The Secular Institute of the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary, within the Schoenstatt Work, is a part of our great Schoenstatt Family. Our Secular Institute was founded in Germany on October 1, 1926 by Father Joseph Kentenich. From the beginning, our name, ‘Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary’ expressed:
- our specific vocation
- our originality
- our constant call to self-surrender to renew the world from within and
- our great mission for the future
Corresponding to our calling and task in the world, our Father and Founder saw our community as the “soul of the Schoenstatt movement”. Our Marian mission reaches out to the highest degree of generously serving with love and total self-surrender to God… We are called to love! We give our life totally to God through a Covenant of Love with Mary, the Mother Thrice Admirable Queen and Victress of Schoenstatt
As Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary, we join in Our Lady’s task to aid Christ in his redeeming work. This means that we live, work and serve the people in an intimate relationship with Christ. Moreover, it means to mature like Mary in the redemptive suffering of Christ and to endure with her beneath the cross of the Lord. The Schoenstatt Shrine is our spiritual home. It is a place of grace and a source of life for our spirituality and work.
In order to bring Christ and the Blessed Mother to the people, dynamic secularity allows us to wear a uniform or lay clothes and to live in community or alone. Our Institute is committed in faithfulness to the Church, as our Father and Founder taught us. The apostolic work is supported by prayer and sacrifices by the Institute’s Adoracion branch. To be Mary, a Schoenstatt Sister of Mary, reveals to us a great mission for the future. Through our specific style of life, we want to make Mary tangible in our time.
“God should radiate through our lives”…
“To be seed, light and leaven”… In our universal Church.
How do you know if you have a vocation to a consecrated life?
You must pray and ask the Blessed Mother to show you the way. To be open and to be sincere with yourself is very important. Don’t be afraid!
How to recognize it?
- by a sense of being called that does not go away
- the people around you – family and friends – may say you have the talents for it
- experiencing great joy in working for God
- inclination to consecrate your life in the spirit of virginity, poverty and obedience
The young woman who wishes to consecrate her life in the spirit of Schoenstatt and according to the ideal of the Secular Institute of the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary usually enters between the ages of 18 and 27. She spends a postulancy of six months in preparation for the reception into the community. A two year novitiate follows during which she is introduced into the Marian spirituality of the institute, its mission and life. At the close of the novitiate, she is officially incorporated through a contract-consecration, which binds her to live a life of chastity, poverty and obedience. At the end of the six year period, she seals this contract-consecration with the institute forever.
Would you like to know more about our community?
You may visit our international web page:
http://www.s-ms.org/
You may also write to us or visit us:
Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary
130 Front Street
Rockport, TX 78382
Email: