Salesian Missionaries of Mary Immaculate (SMMI) in central Indian states have decided to enhance their work among women and poor, and study Scripture deeply to become more relevant in their mission.

The decision came during their Oct 18-22 province level chapter-implementation workshop in Raipur. The meeting was attended by 52 delegates representing the nuns working in eight dioceses.

The nuns were asked to “concretely work out” in each community plans to enhance the work among women and poor, said newly-elected provincial Sister Annies John.

The congregation’s chapter, the apex body, had urged the nuns to undertake an “in-depth study of the Bible” to help them for “radical following of Jesus and Mary,” Sister John told UCA News Oct. 26.

The congregation has 178 professed nuns working in Bettiah, Delhi, Jashpur, Khandwa, Meerut, Nagpur, Raigarh and Raipur. They manage schools and hostels for girls besides health centers and social projects in these dioceses.

The province covers Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh states.

The congregation’s general assembly in last May at Bangalore had resolved to “go beyond our frontier in our preferential option for women and poor” by following the radical discipleship of Mary.

Some 1,300 nuns work in 13 countries. In India, the congregation has four provinces and two regions. The international headquarters is based in France.

The chapter resolution urged the nuns to become agents of hope and harmony in a globalized world marked by growing culture of violence, divisive discrimination and death.” It also wanted the nuns to “rededicate to a prophetic life of communion for mission.”

French diocesan priest Father Henri Chaumont, along with Madame Carre de Malberg, founded the “Daughters of St. Francis de Sales” on Oct 15, 1872.

On the request of the French Fransalian Bishop Alexis Riccaz of Nagpur for a group of missioners, Father Chaumont instituted a missionary branch to the congregation naming it “Catechist Missionaries of Mary Immaculate.”

Headed by Mother Marie Gertrude, the first four lay women missioners reached India on Nov 2, 1889.

More French and Indian women later joined as the congregation began to widen its activities in India and aboard. The congregation was renamed Salesian Missionaries of Mary Immaculate in 1955 when it was raised to the pontifical status.

Indian nuns began to head the congregation with Sister Jane Scaria in 1997. Sister Therese Leena succeeded her in May, 2009.

The four Indian provinces are sending every year two missioners to France to overcome their vocation crisis, officials said.

Source:  Cathnews India

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