This triple expression of a single “yes”
configures the Sister more fully to the pattern of life
undertaken by Jesus and Mary.

By religious profession, the Sister makes public vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in a holocaust of nuptial love, according to the Rule of Saint Augustine and the Constitutions of the St. Mary Sisters. This “triple expression of a single ‘yes’ to the one relationship of consecration” (Essential Elements, 14) configures her more fully to the pattern of life undertaken by Jesus and Mary. Fostering authentic human development, spiritual freedom, and purification of the heart, the living of the vows serve as a continuous stimulus to greater charity.

In seeking to respond to God’s grace and to live their consecration to the full, the Sisters are called, like the beloved apostle John, to take to themselves the Blessed Virgin Mary (John 19:27), the “sublime model of consecration to the Father, union with the Son, and openness to the Spirit” (Vita Consecrata,28). By deepening their relationship with the Mother of God and striving to imitate her Eucharistic attitude and spousal receptivity, the Sisters will experience her special maternal love and be strengthened in their vocations as Brides of Christ and their call to spiritual motherhood, “conscious always that in the Blessed Virgin Mary, consecrated persons also find a Mother” (Vita Consecrata, 28).