Our Mother Foundress

The ICM congregation was founded by Marie Louise De Meester in Mulagumoodu, South India in 1897. A courageous woman of deep faith, she left her native country of Belgium to care for orphans and abandoned children. Her companion was Dame Marie Ursule, a novice. They arrived in India on November 7, 1897.

Her missionary zeal, manifested in her selfless dedication to God in the service of the poor, inspired young women in India to a life of similar dedication. Young women in Belgium were also attracted by her ideal. This led to the foundation of the Congregation, the Missionary Canonesses of St. Augustine.

From India mission houses were established in the Philippines (1910), the West Indies (1914), the United States (1919), in Congo, (1920), and China (1923). After the death of Marie Louise de Meester more mission communities were founded: Burundi (1944), Hong Kong (1953), Taiwan (1959), Guatemala, (1964), Brazil (1965), Cameroon (1969), Haiti (1977), Lebanon, (1987), Mongolia (1995), Tchad (1996), South Africa (2004) and Senegal (2010).

To advance its missionary objectives further, the congregation formalized its affiliation with the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (CICM), also known as the Scheut Fathers of Belgium in 1963. Since then, the congregation has been known as the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Immaculati Cordis Mariae - ICM).

Charism and Spirituality

Faithful to the charism and spirituality of our Foundress, Marie Louise De Meester, we, the ICM sisters, live our religious and missionary vocation, combining a deep interior life with undaunted apostolic zeal, daily drawing inspiration from the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, who gave the perfect response to God, risking and giving all for the mission of her son Jesus.

“Like our Foundress,

we are seized by the love of God

and of our brothers and sisters.

Like her we treasure the experience of God in our inmost being

through all the blessings and sufferings of life.

In obedience to his son Jesus Christ,

we leave all things to abide with him.

He sends us to live and share the Good News

and to proclaim him by word or by the witness of our lives

to those who do not know him.

Following Jesus, our preferential option is for the poor.

We are ready to go to peoples

of other nationalities, races, cultures, religions, and ideologies

to be witnesses to the unity

to which humankind is called in Jesus Christ

and so to participate in the local Church’s mission.”

(ICM Constitutions 5)

Our Mother Foundress

Charism and Spirituality

Communities in Mission

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