Petition: Mary Ward For Saint
Help us with our cause to have Mary Ward declared a Saint by the Catholic Church. Sign the petition!
Welcome to the Mary Ward Family
From 23 to 30 January, we are celebrating Mary Ward Week.
We invite you to celebrate and pray with us.
February 6 is the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. This commemorative day aims to draw attention to the fate of affected and endangered women and girls. This remains urgently necessary, as according to current figures from the World Health Organization (WHO), female genital mutilation (FGM) affects over 230 million girls and women worldwide.
Sisters of our congregation as well as friends of Mary Ward, collaborators and supporters are actively campaigning against this practice. For example, Sr. Ephigenia Garachi is one of the best-known activists against female genital mutilation in Kenya. Together with a team of women and men, she has developed a multi-stage prevention project.
They train multipliers who educate people about female genital mutilation in schools and villages. In addition, Sr. Ephigenia has also developed an alternative rite that takes up the tradition of initiation but dispenses with genital mutilation and incorporates Christian elements instead.
Background:
Female genital mutilation is a human rights violation that infringes on the fundamental rights of girls and women.
The injury of female genitalia for non-medical reasons can have short-term to lifelong health impacts on physical, sexual, and mental health, spanning from childhood, reproductive years, and into old age.
On November 4, 2025 we celebrated the long-awaited and deeply-desired merger of the Congregation of Jesus and the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This remarkable joy-filled moment was not the end of a long journey but the beginning of our new common story.
Like the image of Mary Ward, Pilgrim, on the cover of our booklet, we step out into our future. Like her, we are risk-takers, boldly stepping out into the unknown. We carry her charism in our hearts, and in new and emerging ways we give reality to her dream in our times.
Mary Ward Week 2026 emphasises Mary Ward, the risk-taker. We embrace her vision and, as risk-takers ourselves, bring it into our present and future realities.
Our contributors for this year’s booklet were invited to reflect on the life, charism, and spirituality of Mary Ward and to identify a moment in her life, or a personal quality or attribute of Mary Ward, that gives inspiration for the future. Taking into account the local reality connected to our new expanded global reality, we asked contributors to imagine the year 2035. Ten years on from our merger, what will the Congregation of Jesus look like? What risks will we have taken inspired by our founder?
In responding to this theme, we offered additional questions for consideration:
We have prepared templates for use on social media. Feel free to adapt them to your needs.
The Leadership Team issues a regular newsletter. You can read the first issues here:
Freedom
Justice
Sincerity
Felicity
Freedom
Justice
Sincerity
Felicity
Freedom
Justice
Sincerity
Felicity
Freedom
Justice
Sincerity
Felicity
The 4 November 2025 was very special for the members of the now united Congregatio Jesu and all parts of the Mary Ward Family. We look back with an interview with General Superior Sr. Veronica Fuhrmann CJ and a series of photos from the merger celebration in Loyola.
1625 was a special year for Mary Ward and her Institute.The Painted Life of Mary Ward tells us, how Mary went to pray in different churches of Rome in autumn and winter of 1625.
400 years later, Sr Monika Glockann from Germany takes us to these churches and helps us reflect on the deep spiritual experiences, Mary Ward was given.
We wanted to publish one video each day of the week before Christmas. Unfortunatly, a technical hick-up caused a change in this plan. So here is the complete series.
Discover the first video here on our website and the whole series of videos in our playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIApTFPLEKk&list=PLB4mos1d9zXO0ZxhpQvgLWAJ-TvPPhAVP
For those who prefer to read the texts of the reflections, we have prepared a PDF. You can download it here.
Merger of Congregatio Jesu and IBVM:
History in the making
Members of the united congregation celebrated this special moment in the history of Mary Ward’s Institute on 4 November 2025 in Loyola, Spain, the birthplace of Saint Ignatius.. From now on, the around 1,800 sisters living and working in over 40 countries worldwide will follow Jesus in the footsteps of their common foundress, the Venerable Mary Ward, as one congregation of religious women – closely connected to many lay friends and companions.
Remember the festive celebration by watching the recording of the livestreams
You can also find photos and texts of the solemn Mass and the Mary Ward symposium as well as other material, enabling a deep dive in the history and present of our congregation.
Photos from Provinces and Regions all over the world
Most of our sisters watched the livestream or the recording together. Many organised celebrations in their congregations, some even plantred trees symbolising the new beginnings and the growing unity between the CJ members worldwide.
To celebrate the merger between IBVM and CJ, we have assembled photos of the sisters from all our Provinces and Regions, as well as portraits of the General Superiors throughout the centuries, into a large mosaic. Together, they form the familiar portrait of the Venerable Mary Ward. A powerful sign of sisterhood and solidarity.
To visually express our new, united path, we have given our cross a new colour. Green represents nature but stands also for hope, growth and harmony. It is associated with freshness, fertility and new beginnings. Green is the colour of the liturgy during normal times – when the mission is done.
In 1609, Mary Ward, an Englishwoman who received a revelation from God to be a trailblazer for women religious, founded a new and innovative religious congregation. In the “Institutum”, as she called it in the first draft of the new congregation’s rules, women religious were to live according to the same rules and spirituality as the Jesuits founded by Ignatius of Loyola in the previous century.
How we live and what we do
We see mission as a participation in the sending of Christ into the world: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” (John 20:21) As Ignatian women, mission is at the very heart of the life of our congregation. We understand our call to the consecrated life as part of the universal mission of the Church.
Current information about our congregation
Here you will find the latest news, insights, and stories from our international congregation. We share what inspires us, what moves us, and how we live Mary Ward’s charism in today’s world.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
