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The same Spirit who inspired and guided our founders gathers us in community today.  We walk with all those “Friends of Mary” who, for almost two centuries, have followed Mary, Ann, and Christina in a vowed life of praise, prayer, and service.  Their courage, concern, and energy, nourished by the gospel and communal love, are with us as a lasting endowment of hope.
I Am the Way   

 

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 Loretto Community: A Brief History

The Sisters of Loretto and Co-members comprise the Loretto Community. The Loretto Community exists to praise God and minister to people. We are people of faith and service bound together by our love of God and love of one another. We live in the desert Southwest, the hills of Kentucky, cities dotting the East and West coasts, and many places in between ... some live in Europe, Canada, South America, and Africa. Our spirit and mission are grounded in the gospel.

Founded on the Kentucky frontier in 1812 as Friends of Mary at the Foot of the Cross, the first sisters dedicated their lives to God as religious women and educated poor children of the area. They Motherhouse photoderived strength from communal living and prayer. They later took the name Sisters of Loretto at the Foot of the Cross. Today the name Loretto Community incorporates the two types of membership in Loretto: sisters who make public profession of vows and co-members who affiliate with the spirit and mission of the community. In recent years, the community began a volunteer program for short-term service opportunities.

Through the teachings and insights of Vatican II, we gained a new understanding of our vocation. Just as frontier living shaped the lives of our early sisters, so a global society shapes ours.

Like our early sisters who called themselves Friends of Mary, we too stand below the cross as we strive to bring the healing spirit of God into our world and commit ourselves to improving the conditions of those who suffer from injustice, oppression, and deprivation of dignity.

Books About Loretto:

Venture into the Unknown: Loretto in China 1923-1998
by Patricia Jean Manion SL. Published November 3, 2006.
China book
PJ writes: "The title of this book not only speaks of the nearly 30 years Sisters of Loretto lived and worked in China, but also speaks of my experience. While writing this book my thinking in many ways was changed. I lived their lives
through the more than 600 letters and memoirs that rested for years in the Loretto Archives at Nerinx, Kentucky. I experienced with them an incredible journey. I hope you, too, take the opportunity to live for awhile with these women of heroic stature."

The book may be ordered by sending $20 to the Sisters of Loretto at:

The China Book
Nerinx Post Office
515 Nerinx Road
Nerinx, KY 40049

Loretto Books available at this address:
Books
Nerinx Post Office
515 Nerinx Road         
Nerinx, Ky 40049

Pictured:
A Call to Kinship by Elaine Prevallet SL  $15
*Naming Our Truth, Editor Ann Patrick Ware SL  $18
Beyond the Adobe Wall by Patricia Jean Manion SL  $14
Ventures into the Unknown: Loretto in China by PJ Manion $20
*limited number.
 
Also available:
Making the Shift by Elaine Prevallet $6
 
Make check payable to Sisters of Loretto; indicate books
by name and add $2 postage for each.