Sisters from many religious communities and congregations live and serve throughout the Arlington diocese in parishes, schools and other ministries. Learn about them below, in advance of the World Day of Prayer for Consecrated Life, Feb. 2.
The celebration was instituted by Pope John Paul II in 1997 and is attached to the feast of the Presentation, or Candlemas Day. It will be celebrated in parishes Feb. 4-5 to highlight and pray for men and women who have made vows of chastity, poverty and obedience.
To help the faithful — especially young women exploring a possible religious vocation — get to know the sisters, the diocesan vocations office has kicked off a traveling series called “Sundays with the Sisters Rejoice Tour 2023.” The monthly series offers young women an opportunity to visit a different women’s religious community every month to talk and pray with the sisters and learn more about life in the community. Also, check out the Catholic Herald’s videos on consecrated life at bit.ly/vocation-videos.
DAUGHTERS OF ST. PAUL
The Daughters of St. Paul is a community of vowed women religious dedicated to sharing Christ’s love through their lives and through the media. Founded in Italy in 1915 by Blessed James Alberione and Venerable Thecla Merlo, the community today numbers 2,000 women who seek to communicate the Gospel in more than 50 nations.
The community lives a Eucharistic spirituality — and is immersed in the culture of communication. The sisters use all forms of communications media for outreach and evangelization “so that every person may encounter Christ, be transformed by his love, and in turn bring Christ’s love, peace and justice to the world.”
Locally, the sisters are based in Alexandria, where they run Pauline Books and Media Catholic Bookstore at 1025 King St. They also create parish book displays and other media initiatives. Look for their signature #MediaNuns hashtag or visit daughtersofstpaul.com.
DOMINICAN SISTERS OF ST. CECILIA
The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia — the “Nashville Dominicans” — lead and teach in the Arlington diocese at St. John Paul the Great Catholic High School in Potomac Shores and St. Thomas Aquinas Regional School in Woodbridge.
Founded in 1860 in Nashville, the congregation says its focus on Christian education “gives life and direction to the consecration we make. By our consecrated life, we teach the way to holiness and joy.”
They currently serve in 43 schools, teaching more than 15,000 students from preschool through college. More at nashvilledominican.org.
SISTERS, SERVANTS OF THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY
Founded in 1845 in a log cabin in Monroe, Mich., to teach immigrants, the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Immaculata, Pa., ventured east to Pennsylvania in 1858, at the invitation of St. John Neumann, then bishop of Philadelphia.
In 1923, the IHM sisters came to Virginia, to teach at St. James School in Falls Church, which they still serve today. They have also taught at St. Michael School in Annandale and St. Thomas More Cathedral School in Arlington.
The sisters’ charism is love, creative hope and fidelity, said Sister Mary Sue Carwile, principal at St. James. “Our community strives to live (those values) to the greatest degree, so we can give joyful service and really work for God’s people.”
The Immaculata IHMs also staff schools and parishes in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, New Hampshire and Peru. More at ihmimmaculata.org.
FRANCISCAN SISTERS OF THE EUCHARIST
The mission of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist “is to restore a sense of the sacred, especially the sacredness of human life, in a world that knows the rupture between the sacred and the secular.” In the spirit of St. Francis and St. Clare, they promote fruitful relationships among priests, religious, and the lay faithful “as a way of fulfilling our call to ‘rebuild the church.’ ”
The sisters say their founding was in response to renewal in religious life in 1973, when 55 Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration became the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, based in Meriden, Conn.
Their convent is at St. Philip the Apostle Church in Falls Church, and they also serve locally at INOVA Hospital in Fairfax, St. Rose of Lima Priests Retirement Villa in Annandale, Siena Academy in Great Falls and The Catholic University of America in Washington. More at fsecommunity.org.
SISTERS OF OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE
The Sisters of Our Lady of La Salette engage in every form of apostolate that has the potential “to promote the development of the human person through respect for their dignity and liberty … striving to build peace and unity through justice and charity.”
The Congregation is international, with origins in the apparition of Our Lady of La Salette Sept. 19, 1846, in La Salette, in the Diocese of Grenoble, France. The proclamation of the Gospel and the message of Our Lady of La Salette is expressed in the sisters’ presence in the church, serving youths, the sick and the poor, in catechetics, education and other forms of pastoral ministry.
In the Arlington diocese, the sisters serve at several parishes: St. Michael in Annandale, St. Timothy in Chantilly, St. Mary of Sorrows in Fairfax and St. Luke in McLean, as well as at Christ House in Alexandria and INOVA Hospital in Fairfax. More at lasalette.org.
DOMINICAN CONTEMPLATIVES
Through their hidden life of worship, silence, prayer, study and penance, the contemplative nuns of St. Dominic’s Monastery in Linden make present the mission of the Order of Preachers: preaching and the salvation of souls.
The Dominican contemplatives note that their cloistered life is a “witness to the reality of the Word of God. The monastery provides a God-centered space where the cloistered nun can enter the mystery of God’s presence, bring that presence to bear on the world, and bring all of the world’s concerns to God.”
St. Dominic’s Monastery traces its beginnings to a Dominican monastery in Calais, France, which came to the U.S. in 1891, serving in New Jersey, Oregon and Wisconsin. When the diocese in La Crosse, Wis., could no longer provide chaplains for the community there, the nuns were welcomed in 1984 by Cardinal James Hickey to the Archdiocese of Washington, where they lived in a renovated home on 16th Street for 22 years, “with the muffled sounds of gunshots, occasional break-ins and the constant noise of a busy city,” their website notes. After numerous delays, the six professed nuns and one postulant arrived in Linden in 2008 to settle at last into their permanent home. Today, there are 12 in the community. More at lindenopnuns.org.
BENEDICTINE SISTERS OF VIRGINIA
Since 1901, the Benedictine monastery in Bristow has served as the motherhouse of the Benedictine Sisters of Virginia. But the sisters’ service to Catholic families in the commonwealth can be traced back to 1868 — the year they came to Richmond from St. Marys, Pa. When they arrived in Virginia, their primary work was educating young students, and they began with teaching children of German immigrants in Richmond. Later they expanded 100 miles north with the establishment of a girls’ school in Bristow.
“The essential gift of monasticism is our witness to the kingdom of God made real in community life,” the sisters say on their website. “Our purpose in this world is realized in any ministry in which we engage, because it is our presence and our example of living Gospel values that give witness to the reality of God in our world … Wherever there is a need, we will strive to respond.”
The sisters offer programs, retreats and spiritual direction at the Benedictine Pastoral Center, located in a wing of the new monastery they moved into last October. They also run Linton Hall School, a literacy ministry and the Place of Peace Columbarium. The monastery’s 80-acre grounds are open to guests from sunup to sundown and offer open spaces to walk and pray amid native plantings, gardens and a prayer labyrinth. More at osbva.org.
POOR SISTERS OF ST. JOSEPH
The Congregation of Poor Sisters of Saint Joseph was founded in 1880 in the village of Mercedes, Argentina, near Buenos Aires, when three women led by Venerable Mother Camila de San José Rolón started an orphanage for 11 girls in an old house. Hundreds of orphan children found refuge over the years with the congregation, which soon had generous benefactors.
The sisters’ describe their charism as “holy evangelical poverty: In imitation of our patron St. Joseph, our spirituality takes on the characteristics of the ‘pure, beautiful, and perfect poverty of Nazareth,’ as lived by the Holy Family.” The Poor Sisters strive to live with love and complete dependence on Divine Providence, “with fraternal love and mutual care for each other, maintaining our Lord, present in the Eucharist, as the center of our lives.”
Today, the sisters collaborate in parishes, schools, hospitals, missions, homes for single mothers and nursing homes in Argentina, Uruguay, Romania, Madagascar and Italy. They have served since 1968 at Queen of Apostles Church in Alexandria, where they offer religious education and run a child care center. More at cmswr.org/community/poor-sisters-of-st-joseph.
POOR CLARES
The Poor Clares of Mary, Mother of the Church Monastery in Alexandria were invited to the Arlington diocese in 1977 by Bishop Thomas J. Welsh, who said he wanted contemplatives praying for vocations, seminarians, priests and for the whole diocese.
The sisters note that they “live a Franciscan, cloistered, contemplative monastic life, totally given to God for the salvation of souls.” They choose penance and praise “as the means of dying to self and returning love for love.”
By living the cloistered life, the Poor Clares say they seek God alone, hidden with him in a place apart.” More at poorclaresofalexandria.org.
SISTERS, ADORERS OF THE HOLY CROSS
The Sisters, Adorers of the Holy Cross (Les Amants de la Croix) is a women’s religious congregation founded in Vietnam in 1670 by Bishop Pierre Lambert de la Motte. The sisters came to the United States in 1975 and started a small community in Virginia. Today, there are 30 sisters in Virginia, California and Oregon, where they are based.
Their mission is “to proclaim to all people the salvific love of Jesus Christ Crucified and to share that salvific love through their daily living and presence, especially by serving and educating young people and women in cultural, social, moral and spiritual fields.”
The sisters intercede for others through daily prayers, mortifications, sacrifices and apostolic works.
Locally, they operate the Busy Bee Child Care Center in Fairfax. More at cmswr.org/community/sisters-adorers-of-the-holy-cross.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated. In addition, the communities of a few other sisters working in the diocese are not listed here, including the Handmaids of Reparation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, an Italian order that has two sisters serving at Church of the Nativity in Burke.
