Our Vows Guide The Life Of Our Community
Professed members of the community vow to follow a Rule of Life. The Rule of Life is founded on our vows of Simplicity, Fidelity, and Purity. These vows inform the life of all of our community. All of our members seek to bring these qualities into our relationships and in ourselves.
Simplicity
A sister makes a vow of Simplicity by living a life that respects all creation and recognizes that all we have is God-given. She releases her attachment to possessions and releases her desire to control things, situations, and other people. She recognizes our need for one another. Simplicity is a voluntary gift of love in response to the voluntary gift of love in Jesus. Her role and responsibility is to be a good steward, acting with humility and poverty of spirit. She uses all that is entrusted to her – her resources, time, abilities and gifts — for the benefit of God’s people and for God’s glory.
Fidelity
A sister makes a vow of Fidelity by the joyful abandonment of herself to God because the longing of her heart is to obey her loving creator God. It means she is called by the Holy Spirit to live obediently and to listen with full attention to the Gospels, aiming to fulfill the promises she made at Baptism. It means she listens to the Spirit through decisions of the Community. It means she listens to others, her leaders, and Members in meetings and other times. It means she takes time to listen with care. It means she listens to her inner voice which speaks in quiet. It means she listens to God in nature and cares for the natural world and her body. She lives as a listener so that she might know what to speak, to share, and to respond.
Purity
A sister makes a vow of Purity by endeavoring, through self-examination and deep inner work, to learn who she is, who she is to become as the person God wants her to be, and to reconcile the two. She desires God’s desire for her. She accepts the integrity and dignity and wholeness of all others. She accepts the gifts of the Holy Spirit to live with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control. She frees herself to love.