Happy Nunday! We are well into the summer now here in the midwest. It’s been hot and humid with the occasionally cool breeze wafting through. I thought this would be a perfect summer’s day nun photo — Niagara Falls! Courtesy of Patricia, this photo shows Sisters from the congregation The Servants of the Sacred Cross. The photo of the Sisters’ visit to Niagara Falls is from September 2007.

I am delighted to have this photo because it gave me an opportunity to learn more about these Sisters. And I realized that I had already bumped into one of the Sisters earlier on the A Nun’s Life page “Nun or Sister?” — Mother Wendy James, SSC, the foundress of the community.

The Sisters are “an international, ecumenical religious sisterhood of laywomen, married and single, living and working in their own homes and communities” who serve “within a traditional, conservative, Religious Community, committed to the historic Catholic Faith.”

On their website they describe their life further:

The Servants of the Sacred Cross are called to take up their cross and follow Christ in a life of prayer and service. Sisters are both married and single, living and working in their own homes and communities under Vows of Simplicity, Purity, and Obedience.

Some Sisters carry out a variety of active ministries in their parishes and local communities. Other Sisters are called to a more contemplative expression of service in a life of solitude and prayerful intercession. The prayer of each Sister must be, “Lord Jesus, as it would please you, bring me someone today whom I can serve.”

I don’t know any more about the community other than their website, but I am impressed with and curious about their exploration of and actual living of a new AND historic form of consecrated life. By new I mean that it is recently founded and has multiple forms of consecrated life (married, lay, contemplative, active) under the same roof (so to speak). It is also an ecumenical community — Anglican, Catholicm and Eastern Orthodox. By historic I mean that they profess a commitment to the “historic Catholic Faith”. Now to be honest, I’m not sure exactly what that phrase means, and hopefully someone with a better understanding of this will offer comments below. I think that it has to do more with the common tradition shared by Anglican, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Christians but again, I’m not really sure.

Would love to hear your impressions and welcome the Sisters to offer their comments to help us get to know this community.