Founding purpose

The way for all people: Being on the Way as One People of God...

Sign of hope

God placed his Holy Spirit at the side of the Council Fathers of the Second Vatican Council. For in its resolutions and decrees they defined the Church of Christ in the here and now as a lived communion with Christ. In it there is room for all who expect salvation from Christ: the weary and the burdened, the poor and the rich, the sick and the healthy, the believing and the doubting, women and men, Christians and those who do not (yet) believe in Christ, the living and the dead.

Mother Marie Therese was commissioned by the same Spirit of God, in confirmation of the Spirit-inspired Vatican Council II, to establish an "Order of the Church". Vatican Council, to found an "Order" with a meaning of its own, not to be understood in ecclesiastical terms. She called Communio in Christo into being on December 8, 1984. The Communio in Christo, with its earthly and at the same time ecclesial identity (motherhouse, community, chapter, superior general, groups and small Christian and collective communities spread throughout the world, social work with long-term care for the most seriously ill and hospice) is now a reality that points to a greater reality.

The greater reality that this Communio in Christo touches does not only concern the members of the community in the narrow sense. It is not only about priests, religious, sisters and lay people who have united in the Mechernich Motherhouse and in groups and circles of friends worldwide.  

Communio in Christo understands itself from the Holy Spirit as a community in Christ, who alone is way, truth and life. Communio in Christo is related to the redemption of all people in the death of Jesus on the cross. For this reason, it was important to Mother Marie Therese that the buildings of the social facilities of the long-term care facility and the hospice "Stella Maris" in Mechernich form a building complex with the cloister of the Communio in Christo: all residents, guests, employees, staff and relatives belong to the Communio in Christo.
 

The idea of lived love

• can be realized everywhere on earth,
• can be lived by every human being, i.e. be filled with life,
• is open for everyone, so also for you and me,
• excludes no human being,
• wants to be hope for all.

The founding text

by Mother Marie Therese on the foundation of Communio in Christo on December 8, 1984:

"At this moment, when I give You, O adorable, holy God, my yes, I want to confess myself in guilt before You.

Unworthy to respond to Your request, too weak to return Your love, incapable for the great thing You ask of me, I ask in this hour for Your holiness, for Your love and devotion, so that both wills may melt into one and You may be given the highest glory.

The solemn dialogue between us will unite in one act with my consent. The Word will again become the birth of the Lord.

It will serve for my pardon and reparation.
It will live and become salvation.
It will become forgiveness for those who humanized it.
It will serve as love for the loveless.
It will live for Your glory, for sanctification and for the witness of Your Church.
It will be the blessedness of Your presence, the security for the despair.
It will be the heart that feels every misery.
It will share the feelings of Your longing so that it may become fruitful in souls.

Your word, which makes itself known in me, which is a single plea to my soul, which begs for my yes in the wedding hour, the word shall be the celebration of a marriage and the testimony of how much I dare to love You.

Behold, O adorable God,
Behold, holy and almighty love,
behold my trust which I give to Thee,
behold my misery which I confess to Thee,
see my guilt and my inability,
see my devotion, so that the world may also know how much I love You.

Faithful and trusting in the power of Your Spirit,
devoted to You until death, I found in obedience to Your will...
the Order Communio in Christo, a contemplative-active community
of priests, sisters and lay people, who, according to Your will
to the needs of their neighbor with the utmost selflessness
as a community in Christ, as a realization of the Council's decisions
and as a confirmation of Your action in the world.

The love that I experience at this moment as a sign of communion, which flows towards me in abundance, as unworthy as I am, and is given so undeservedly in a boundless dynamism, it is the surest proof of Your will, before which I kneel in submission.

O Blessed One, O holy Almighty God, today I give You my whole life, my will and my deeds, for the glory of Your name and for unity in the world.

Dear God, may the call that went out to me, which gave birth to Your will, ripen fruit in all continents, so that a whole world will bear witness to You as the one, holy and all-loving God in three persons.

To You, O God, with my yes, be given the sole glory forever and ever."