Servants Of The Lord And The Virgin Of Matara

[VeniteAdoremus]

Okay, since the absence of this topic was mentioned somewhere... here's the topic on the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matara, aka the Blue Sisters!

The Sisters are the female branch of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, which was founded in Argentina in 1984. The Sisters were founded in 1988, and in the last twenty years they grew to the current number of 800 sisters in 30 countries.

The mission of the entire family of the Incarnate Word (which includes fathers, sisters and the third order) is to evangelize the culture - that is, the entire way people think. The result is that they do everything from parish work to running schools to managing homes for disabled mothers and their children. There's also a contemplative branch located in various countries, with each house praying for a specific intention.

From the top of my head, the houses of formation are in Argenitina, Peru, the United States and Rome. There could be more, but I'm not sure.

The active sisters start the day with an hour of adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament, and they also pray Lauds, Vespers, Angelus and Compline together, although in my experience the time for Vespers tends to be rather fluid because of the hectic apostolate. There are also Eastern Catholic sisters, who wear black instead of blue, and probably have a different prayer structure as well.

The sisters are incredibly down-to-earth and very open to everyone, however searching they may be, without compromising their fidelity to the Church. Which is rather cool, in my opinion (but I'm biased).

The sisters are ALL named after a title of Mary, which is usually shortened in daily use (which means we have a Sr. Golgotha, a Sr. Tabernacle and a Sr. Verbo running around, to name but a few). They also take a fourth vow of Marian slavery according to the method of St. Louis de Montfort.

The blue of their veil and scapular, however, are not because they are Marian: it represents the divinity of Christ, where the grey of the tunic stands for His humanity. Thus they express the two elements of the Incarnate Word in their habits. The cross all sisters wear is the Cross of Matara, made by a native artist in the 17th century, and a prime example of the way the culture of a country and the Faith can beautify each other.

Their formation program is a bit un-traditional: postulancy usually lasts about 6 months, the novitiate is one year, but after temporary vows a sister spends three years studying and at least two years in the mission before final vows.

Pictures! (I had my camera with me yesterday )
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2164/2546430396_33d9bae398.jpg[/img]
Sr. Montfort (who just turned 31 today)

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2181/2546430422_ed072db6db.jpg[/img]
Sr. Sterre and Sr. Verbo

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2038/2546430442_4950f6257d.jpg[/img]
Sr. Verbo and M. Anima doing the dishes (and a prime example of how they just use the cloth available to make their veils - quite convenient to tell the sisters apart from the back!)

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2157/2546446406_1621449e44.jpg[/img]
M. Milagro, hard at work at 8 in the morning

And of course, their websites:
[url="http://www.servidoras.org/"]http://www.servidoras.org/[/url] is the general site, and [url="http://www.ssvmusa.org/"]http://www.ssvmusa.org/[/url] is for the US. The site for the religious family of the Incarnate Word can be found at [url="http://www.ive.org/"]http://www.ive.org/[/url] . Enjoy!

[Carolyn]

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you, Venite!

[shortnun]

And you're joining when?




Just kidding... kind of!