 As with all good things, it started with a dream. In 1897, it was the dream of a Foundress who wanted to expand her religious vows beyond her homeland to include ministering to orphans in India. Her name was Sister Marie Louise De Meester, a Canoness of St. Augustine in Belgium. That same spirit of mission and daring inspired many young women to join her, and it continues to inspire today’s ICM Missionary Sisters, her spiritual daughters. The ICM’s now number over 800 Sisters from many countries and ministering in many countries. In brief, here is Sister Marie Louise’s story….
Marie Louise De Meester founded the congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (ICM) in 1897 and went home to God in 1928. But she gifted us ICM Missionary Sisters with a vibrant charism that lives on today.
She was a woman of vision and determination. With the backing of her superiors in the Canonesses of St. Augustine in Belgium, she accepted the invitation of a missionary priest in India to help in his orphanage. She courageously stepped out from the security of the cloister and sailed off to India accompanied by a young novice who shared her vision. She arrived in India to find out that the priest had died, but that did not stop her. She forged ahead despite lack of understanding or support from the local bishop.
And that was only the start. From the tiny beginnings in India, a new religious missionary congregation began to take shape—even though this had not been her original intention. Marie Louise and her growing group of sisters began ministering also in the Philippines, the West Indies, and the U.S. to answer still more calls for ministerial help.
What this visionary began in the 1890’s flourishes today as an international religious missionary congregation of some 900 sisters hailing from many countries and ministering around the globe.
What did Marie Louise De Meester contribute to this “never say die” pool of women known as nuns? It’s hard to point to just one gift. Certainly we must credit her as a visionary who never accepted that something was too difficult. Deeply rooted in Christ, she lived from this union and spread it like fire wherever she went, on whomever she touched. Her best known saying was, “Let your heart be so great that the whole world can find a home in it!”
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