Community

Section 2

Community Life

Spotlight: Sr. María Felícitas Villegas

Mother St. Pierre Cinquin and Mother Madeleine Chollet
The first three sisters came to San Antonio from Galveston as a small community of committed, faith-filled women, determined to help the people they were called to serve. Pictured are Mother St. Pierre Cinquin (left) and Mother Madeleine Chollet. The third Sister that formed the original community was Sr. Agnes Boissen. Sadly, there are no known photographs of Sr. Agnes.

Mother St. Pierre final vows
While en route to San Antonio, the house in which the Sisters were to live burned to the ground. The Ursuline Sisters took the three in. It was in the chapel of the Ursulines that Mother Pierre made her final vows.

Postulants from Windthorst, Texas
By the turn of the century, young women entering the Congregation came from the United States, Germany, Ireland, France, Canada, and Mexico, creating a “league of nations” in the Congregation. Pictured: Group of young women entering the convent, en route to San Antonio from Windthorst, Texas.

Sisters at San Ángel, Mexico
Until the mid-20th century, Catholic Sisters wore distinctive clothing. This photograph from the congregation shows women wearing black veils, who are professed sisters. Novices, who are not fully invested, wear white veils. Young women in collared dresses are postulants still receiving instruction.

Signs of Commitment
August 15 (Feast of the Assumption of Mary) became the traditional date on which Sisters professed vows. It was also on this day that Sisters received their “obedience”— where they were being sent to serve.

En route from Ireland
Women came to community to serve and responded willingly to the need. Leaving home and family was only one of the many hardships endured for love. These Irish Sisters and postulants sailed from Liverpool on the S.S. Antillian in October 1922.

Sr. Carmen Roche (center)
Incarnate Word Sisters are joy-filled and play as hard as they work.

Sr. Marichui Bringas cooking
Incarnate Word Sisters are joy-filled and play as hard as they work.

Gathering at dinner
Incarnate Word Sisters are joy-filled and play as hard as they work.

Kitchen in Lima, Peru
Incarnate Word Sisters are joy-filled and play as hard as they work.

Nuns have fun!
Incarnate Word Sisters are joy-filled and play as hard as they work.

Sand dunes, New Mexico
Incarnate Word Sisters are joy-filled and play as hard as they work.

Snow ball fight... then
Incarnate Word Sisters are joy-filled and play as hard as they work.

Snow ball fight... now
Incarnate Word Sisters are joy-filled and play as hard as they work.

Dancing at Chapter 2014
Incarnate Word Sisters are joy-filled and play as hard as they work.

Celebrating Chapter 2008
Incarnate Word Sisters are joy-filled and play as hard as they work.

Becoming an Incarnate Word Sister

Spotlight: Sr. Eleanor Cohan

Dress makes the Sister
Before the 1960s, a young woman who wanted to enter religious life began as a candidate (left). After a few months of study and prayer, she became a postulant. After a year or so, she became a novice and after two or more years, she professed first, or temporary, vows. After three or more years, a woman then made final vows.

Profession reception
Before the renewal of religious life brought about by Vatican II, women entering in religious life stayed at the Motherhouse or one of the Provincial Houses. After first vows, a sister would be sent on mission, and would live in the community in which she worked, usually a school or hospital.

Sisters, novices and postulants in procession
Procession of Postulants, Novices, and Sisters between the Motherhouse and Incarnate Word College.

Sr. Marinela Flores (left)
After Vatican II, communities were created of fully professed Sisters and women who were preparing to enter religious life. This process is called “formation,” and teams of Sisters were responsible for formation.

Pictured: Sr. Marinela Flores with Sr. Maria Goretti Zehr, on the occasion of Sr. Marinela’s final profession in 1992.

St. Pope John XXIII
Vatican Council II, held in the early 1960s, addressed relations between the Catholic Church and the modern world. It brought about radical changes in the Church and in all communities of religious men and women. Pope John XXIII, shown here, initiated the council’s far-reaching changes.

Sr. Jean Durel, San Pedro el Alto
Vatican II asked women religious to take a fresh look at their spirituality and way of life and discern if what they were doing was faithful to their founders, and to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The fundamentals of vows remained the same, but the understanding of their commitment shifted. New forms of ministry evolved as the way of living in the world and in community changed. Pictured is Sr. Jean Durel in San Pedro el Alto, Oaxaca, in 1985.

Life and Mission Group from Mexico
We live in community because humans are created in the image of a God who is community of love. As community life has evolved through the years after Vatican II, Sisters have found new ways to call the community together and to help and support each other in the living out of their commitment. One way is through Life & Mission groups.

This is a Life and Mission Group from Mexico (Camino a Emaus) communicating with members of the group in Zambia, via SKYPE.

The Habit

Dress of the widow, 19th century
The familiar religious habit, an adaption of the widows’ dress of the day, was worn by Sisters involved in apostolic (active) work so that they could freely move about in public.

Mother Madeleine Chollet
Mother Madeleine Chollet, co-foundress of our Congregation and our first Reverend Mother General, became a Sister at the Monastery of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament in Lyon, France. It was there she received the first specifically designed habit for the new Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word.

Portrait of Mother Madeleine Chollet.

Same habit in 1950's
Sister María de la Eucaristi Scougall and Sister María del Sagrado Corazón.

As Sisters dressed each day, a short prayer accompanied the putting on of each piece of the habit. The habit consisted of the dress itself, the embroidered scapular, the red cord and cross, and the head covering—the guimpe and veil. They also wore a rosary at the waist, and the dress had large pockets. Jewelry was limited to a ring and a simple watch.

Modified habit
Modified dress was adopted in 1965 in response to a Papal recommendation urging sisters to adopt clothing more suitable for climate, health, and active work.

Pictured here in the modified habit are Sisters Columkille Colbert and Antoninus Buckley.

Progression of habit styles
Modern dress was introduced in 1969, when the Sisters went from the modified habit to that of modern dress—clothing that more appropriately met the circumstances of time and place and diversity of new ministries which our active Sisters had begun to assume.

“Simplicity and dignity should be characteristic of the well-groomed Sister of Charity of the Incarnate Word” (Chapter Directives, 1968).

Sisters today in modern dress
Gathered here are Sisters from the United States, Mexico, and Peru, wearing everyday dress. All of these women are involved in active ministry.

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