The Sisters of St. Mary are looking for a few good women...
The Charisms of the Community of Saint Mary
Mother Harriet was one of five founding sisters of our
Community. While she was a strong individual, she
gave
her life to Christ through a familial relationship
with the
four others. The gifts she used in forming the
spirit of the
Community were:
Bishop Horatio Potter, the sixth Bishop of New York, instituted the fledgling community in 1865 with the condition that they choose St. Mary as their patroness. Following the example of Mary, our sisters seek perfection in discerning and doing the will of God, and allowing the power of the Holy Spirit to overshadow our lives.
Why Women enter the Community of St. Mary Today
“This is the will of God, your sanctification.”
1 Thessalonians 4:3
The only answer we can give for dedicating our lives to God under the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience according to the Rule of the Community of St. Mary is that God calls us. He called us when we were outside in the world, and he continues to call us each day. We know that only the love of God can ever satisfy our hearts.
How Can This Be?
“If a man love me, he will keep my word. And my Father will love him and we will come to him and he will make our abode with him.”
John 14:23
Some of us came in the fervor of youth, for all the selfish reasons one could imagine; but God kept calling us into his love for his reasons. Some of us came after a full life in the world. Only God knows why the time of his calling is as different
for each of us as we are diverse in appearance and abilities. What we have in common is that we want to give ourselves away — to be a witness to God's love in prayer and worship, in service to God’s people and the larger world, in fellowship with one another.
Preliminary Considerations
In looking at the possibility of a monastic vocation, the inquirer must understand that she does not come into a religious community to develop her own ideals, but to be conformed to an ideal already existent, a charism given by Jesus Christ to be held and cherished in faith. It is then a serious question for each aspirant to consider, “What is the inner spirit of the community I would like to enter? Can I surrender myself to it?”
The spirit of any religious organization like any human character, is marked by gradual growth and development. It evolves a corporate personality, gradually communicated to it by the Holy Spirit. Discernment presumes the development of this corporate value:
a growth in a kind of mutual asking whether taking the habit of a religious is God's call and also both the woman's and the community's choice.
Formation
The habit and a new name in Religion are given during the clothing ceremony, during which the Postulant is formally received as a novice sister in the Community of St. Mary. This ceremony at C.S.M. is simple and marks the
beginning of two to three years of training in the religious life. In
addition to sharing the professed sisters' regular times of prayer,
work and study, novices have classes in the Rule and customs of
the Community, prayer, the Bible and Christian doctrine, monastic
and church history, and liturgy. Work is simple to keep mind and
heart open to developing the deep resonances of prayer.
If after two or three years the woman and the Community agree,
the
white veil and round collar of the Novice are exchanged for the
square collar and a blue-grey veil of a junior sister. The juniorate is
a time of continued testing of vocation but without the routine of
classes and training. Junior sisters are assigned greater
responsibilities within community life, but take no vows until life
profession.
The process of postulancy, novitiate and juniorate takes place over
a period of five to seven years. At any time during this period of
discernment, a woman may leave the Community or may be asked
to leave without censure.
At the end of this time, application may be made for life profession
and an election by the entire Community is held.
The profession ceremony for a Sister of St. Mary is a public event.
It begins with the sister-elect making life vows, giving her life wholly
to God before his representative, the Bishop Visitor. She then
receives the knotted cincture -- symbolically enclosed and bound to
God within her newly made vows of the Evangelical Counsels of
poverty, chastity and obedience. She is presented with an ebony
cross banded with silver and bearing the lily, representing Christ
and
the Blessed Virgin Mary. The black veil of a professed sister
is given
as a sign of her being set apart from the world, and the
Bishop Visitor
places a wedding ring on her right hand as a sign
of Christ's
acceptance of his bride. The ceremony is completed
with the solemn
celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
Since the third century, the unique witness of "widows and virgins",
"nuns" (from the feminine Latin root for "monk") or "religious
sisters" has been recognized as a lay Christian witness -- as an
icon of the Church. Life profession for a religious in the Anglican
tradition carries the same weight as the marital vow, and sisters
embody the type of the Bride of Christ, awaiting full consummation
of the hope of all the Church for Christ's return at the end of time.
Within this model the Sisters of St. Mary live "the mixed life" --
combining
the contemplative, enclosed vocation of a monastic
nun with the active ministry of a religious sister. While we await the
Bridegroom's coming, even as we trim the wicks of our
inner lives,
we seek and replenish our stock of oil through the unmerited and plenteous outpouring of the charisms of the Holy Spirit, serving our Lord and his Church as the movement of the Spirit directs.
Does this sound like a vocational choice toward which God is calling you?
How Can I Learn More?
If you feel called to pursue discernment of vocation with CSM, the best way to begin is to arrange to visit us — to witness first hand our day-to-day life. Write to the Vocation Director, Sister Mary Elizabeth, at St. Mary’s Convent, 242 Cloister Way, Greenwich, NY 12834-7922, or e-mail her. Please tell a little about yourself and why you believe that God may be calling you to the Religious Life.
A three-day program Discovery! is presented in August just before the Sisters' annual summer Pilgrimage (on the weekend closest to the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin -- in 2009: August 13-18), offering a glimpse into our Community life. See our Ad (left) which was posted in The Living Church in March. For more information, call or e-mail us. Discovery! is free to serious discerners.
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