Our spiritual identity
All religious congregations have a particular way of expressing and applying the spirituality of the Gospel to their lives. Spirituality is about how we live, see and experience God’s presence in our lives. Mary Ward’s spirituality was shaped by the Ignatian model of “contemplation in action” adopted by the Society of Jesus.
“I heard distinctly, not by sound of voice, but intellectually understood, these words: ‘Take the same of the Society’… These few words gave me so much light in that particular Institute, so much comfort and strength, and so changed my whole soul, that it was impossible for me to doubt that they came from Him whose words are works.”
Mary Ward (1585-1635)
Mary Ward wanted her companions to engage directly with society and to do so with a spirit of "freedom, justice and sincerity”. She encouraged her followers to take risks and to forge new paths, but to be wise and discerning in the choices they made. By "referring all things to God" they would recognise where the needs were greatest.
Finding God in all things and all things in God was the keynote of their way of life. For St Ignatius and for Mary Ward, daily life, the ordinary way of doing things, was experienced as the place to encounter God; in contrast to a monastic sense of God being found only in flight from the world.
For us, followers of Mary Ward's Ignatian way, this pattern is central to our identity. Wherever we are we seek to keep God before our eyes, acting justly in loving service for the common good.
The Eucharist underpins our spirituality: the sacraments where we find healing and grace; the daily rhythm of meditation, prayer and reflection nourish our hearts and minds, and spiritual reading expands our thinking. Through the vows that we make before God, in the name of the church and the Institute, we seek to live this commitment with integrity and authenticity. Our identity is clearly grounded in the spirituality that we profess and in the offering of our lives in union with Jesus Christ with and for the sake of others.
IBVM Constitutions Volume I and II
Our spirituality is expressed in our recently updated two volume IBVM Constitutions. Ignatius describes the Constitutions in [134] as a means “to aid us to proceed better along the path of divine service on which we have entered”.
In the Preamble he states that it is important to have a written law, for 'all well-governed Congregations do so, but it is the law of love, the law that the Holy Spirit writes upon our hearts that is more important. He adds that ‘if, God willing, we should ever have imitators along this path' there will always need to be the guidance of law. Thus he worked and laboured long on the writing of the Constitutions, in fact, for 17 years. It was not that he found it hard to come by the words and concepts, but rather that he was testing his own insights through prayer, and through reflecting on the experience of those pioneering this new way of apostolic religious life.
For Mary Ward it became clear in time that “Take the same of the Society” that is, the rule of the Society of Jesus, was the way forward for her Institute. For a variety of reasons that was not easy to achieve. Today we can truly say that in Volume I we have the full Ignatian text, and in Volume II, a modern and feminine interpretation that captures what it means to be a Loreto Sister in the Mary Ward tradition.
Australian Loreto Sister, Deirdre Browne ibvm based the updated text on documents of the Irish and North American Branches of the Institute, while drawing on responses from over 1000 IBVMs around the world. She structured the document under the following chapter headings:
- Who are we?
- What is at the heart of our call?
- What supports and sustains our mission?
- Who might join us, how are they prepared and what can they expect of us?
- What structures are needed to support our mission?
- How can we use our resources to make it happen?
- What will keep the flame alive within us?
The IBVM identity is summed up in Constitution Volume ii 1.2:
“We are companions of Jesus, women at the heart of the Church, called to follow Christ, in a discipleship of love, ready to labour with freedom and joy, that in all things God may be glorified.”
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