The Attraction…
…to living a life completely consecrated to God and sharing in the mission of Christ may come suddenly, or gradually over a period of years. There is usually a time of getting to know different religious communities, trying to see where the Spirit is calling…Prayer, a growth in self-knowledge, and getting to know members of different religious congregations are ways of moving forward towards a decision. (Photo: Sisters Loloahi Tautalanoa, Jacinta Oby (novice and Sister Rachel Timme in the Formation House - Jamaica)

1. Accompaniment: For one who is seriously considering becoming a Marist Missionary Sister, there is a time of personal accompaniment with a Sister who is appointed by the congregation for this work of helping women to discern whether this is the way of life that she is being called to by God.       (Photo: Sr. Loloahi Tautalanoa and ‘Utu’one Vena on the day of her reception to the Novitiate, Jamaica)

2. Postulancy: When a person applies and is accepted to enter the congregation, she enters the postulancy. This is a period – between one and two years - where she begins to live in a community and is preparing to enter the novitiate. It takes place in the person’s own country where possible, but otherwise in another country where SMSM are present. There is a program of study, prayer, growth in self-knowledge and a gradual preparation for living the SMSM way of life. (Photo: Sisters Georgeanne Marie Donovan and Telesia Mulipola with two postulants, Alice and Annet on the day of their reception to the Novitiate, USA)

3. Novitiate: “Life in the congregation begins with the novitiate, the intensive period of the formation process in which the novice allows herself to be wholly possessed and transformed by Christ who calls her to participate in His mission.
As she comes to understand and love this way of life - consecrated to God as missionary, Marist, religious - endeavoring to make it her own- she discovers its beauty and its demands.”     (SMSM Constitutions, 225)
Today, we have an international novitiate in Belmont, Massachusetts, USA.

4. Profession and being sent on Mission.  At the completion of the two-year novitiate a Sister may be called to make her first vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, to be lived “according to the Constitutions of the Missionary Sisters of the Society of Mary” for two years. These “temporary vows” may be renewed for six years before she is called to make perpetual vows. During these years she will continue to learn to live this life through further studies and participation in the mission of the congregation. (Photos: In Seaford Town, Jamaica: Sr Pascaline Ntahizaniye (Burundi), renewing her vows;

Sisters Mira Taurannang (Kiribati) and Sunitha Anthonippillai (Sri Lanka) , from making her perpetual vows, USA.)

5. Ongoing Formation continues throughout a lifetime through prayer, study, discussion, and reflection on our life experiences, in order to be faithful to God’s call and better able to serve God's people.    (Photo: Sisters Helen Muller and Margaret Woeste in Waltham,

Sisters Mira Taurannang, Sunitha Anthonippillai and Rosemarie Mailhot in Waltham, Massachusetts)