Charism or project of God for our Society:
- Ignatian Spirituality
- A human and spiritual formation of girls and women and marginalized persons
- No enclosure
As sisters, we live the Spirituality of Ignatius from Loyola: to love as a response to the love God has for us, is our first duty. We seek for the greater honour of God. Yes, “from the theory to the practical work, lead the training of exercises and perseverances”. These exercises are for Ignatius always a means of self-preparing that is aware of the tension between God‘s grace-working in us and our response to Him.
Therefore our community offers us the spiritual direction – in the form of accompanied retreats, annual retreats of 8 days, triduum, but also in accompanied conversations while in daily life– a high position of values. The retreats invite us to make spiritual and human experiences: word, fantasy, body exercises and spiritual experiments belong to the way of prayer. It means to have “unity in faith and life”. It means also to give a language to the life with all its dimensions - body, soul, spirit, family, profession, society, politics, financial situation etc. Through it, we try to hold our freedom of spirit, the respect and dignity of the person on the way to God. As Saint Ignatius was a master of communication, for our foundress Anne de Xainctonge the conversation, even “to be conversation“, was very important. A key for Saint Ignatius in the school of God is to let us be guided by the Holy Spirit.
"A woman, a man is created to praise,
reverence and serve God our Lord,
and by this means to save his soul”.
Saint Ignatius
“Protect your spiritual freedom in all things,
so that you can always
do the opposite,
of that you are doing”.
Saint Ignatius
Today, too, we are attentive to the needs of the youth and adults, the marginalized of our time, and strive for their human and spiritual maturity.
Though we realised our charism for a very long time as teaching in schools, we can see on reflecting on our history of more than 400 years, that from the beginning we were also involved in education, in social work, in nursing and pastoral work. So you find us today in boardings, schools, slums, social work - family and projects for women, mobile clinics, pastoral work and in media engagement. The content of the retreats of Saint Ignatius gives in our working and in our pedagogy a Xainctonian tilt. That means to meet everyone with respect and dignity and to search for conversation with other religions and faiths and to adapt our methods within the grasp of things for the others.
- The poverty in Spirit will enable us to understand different mentalities and appreciate the particular values of different times, different surroundings and different generations. Const. 12
The same Spirit unites us today to take part in the mission of the church.
Like our foundress,
we want to be aware of the special tasks
of youth and women in today’s world.
We put ourselves at their service
Especially through
instruction and education,
to foster their faith,
and help them to live according
to the gospel.
We do this with a preference for the poor.
To the needs of our time
We render our service also in the care of the sick and the needy. Const. 2
„Love is enough”-
„estabasta” Saint Ignatius.
The sisters whose mission sends them to live among other people must realize that they will hardly ever perfectly understand their culture,
mentality and language.
Thus with understanding and perseverance they will have to learn from these people so that they may better help them and lead them to Jesus Christ in ways adapted to them. Const. 12
"No enclosure” gives us the possibilities of opening of ourselves, going out, taking risk for the unforeseen, openness for the needs of human beings, being open to the Holy Spirit and His guidance.
In the choice of our fields of work we look on the need of the church and the world and on our strength. We live contemplatively in action, that means, devotion in all, a serving mystic after Ignatius from Loyola. Therefore we need times of silence, of hearing, of searching for God's will in his love. So all our thinking, doing and working is supported and interwoven.