The Blessed Mother’s unique and privileged role in salvation history and the life of the Church is foundational to vocations. Thus, all religious sisters have in their histories, constitutions and practices various devotions and celebrations of Mary. Among the communities of sisters in our diocese, we find several groups who, in name and in spirit, look to Mary as exemplar and guide. 

HM

Three Sisters of the Humility of Mary, two of whom served on diocesan staff in the latter 1990s and early 2000s, are present in the Rock Hill Deanery. These sisters offer service at Her Place, a shelter for homeless women, and engage in retreat ministry, hospice care and outreach to vulnerable adults. They are true to their founding spirit — which came to the United States from France in the 19th century — with concern for the needs of farmers and their families, children with disabilities, orphans and young people without access to adequate schooling and religious instruction. When these sisters speak about their charism, they invoke the image of Mary’s humility as motivation to live simply, to be faithful to the call of the Holy Spirit and to serve the Church and the world in prayer and action. From their American base in western Pennsylvania, the HM sisters have reached out to a mission in Haiti and to Haitian immigrants in Florida.

HMIG

Three sisters known as Hijas de Maria Immaculada de Guadalupe (Daughters of Mary Immaculate of Guadalupe) hail from Mexico and serve in the Myrtle Beach Deanery. One coordinates Hispanic adult faith formation, another leads parish Hispanic ministry and the third directs evangelization in the Myrtle Beach-Conway area. Their religious congregation was founded in the 19th century with particular attention to pastoral activities focused on the spread of the Gospel. The sisters’ charism calls them to follow Christ in the mission given him by the Father and to model the example of the Virgin of Guadalupe. When the HMIG sisters take on a new mission, they are charged with giving preference to those in most need. They carry their motto, “Valor and Confidence,” into their ministries in Central and South America and around the U.S.

IBVM

The Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary is an international group founded by an English woman, Mary Ward, in the 17th century. In a time when apostolic women’s communities were still something of a novelty, she envisioned a community which would be patterned after the Jesuits — active, engaged with the needs of people around them, not limited by the rigors of cloister. She experienced much misunderstanding and was not permitted to fulfill her founding vision. However, she inspired groups of women who embraced her charism and formed communities in a semi-monastic mode and provided Catholic education in England and Germany. In the 19th century, constitutions that embodied Ward’s original vision gained approval. By that time, her community had spread to India, homeland of the one IBVM sister in our diocese who is a member of the Loreto Sisters of South India (as IBVM sisters are also known). Our IBVM sister is an educator, musician and former leader of her religious community. She was invited to Kingstree to become executive director of Springbank Retreat Center’s programs of spirituality, ecology and the arts.

OLVM

Our Lady of Victory Missionary Sisters are represented in our state by one sister in mission in the Columbia Deanery. She serves as the diocesan coordinator of Hispanic Adult Faith Formation and is involved with various charitable efforts in the local community. She also writes a monthly column for this magazine called Caminando Juntos en la Fe. The OLVM sisters are, as their name suggests, dedicated to mission. Their name traces back to the Christian victory at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, attributed to Mary’s intercession. It resulted in the Church’s celebration of the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on Oct. 7, originally called Our Lady of Victory. Also known as the Victory Noll Sisters (founded in Chicago in the 20th century), OLVMs are inspired by their charism of solidarity with God’s people, especially those on the margins. They catechize and emphasize their call to assist those in most need with compassion, justice and collaboration, the hallmarks of their work. “To the Poorest First” is their theme.

SNDdeN & SSMN

We have in our diocese two sisters whose congregations stem from a foundation in Belgium and France and rapidly became international. The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur and the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur are each represented by a single sister working in the diocese as the sole representative of her community. 

The SNDdeN community, co-founded by St. Julie Billiart in the early 19th century, arrived in Cincinnati less than 30 years after its establishment. The sisters’ inspiration, based on the legacy of St. Julie, is a commitment to the mission of Christian education with a special concern for poor girls. With a sense that God calls in sometimes unexpected ways, they see themselves called to go wherever there is a need and an invitation. Today they serve on five continents. The SNDdeN community remains in the Columbia area in the person of a sister who once served as principal at St. Joseph School and later engaged in prison ministry and pastoral ministry, the latter of which persists to this day. 

The SSMN community, also international in its reach, arrived in New York state amid the Civil War. Their community has a devotion to Our Lady of the Rosary and an evangelical spirit. In South Carolina, SSMN sisters have served as teachers and principals, leaders of outreach, and canonical counsel. They have touched lives in Kingstree, Sumter, Columbia and Charleston. One remaining member of their community has focused on those who convert to the Catholic faith and those in need of deeper catechetical instruction.

The other two groups, the Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Mercy (OLM) and Sisters of Sts. Cyril and Methodius (SSCM), have been covered previously.

Various titles and virtues of Mary inspire the lives of the religious communities featured this month. One thing that is clear about all of them is that they have taken to heart advice uttered by the Mother of the Lord at Cana: “Do whatever he tells you.”