The Sisters of Life Celebrate their 25th Anniversary!
About
The Sisters of Life is a contemplative / active religious community of women founded in 1991 by John Cardinal O’Connor for the protection and enhancement of the sacredness of every human life. Like all religious communities, we take the three traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. We also are consecrated under a special, fourth vow to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life.
Reverence and gratitude for the unique and unrepeatable gift of each human life made in the image and likeness of God fuels the prayer of each Sister, our first mission in building the Kingdom of God and the “Culture of Life.” It also provides the starting point for our interactions with others, especially relationships in community between our 80 Sisters (who come from across the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, Australia and Spain), and in our apostolates.
Inspired by the love of Christ our Spouse, the author of Life, we desire to pour out all our gifts of nature and grace in the apostolate, that nothing of the gift of life, and no one to whom it has been given, should be lost.
Our missions are carried out with the heart of the Church and with the hope of revealing to those we serve the inherent goodness and beauty of their own lives, so that each person may see and experience the truth that they are an unrepeatable creation of the Master.
History
During a visit to the Dachau Concentration Camp, the then Bishop-elect John J. O’Connor placed his hands inside the red brick crematoria oven and “felt the intermingled ashes of Jew and Christian, rabbi, priest and minister.” Struck to the heart, he proclaimed, “Good God, how could human beings do this to other human beings?” In that instant, he received a life-transforming grace and vowed to do all he could, from that moment forward, to protect and enhance the sacredness of every human life, wherever it was most vulnerable.
Several years later, now John Cardinal O’Connor, Archbishop of New York and the leading voice for life within the Church, he prayed to understand why the efforts of the pro-life cause were not gleaning the results expected. His eyes fell upon the passage from Scripture, “This kind of demon can only be cast out by prayer and fasting,” and another, life-transforming, grace was his. This time, though, the grace was not just a personal one, but one for the whole Church; it was the grace that gave birth to a new charism, a new religious community in the Church, the Sisters of Life.
After receiving hundreds of responses to his weekly newspaper column titled, “Help Wanted: Sisters of Life,” eight women entered the newly formed community on Foundation Day, June 1, 1991. Among those eight was Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, the first Superior General of the Sisters of Life.
JOIN the Sisters of Life!
The Sisters of Life welcome vocation inquiries from single, Catholic women who do not have living children and are in good physical and mental health. Generally, the women who enter the community have completed some level of higher education, and are in the age range of 21-35.
For information on our “Come and See” weekends, or for additional information on discerning a call to the Sisters of Life, please fill out the Vocational Inquiry Form.
Sr. Grace Dominic, S.V.
Vocations Director
Annunciation
38 Montebello Road
Suffern, NY 10901
845.357.0258
Vocations Director
Annunciation
38 Montebello Road
Suffern, NY 10901
845.357.0258
Text Edited from the http://www.sistersoflife.org/ Website
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