Customs

Did you know that you can purchase handmade rosaries, breads, cards, beer, coffee, blankets, prayer shawls, mustard, coffins, and more?! As religious women and men we truly live Saint Benedict's maxim, "Ora et labora" -- "Pray and labor." With every shawl or batch of beer we make, we pray our way through our work all the way to you the recipient.

Catch all the action from our trip to Villa Maria, Pennsylvania—travel journal, photos, podcast, and more—here on the Motherhouse Road Trip travel page!

It's difficult to put into words fully what the experience was like personally. For me, it was both an experience of intense sisterhood and also an encounter with God. It was at once deeply communal and deeply personal.

This is one of my favorite weeks of the whole year which I affectionately call Nunapalooza because all of the sisters and associates in my IHM Community come home to Monroe, Michigan, for Community Days and Jubilee. Community Days is the few days before Jubilee where we gather to pray, reflect, and be with one another. Together with Jubilee, it is like a total immersion into the very heart of the community and of our mission in God. What's so amazing about Community Days is it's like a snapshot of the contemplative stance we try to live day in and day out as Catholic sisters.