What's in a name? (Or why ProVision?)

In 2008, I was a novice in a convent in Michigan. It was the most amazing and transformative experience of my religious life. Of all the many wonderful graces I received at that time, before I discerned out, the most wonderful was my name in religion. Every sister is given a new name, as she is being made a new creation in Christ, and with the new name comes a patron saint or blessed. For me this was Blessed Miguel Agustin Pro. Padre Pro was a Catholic priest martyred along with other Cristeros during a bloody civil war in 1900’s Mexico. More about Father Pro below.

As a ministry leader and speaker, as a wife and daughter, I don’t know what the Lord will ask of me from one day to the next. But I do know that, like Father Pro, I wish to be ready. Ready to say, here I am Lord! Whatever the sacrifice. This means I must rely, like Father Pro, on God’s provision. It’s also a play on Father Pro’s name, because I wish to see the world through his eyes. To have Father Pro’s vision.

Lastly, I am grateful to teach for an amazing institute called the Catherine of Siena Institute which awakens people to the radical notion that God has already given them the gifts they need to be his providence, his provision for others here on Earth.

I dedicate my site, my work and all my efforts, through the intercession of Blessed Father Pro and Our Lady of Guadalupe to Jesus. That He may bless my work and multiply its fruit for the building up of His Kingdom here on Earth.

My heart is ready , oh God, my heart is ready.

About Blessed Miguel Pro:

Blessed Miguel Pro was born January 13, 1891, in Guadalupe, Mexico. He joined the Jesuits in 1911. As he pursued Jesuit seminarian studies and his preparation for the priesthood, violent anti-Catholic persecution erupted. His novitiate’s house was burned down. His rector, realizing how dangerous the situation had become arranged for any novice who could make his way to the United States to receive shelter at the Jesuit house in California. Father Pro was eventually ordained in 1925 just as the persecution in Mexico grew fiercer under Presidente Plutarco Elias Callas.

Father Pro returned to his homeland in 1926. However by this time, the government had suppressed all public worship, closed churches and regularly hunted and killed priests and the Catholic faithful. Father Pro proved himself indispensable and inexhaustible in finding clever ways of avoiding the federales in the deployment of his ministry. His clever disguises, dressing as a beggar, a businessman or a police officer bringing the sacraments to the persecuted faithful. He had a great heart for the poor and wrote:

“As a rule my purse is as dry as Calles’s soul, but it isn’t worth worrying since the Procurator of Heaven is generous.”

On November 13, 1927, an assassination attempt was made on an important general. Father Pro along with his two brothers were wrongfully accused of attempted assassination. All three brothers were arrested and meant for execution by firing squad.

As Father Pro was brought before his executioners, he took in the invited media and spectators. Father Pro refused a blindfold and merely asked for time to pray. With his rosary in hand, he formed the Cross of his Lord with his arms outstretched and cried out, “Viva Cristo Rey! Long live Christ the King!”

Father Pro lived as he died: with the Lord on his mind, on his lips and in his heart.