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| The Founding members of the Ecumenical OPD |
The Ecumenical OPD Community is a unique spiritual community founded by the laity. In the year 2004 a group of deeply spiritual women approached the lay brother who would become the founder of this community to express their desire to live a life devoted to the glory of God. These women came from various backgrounds. Each felt the call to live the spiritual life of a sister in religion. However, mainstream religious communities turned these pious women away for (what we believed to be) invalid reasons. These sisters of ours had built a life in the secular world. All were mature women aged 50-75 years. One was married, one widowed, and two of the women were single. Some had children of their own and some had grandchildren. They each were active in their parish communities and various church groups for the laity, but they hungered for something more in their spiritual lives. They wanted to live the life of a sister in a community of like minded people. They longed for a way to live out the romance of a spiritual life that reflected the desires that God had placed in their hearts from their youth. But they didn’t want to renounce the beautiful lives they had built as wives, mothers, and professionals. These were women devoted to family and community and they didn’t understand why a religious community didn’t seem to exist that honored both the secular world and the world of the spirit. After years of being told they could not be accepted in mainstream religious communities because of age or marital status or because they still had careers and responsibilities in the world, they decided to work to form their own unique community.
After nearly two years of prayerful planning, research, training, and careful listening to the Word of God in their hearts the sisters (with the assistance of our brother prior) founded the Ecumenical OPD Community. Inspired by the lives of St. Catherine of Siena, St. Martin de Porress and many other men and women of love, the community is one that allows a member to continue to live the life of a wife, mother, father or single person in the world while living out the unique spiritual calling God has placed in one's heart. Members live in their own homes and maintain their own lives. Members are free to design a private spiritual life that suits their own spiritual needs and the needs of their families. Members can live out a public ministry if they are so called and do that with the blessing of a community of brothers and sisters behind them. Members have the benefit of access to our spiritual director and other brothers and sisters in our network of OPD members.
