Left front: Srs. Mary Alexis Fisher, OSP, Fran Fasolka, IHM Scranton, Clarice Proctor, OSP. Row two: Srs. Rose Yaeger, IHM Immaculata, Mary Fran Gilleran, IHM Monroe, Mary Jo Gallagher, IHM (S), Joan Mumaw, IHM (M), Lorraine Magrew, IHM (I), Mary Persico, IHM (S) Back row: Srs. Mary Ann Bolger (I), Julie Vieira (M)
Just enjoying each other
Taking off for a walking tour
You know what it’s like when the family gets together for a wedding or some other big event? The feeling of excitement and warmth? That’s what it was like in our Motherhouse last weekend when our OSP IHM family gathered, including the Oblate Sisters of Providence (OSP) from Baltimore, and IHM Sisters from Immaculata and Scranton, Pennsylvania and Monroe, Michigan. Representatives of the four communities gather for a board meeting every year and we in Monroe were excited to host it this year. In an earlier blog post (January 14, 2008) I wrote about the beginnings of the IHM community in Monroe, but there’s so much more to the story. Let me fill in one more little chapter.
For approximately a hundred years after IHMs were broken off from each other in the 1860s the groups had little contact with each other, but in the late 60′s we realized that we needed to get together and reconnect our stories. Every ten years since then we’ve gathered all the members of the three IHM communities for prayer, faith sharing, storytelling and partying. An electric atmosphere results. It’s wonderful. In 1995 when we gathered in Monroe for the Sesquicentennial celebration of our IHM communities something new, something powerful and even more wonderful, happened. We invited two representatives of the OSP community, our co-founder Mother Theresa Maxis’s first community, to our gathering. When they were introduced the whole assembled group rose in a spontaneous standing ovation. A very moving moment that made us realize that without the OSPs we are not whole. We’ve learned a lot about each other since then and pondered our history of racism together. The bonds between us have deepened. From now on we will always be four.
