Monthly Archives: January 2008

Last week I ran into one of the residents of Fox Run, the retirement village where I’ve been working. As we talked she shared something I think she has wanted to say to me for a long time, that she wished we sisters hadn’t changed. She really liked it better when we wore habits, and, well, were more on a pedestal. How could I explain in a nutshell all that has happened to us? How did we get from there to here? From our first sisters’ way of life in 1845 to the way we live in 2008?  From habits to ordinary clothes? From a life of  austerity and distance from the “world” to passionate engagement in the needs of the world?  From strict routines of prayer, work and silence to trusting and following the ways God leads us to pray and work today? Why have we developed the way we have?  Because we’re teachers, and good teachers have to be learners! 

 We IHMs have always been known as strong teachers. Therefore, we’re committed to never stop learning ourselves. The trouble is that when you learn, it changes you. I say kiddingly of myself, “Education really messed me up!” What I have learned has affected my choices, for example, leaving my wonderful religious community in Philadelphia to come to Monroe, Michigan. What we IHMs of Monroe have learned has affected our choices as well. After Vatican II we studied the Documents seriously. Our learnings led us to new ministries and new ways of viewing our place in the church.  As we gained awareness of the struggles for human rights in our own country and on a global scale, we have felt compelled to work for justice. The beautiful image of the earth from space taught us that we were connected to every creature on the earth. And as we have learned about the fragility of our  earth we have become advocates for greater respect and care for our planet. Our understanding of God’s action in our lives has grown and changed.  What we learn must affect the way we act. God is still revealing.  God continues to create. Following God leads us to change. I feel confident that fifty years from now some IHM is going to be pondering, “How did we get here from there?  By the way, my friend from Fox Run listened attentively, and, if nothing else, our relationship has deepened.

There’s so much I want to tell you about, but I want to start at the beginning because it’s a great story. The Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the IHMs as we’re often called, come from an unlikely meeting of Rev. Louis Florent Gillet, a zealous Belgian Redemptorist priest in Michigan and Marie Almaide Duchemin, a founding member of of America’s first African American community of sisters in Baltimore, Maryland. Gillet, who spoke French, occasionally celebrated Mass for the Oblates as he traveled through Baltimore since the sisters, most of whom came from Santa Domingue (present day Haiti) spoke French.  He wanted to establish a school for French Canadian immigrants in Monroe, Michigan.   He wrote in a letter to a friend, “If I can’t find sisters, I will make sisters.”  On one trip to Baltimore he invited Duchemin to leave her community and help him found a new school and a new community of sisters in Michigan.  An agonizing decision faced her. At this time in 1845 it seemed likely that the Oblate community would be dissolved because of the racism in pre-Civil War Baltimore and an unsupportive new bishop. So she accepted Gillet’s invitation and made a serious change of identity. She was a light-skinned mulatto, born of her Santa Domingan mother, a servant in a rich Baltimore home, and a visiting British friend of the family.  As she left Baltimore she took on a new identity.  She “passed” as Sr. Theresa Maxis, taking the surname of her Santa Domingan grandfather.

The new community began with Theresa and two other sisters. They established an excellent school and soon attracted other women to join them. However within fifteen years, the Redemptorist priests had left; there were  conflicts with the bishop; Theresa opened a new convent and school in Pennsylvania; and the bishop forbade her to come back to Monroe or even to have any contact with the sisters there. The amazing thing is that in spite of all these setbacks the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary grew into three strong communities of IHMs, one in Michigan and two in Pennsylvania.

This is only a thumb nail sketch of the beginning of our story. I just always wonder at what God does through ordinary folks who take his call seriously. That gives us all a lot of hope.