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Spiritual & Pastoral Ministries:
Awakening the Spirit Within
The recent acquisition and expansion of Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat near Wheatland, Iowa, is tangible proof of the importance the Sisters of Humility place on supporting spiritual growth and development. But The Prairie is only the latest in a long line of spiritual and pastoral ministries begun by CHMs.
Commitment to Search
Today, for many members of the Humility community, the commitment to “search” and to “serve” enfolds in a unique and special way.  Their service is helping others to search. As spiritual and pastoral ministers, their work takes many forms:
- In Chiapas, Mexico, Sr. Penelope Wink, pastoral worker and psychotherapist, spends a lot of time listening, especially to those who have been hurt or who have lost loved ones and homes in disasters – whether from Mother Nature or the result of human greed, intolerance or hate.
- Hospital chaplains Marilyn Brinker and Dorothy Ann Chevalier, are also listeners but even more they are spiritual “first responders” to any emergency, code blue or death at Jane Phillips Medical Center in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Their job is to be there not only for patients and their families but for medical personnel, too.
- CHM Chinese scholar Sr. Kathleen Tomlonovic teaches in the Center for Asian Studies at Western Washington University during the week but on Sundays, her time and energy goes to the youth confirmation and religious education program in the Chinese Catholic community in Seattle, a flourishing non-geographical parish of families from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Chinese mainland.
- Numerous Sisters of Humility and associates provide valuable pastoral assistance to the people of God in parishes, on college campuses, in nursing homes and pastoral centers. Visiting the sick and dying, organizing RCIA programs, creating liturgies, teaching religious education and training the next generation of lay leaders in the church are only a few of their ever growing list of responsibilities.
- The ministry of music is the gift Kathleen Hanley contributes to the liturgical life of St. Patrick’s Co-Cathedral, Billings, Montana. She strives to create a musical environment for each Sunday liturgy that supports prayer and makes God’s presence alive to worshipers of all ages.
- Newly professed Sr. Dawna Clare Sutton is planning to combine her love of solitude with her gift for music and liturgy by serving rural Iowa parishes as a trained pastoral associate.
Ministry of Prayer
You do not have to be employed in pastoral ministry to be involved in helping others deepen their inner life. Whether it’s
- Arranging for the sacrament of healing for a neighbor diagnosed with cancer;
- Conducting journal workshops for women in prison; or
- Inviting friends and associates to a Saturday discussion of the Sunday Scriptures,
CHMs take every opportunity to invite others to come to know better the living God who loves us all.
And it never stops. Retired and infirm sisters will say theirs is a fulltime “ministry of prayer.” At daily Mass and privately through the hours of the day and night, they pray for those who have asked the community for prayer. You are invited to join with them in prayer and/or request prayer for your own special intention.
- Contact the Sisters of Humility with a personal Prayer Request.
- Pray with the CHM community, for peace in the world and for justice within the human family.
 Pray the canticle of the Magnificat the official prayer of the Congregation of the Humility of Mary.
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