollment in the 1960s. The Sisters of Providence – along with many other congregations of women religious – found it difficult to accept all of the requests received from pastors and bishops to staff and administer diocesan schools; by 1949, for instance, “the number of entrants had barely kept pace with the number of deaths, departures and those incapacitated by illness . . . “ (285).

At the same time that the sisters were focusing on expanding and staffing their schools and college, they were also focused on issues related to congregational governance. Abbott offers readers an in-depth look at the ways in which general chapters operated, and the issues that occupied the minds of the delegates. In 1956, for instance, the Council had to determine how to adapt the community’s formation program to “comply with the emerging sister formation norms,” (327) which involved finding a way for younger sisters to earn a college degree and a teaching certificate before being assigned to a classroom. In addition, congregational leaders continually grappled with issues related both to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College and new ministries, such as Providence Retirement Home, a work that the sisters undertook after deciding to heed the “signs of the times” (520).

Abbott’s account of the Sisters of Providence is extensively documented with both secondary and archival sources, and includes a number of charts and tables that help readers note the growth and decline of both sisters and ministries at a glance. In addition, profiles of congregational leaders that are found throughout the book provide a “human interest” element to the story. [End Page 84]

Although the book focuses on one particular religious community, the story of the Sisters of Providence reflects the larger story of sisters and nuns in the United States. Most U.S. Catholics assume that the documents of Vatican II led to changes in religious life, but Abbott demonstrates that this particular religious congregation reflects what we have learned about U.S. women religious in general: they actually anticipated the work of the Council. Members of this community, for instance, were discussing modifications related to dress as early as 1952, and were changing the ways in which members were elected to the General Chapter prior to the end of the Council.

New Light from Old Truths is written in a way that general readers will find accessible, but the book’s primary importance is that it represents an important addition to the growing body of literature on the history of women religious in the United States.

Margaret M. McGuinness
La Salle University

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