Recently I was asked what the difference is between the IHM Sisters of Monroe, Michigan, and the IHM Sisters of Immaculata, Pennsylvania. There’s no easy answer to this, especially since there’s also a third IHM community, the IHM Sisters of Scranton, Pennsylvania, plus the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the original community of one of our IHM founders. So I’m throwing them all into the mix here too!

A little historical context first though — check out an earlier post OSP IHM: Nuns Who Rock in which I wrote about how our co-Founder Mother Theresa Maxis Duchemin was originally an OSP Sister and how the IHM congregation became 3 separate communities.

I find it difficult to characterize how we are different because as an IHM Sister, I am overwhelmed (in the good sense) by our shared charism and our connections to one another and to our founders. The 3 IHM communities are like three siblings who were separated when they were young — their early, foundational years were shared, but then they each were in different places and so lived and expressed their original shared experience in different ways. Some of those ways were based on the geography and the Catholic culture in the area, the needs of the people and of the Church in that area, and of course the women whom the Spirit led to be part of that particular community.

So we have both similarities and differences. Honestly, the best way to get a sense of what we are like (similarities and differences) is to be with us. The facts (e.g. this one is in Monroe, this one Philadelphia, etc.) cannot come close to telling the whole story, and ultimately (especially if one is discerning religious life) you can tell which one “fits” you when your heart leaps for joy when you are with them.

The OSP IHM Timeline, a narrative of our histories, can tell the story way better than I can. In it, each community expresses who they are through the various periods (early history, Vatican II period, tody). The OSPIHM Timeline was made back in 2005 by an inter-congregational team that I was blessed to be part of. It’s pretty cool. Just click on the link below!

OSP IHM Timeline

Here’s a good article on consecrated virginity with encouraging words from Pope Benedict XVI. A consecrated virgin is not the same as a nun or sister. It is a different way of life within the Church. It always amazes me the diversity of our vocations in the Church. God calls each of us in a unique and powerful way. I’d love to hear from any one reading who is a consecrated virgin and what the life is like.

Consecrated Virginity a Gift for the Church, Says Pope
Calls Charism Luminous and Fruitful

VATICAN CITY, MAY 15, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The call to consecrated virginity has roots in the beginnings of evangelical life, and the Virgin Mary was its first fulfillment, affirmed Benedict XVI.

The Pope stated this today when he greeted 500 consecrated virgins today who have gathered in Rome for an international congress. In his remarks to the members of “Ordo Virginum,” or the Order of Virgins, the Holy Father, quoting the theme chosen for the congress, pointed out that consecrated virginity is “a gift in the Church and for the Church.” He invited the women “to develop, from day to day, their understanding of a charism which is as luminous and fruitful in the eyes of the faith as it is obscure and futile in the eyes of the world.”

“The Order of Virgins represents a particular form of consecrated life which flowered anew in the Church after Vatican Council II,” the Pontiff explained. “However, it has ancient roots that go back to the beginnings of evangelical life when, in an unprecedented novelty, the hearts of certain women began to open to a desire for consecrated virginity: in other words, the desire to give one’s entire being to God, which had had its first extraordinary fulfillment in the Virgin of Nazareth and her ‘yes.’

“Your charism must reflect the intensity, but also the freshness, of its origins,” said the Pope, noting how, “when it came into being, the charism did not involve a particular way of life. Little by little, however, it was institutionalized, finally becoming a full public and solemn consecration conferred by the bishop through an inspirational liturgical rite that made the consecrated woman ’sponsa Christi,’ an image of the Church as bride.”

“Your vocation is profoundly rooted in the particular Church to which you belong,” he told the women. “From the diocese, with its traditions, its saints, its values, limits and difficulties, you open up to the scope of the universal Church, sharing particularly in her liturgical prayer.” “In this way your prayerful ‘I’ progressively broadens out,” the Holy Father continued, “until in the prayer there is nothing more than a great ‘we.’ In your dialogue with God, open yourselves to dialogue with all creatures.”

“The choice of virginal life,” the Pope concluded, “is an allusion to the transitory nature of earthly things and an anticipation of future good. Be witnesses of vigilant and industrious hope, of joy, of the peace that belongs to those who abandon themselves to the love of God. Be present in the world, yet pilgrims on the journey to the kingdom.”