Missionary Sisters of I C. org

SMIC Associates--Appreciating our history
                                                      sandy bradford

As we celebrate the centennial of SMIC it occurred to me that during those hundred years as a congregation a huge army of lay missionaries has been created, largely undocumented in our extensive archives around the world. This is the great unintended consequence. How did it happen? Why didn't we notice? Who are these women? Where are they today?

These women were told the story of Mother Immaculata, Bishop Bahlmann, and the Poor Clares from Adjuda Monastery in Rio. They were drawn by the ideals of Francis and Clare. They yearned to be missionaries. The community gave them the best of our sisters to lead them. Those sisters taught them to adore, to pray the psalms, to make the Mass the center of their lives with God and people. The women, drawn from around the world, became Mother Immaculata's daughters too. Some you trained for a few short months, others for many years. But you must know that their lives were forever changed. Through these women the lives of many, many others were changed, the fruit of their undocumented mothering or ministering in the world. This work too was the fruit of the lives of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God.

For one hundred years the congregation invested love, lives, and lots of money to establish postulates and novitiates around the world to receive and train candidates for the congregation.  Over the years these entering groups were large or very small. Some women persevered, made final vows and became life long members of SMIC. That is the intended consequence of the formations programs. However, many more of the women who entered the congregation discerned that active consecrated religious life was not their vocation.

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