Learn About Religious Life – Religious of Jesus & Mary: USA-Haiti Province

Nothing is more practical than finding God,
than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.

It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in Love, stay in Love, and it will decide everything.

–Pedro Arrupe S.J.

Brittany Galvin makes her first profession as a Religious of Jesus and Mary.

God’s initiative… My response

By virtue of our baptism, as members of the community of faith, we all share a common vocation to live a life that expresses the love of God made flesh in Jesus Christ.

A vocation is not a single event. It is a gradual unfolding of our journey in faith during which God invites us to find our distinctive style of loving.

Our responsibility is to discern the Spirit’s movements in our heart which lead us to discover how we can best serve God and God’s people; how we can cooperate with God’s love and God’s life within us most generously and most authentically.

What God wants for us, and from us, is to live the Gospel in our daily life; to serve God’s people with generosity and compassion. It is something within us that we can discover by understanding ourselves, our life’s experience, and most especially our experience of God.

As we trace the thread of God’s presence in our life, we can begin to notice the direction that our life should take if it is to be faithful to this personal experience of God that is unique to each of us.

The Religious of Jesus and Mary believe that “In every vocation the initiative comes from God. He calls us to a personal encounter and asks for a unique response: a life-long commitment to follow Christ more closely.” (Constitutions 51)

Whatever form our vocation takes, it only makes sense if it emerges from our personal, on-going relationship with God. Discovering our vocation means finding the most authentic, faithful and honest way of living that relationship, of honoring the truth of God in us.

From Our Constitutions…

Community

We form life-giving communities where we seek to share who we are and what we have, our joys and sorrows, projects and challenges. Together we listen to God, discern His will regarding our manner of living community life, the new calls of the mission and possible responses. Each one collaborates with her abilities and her limitations, in making the community a place where evangelical values are lived and shared, especially the values of our charism. Special importance is given to living forgiveness in community. (AC 68)

Prayer

Personal and community prayer is an essential dimension of our consecrated life. Prayer is a gift of the Spirit that enables us to participate in the mission of the Son. It helps us to find God in all things and to manifest God’s love to the world. (AC 48)

Apostolic Mission

Each community assumes responsibility for the work of all its members, supporting each one by interest, encouragement and prayer. Whatever task is entrusted to us individually, we all share in the one mission. By our religious consecration we should reflect Christ in our lives, and be an evangelist presence in the world. (C46)

Explore your vocation with us …

Contact the sisters of the USA-Haiti Province to find out more about being a sister.

Click here to learn about the formation process and how to become an RJM in various parts of the world.