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I grew into a great love of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ and of the liturgy, through which the life of the Church is most deeply expressed.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, in What Was There For Me Once: A Memoir (2009, p. 45)

Prayer for me, then, has been an entering into my own heart and experience and finding its meaning in the experience of Jesus and of his Mother who is the perfect Christian and faith-filled believer.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, in New Catholic World (Jan/Feb 1977, p. 21)

Spirituality is the capacity to live deeply in the concrete, creative order of things even as we stretch through and beyond them.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, in Compass: A Jesuit Journal (Sept/Oct 1994, p. 19)

Prayer is … the challenge to find Jesus, to respond to him, to rejoice in his goodness, and mercy, and tender love … in the encounters of every day and in the challenging, often ambiguous signs of our times.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, in New Catholic World (Jan/Feb 1977, p. 21)

When both our light and our darkness are integrated then our inner and outer lives are integrated. Losing ourselves and then finding ourselves again is the pattern of our journey through life.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, at St. Paul’s Retreat Center (May 11, 2009)

You never come to the bottom, do you? How do you come to the bottom of coming to know God? God is so big that you just come to know different things about God all the time. As you learn more about the world you learn more about God.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, in a voice recording on September 15, 2015

It seems to me then, that the “heavy blessing” of living and ministering in the church today is the calling to live with ambiguity, to have the wisdom to know how to avoid and “either/or” in dealing with questions of continuity and discontinuity with regard to the treasures of the Christian Tradition. Living with ambiguity and the avoidance of “either/or” positions is to live with different levels of meaning, to explore their richness and complexity.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, in Light Burdens, Heavy Blessings (2000, p. 374)

To resist evil and violence both within and outside us is to acknowledge ourselves as purposeful agents of salvation, and of responsibility, to ourselves and others, capable of moral discernment, courage, creativity and solidarity.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, in What Was There For Me Once: A Memoir (2009, p. 79)

Spirituality is what our faith looks like in everyday life. Spirituality is about getting to the bottom of our restlessness. It is here that God comes. It is here where God is.

Margaret Brennan, IHM (Presentation at the Summer Pastoral Theological Institute at St. John Center for Youth and Family in Plymouth, Mich., on Aug. 12, 1999)

The experience of God and ways of knowing the holy are the same as our mode of knowing all other things. And that mode is sensuality.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, in Compass: A Jesuit Journal (Sept/Oct 1994, p. 18)

Our Mission

The mission of the Margaret Brennan Institute – a ministry of the IHM Sisters of Monroe, Michigan – is to nurture the spiritual seeker in all of us as we explore the intersection of faith and culture through webinars and other online resources.

Explore spirituality.

Spirituality encompasses our whole life. It's how we are oriented toward that which is of most meaning to us. Explore the various dimensions of spirituality, church, and culture through our blog and webinars.

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Are you looking for conversation and community around spirituality? The forum is the place to be. Here you'll find substantive discussins about living sprituality in everyday life. It's an opportunity to learn, to grow, and to share.

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Need a spiritual companion?

Accompaniment is key to the spiritual life. Find out more about spiritual companions who can serve as guides along your spiritual journey. Companions can listen with you as together you look at the ways God is moving in your life.

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Upcoming Webinars

Featured On Demand

Spirituality and Complex Trauma in African American Women

ON-DEMAND WEBINAR Spirituality and Complex Trauma in African American Women with Joan Blakey, PhD, LMSW Increasingly, traumatic events, particularly among Black women, are all too common. The recognition that ongoing

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From the Blog

The Arc for Justice Is a Long One

Mary Ellen Sheehan, IHM, STD, earned a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium and is a Professor Emerita

The Church of the Future

As one of the foremost theological thinkers of the 20th century, theologian and Jesuit Karl Rahner offers insight, wisdom, and challenge in many different