Since 1845, along the River Raisin in the southeastern Michigan town of Monroe, the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) have distinguished themselves as educators, activists, and Catholic pioneers. At the congregation's peak, the motherhouse dispatched nearly 1,600 nuns to more than 100 schools across metropolitan Detroit and several states. For 175 years, the sisters taught the three Rs and the meaning of faith to nearly 700,000 students and established important metro Detroit institutions such as Marygrove College, Immaculata and Marian High Schools, and St. Mary Academy. Widely known by their initials, the IHMs have extended their reach worldwide. Monroe IHM members have served in key roles at the Vatican, as leaders of organizations representing Catholic sisters in the United States, as missionaries in Third World countries, and as groundbreaking activists and theologians. The Monroe IHMs today also attract lay women and men who dedicate themselves to the congregation's values and goals by becoming IHM Associates.

Love Tenderly is a collection of personal stories shared by women religious who identify as lesbian or queer, and who have come to embrace their sexual orientation as an integral part of their identity and vocation to religious life. Each story is a journey of love and an embrace of truth and wholeness. These stories are some of the voices of women religious who are lesbian or queer.

The often forgotten role of Catholic sisters is told in experiences deeply rooted in self-realization and feminist methodology. In this collection of thirteen essays the contributors illuminate the little known world of a very creative and committed community of women—their aspirations, their values, their mission. An often neglected part of feminist research, this type of sisterly collaboration affirms the seminal paradigms in women's work and writing. These essays deal with many of the same issues of power, economic autonomy, friendship, spirituality, socialization, and professional commitment encountered in other feminist endeavors. Building Sisterhood gives the reader insight into the rigorous training involved in becoming a nun, including the complex relationships between the Monroe community, other IHM sites, and within the intricate church hierarchy. Feminist historian Margaret Susan Thompson places the essays within a historical context and provides detailed background for those unfamiliar with the life, duty, and experience of Catholic sisters. This book will make a unique contribution to feminist scholarship, religious studies, and women's history

"Sandra Schneiders' brilliant and perceptive analysis projects a new model of religious life. Deeply exciting and genuinely consoling ....." [from back cover]

Maddie believes herself safe at her prestigious boarding school, until she receives an ominous tarot card in the mail and realizes that she must return to her home town, a community still haunted by the Salem witch trials.

Finding Our Way to God offers an approach to spiritual direction using mental prayer that can be used to create healing and peace when conducting guidance sessions with seekers. Based on the teachings of St. Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists, Fr. Dennis Billy's approach examines the moral life in the context of spiritual direction. While thoroughly Catholic, St. Alphonsus was so pastoral -- focusing on the poor and marginalized -- that the approach can be easily learned and used by adherents of other religious, philosophical, and ethical traditions. In Finding Our Way to God, Fr. Dennis Billy: Teaches active listening, which is essential for spiritual directors. Emphasizes the continuity between a person's spirituality and morality through growth in the virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Provides an understanding of how the model of spiritual direction can be adapted to meet the needs of a wide variety of people. Helps the reader use Alphonsian spirituality as a backdrop for conducting spiritual direction.

Fifty years ago, nearly 200,000 religious sisters worked in Catholic schools, hospitals and other institutions throughout the United States. American Catholics honored these women of faith who founded and built these flourishing works of mercy. Then came the ideological shifts and moral upheavals of the 1960s, and ever since, most women's orders in the United States have been in a state of crisis. Now the sisters are aging, with fewer and fewer younger women to take their place. Perhaps related to this demographic shift is the continuing doctrinal confusion that has come under the scrutiny of the Vatican. Using the archival records of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and other prominent groups of sisters, journalist and author Ann Carey shows how feminist activists unraveled American women's religious communities from their leadership positions in national organizations and large congregations. She also explains the recent and necessary interventions by the Vatican. After examining the many forces that have contributed to the crisis, Carey reports on a promising sign of renewal in American religious life: the growing number of young women attracted to older communities that have retained their identity and newly formed, yet traditional, congregations.

More and more people-- especially millennials-- are turning to religion as a source of comfort and solace in our increasingly chaotic world. Rather than live a cloistered life of seclusion, the Daughters of Saint Paul actively embrace social media to evangelize, collectively calling themselves the #MediaNuns. In this collective memoir, eight of these Sisters share their own discernment journeys, struggles and crises of faith that they have overcome, and episodes from their daily lives. They offer practical takeaways and tips for living a more spiritually-fulfilled life, no matter your religious affiliation. -- adapted from jacket

Sandra Schneiders commands respect as one of the most significant and influential figures in the emergence of the study of Christian spirituality as an academic discipline, as the focused and disciplined exploration of religious experience. This book honors her contributions to the field by addressing issues that are emerging at the creative "edges" of the discipline. In this volume, colleagues and students of Dr. Schneiders and other collaborators in the academic discipline of Christian spirituality examine crucial issues from their various disciplinary and methodological perspectives. Questions of methodology address the status of spirituality as a discipline, interdisciplinarity, and self-implication. Other essays explore the "edges" of Christian spirituality and biblical spirituality, gender studies, the natural sciences, nature writing, the social sciences, and interfaith issues. This collection of essays will provoke students and scholars of Christian spirituality, as well as practitioners, to continue critically thinking, discussing, writing, and practicing it.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR)--an organisation representing 300 orders of sisters in the United States - regularly conducts interviews with some of the most engaging and passionate of contemporary thinkers. In this volume, interviews with eighteen theologians, psychologists, educators, and religious leaders from various fields and disciplines share their wisdom about a way of leadership able to meet the deep challenges of today's world. Transformational Leadership offers the opportunity to learn from notables such as Walter Brueggemann, Judy Cannato, Joan Chittister, OSB, Constance FitzGerald, OCD, Donald Goergen, OP, Marty Linsky, and Margaret Wheatley. Though initially addressed to Catholic sisters, the practical suggestions for living a Gospel-centered life make this collection of interest to all men and women seeking to live with purpose and depth.