Women seeking to live a life of
Marian consecration together.
Current Status
The Daughters of the Immaculata is a private group of women hoping to begin a new form of consecrated life devoted to Our Lady. We are not a canonically recognized religious institute or association of the Catholic Church, and we do not speak for any diocese. We continue to seek the Church's discernment and will humbly accept Her judgment.
It is the Today of Our Lady
We live in an era that would greatly benefit from a voice of reason, consolation, and confident direction. Who better than a mother to console and counsel her children? Who better than a mother to teach us the lessons that will realign us to the Sacred Heart and His intentions for our times? Maria Kim-Ngan Bui had been in religious life for over twenty years. She has since been formally released from her vows and belongs to no religious institute. She now feels an interior invitation to a more radical “yes” to the Lord. She discerned a call that could be summarized as the “Today” of Our Lady. The Holy Spirit, who inspired the Psalmist to pray and sing, “If today you hear His voice, harden not your heart,” also calls us to recognize the time we are living.
This is a time when Our Star of the Sea will be a sure and gentle mother, leading her dearest children through the storm to safe harbor—the Heart of Her Son.
The Church urgently needs contemplatives who will respond to the Lord’s voice and go out in search of the one who was once among the ninety-nine. Anyone looking on may wonder whether the task is too grave and perilous. Who better than Our Most Blessed Mother and Queen of Heaven and Earth to form, instruct, and guide us in her way of maturity, tenderness, and love?
Women who feel called to the Daughters of the Immaculata will feel a radical, intuitive attraction to living Total Consecration. They are generous and courageous women who will have attained a significant degree of mature femininity in Christ, and who have a courageous desire to follow our Lady into ever greater grounding, solidity, and mature femininity. Our Blessed Mother will give these women confidence in the Father’s abundant, provident love, and they will know the experience Saint Paul and Saint Maximilian Kolbe speak of: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil 4:13) through the Immaculata.”
The call to join a new group of women seeking to begin the stages of becoming a religious community is a particular call, received only as a gift and sustained by a profound interior life that, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, makes a woman more soberly courageous and mature. She will have an interior knowing that our LORD will sustain her so long as she stays united to him. She will have a sense of self-possession while also knowing that all her gifts were given to be lavishly spent on her Bridegroom and all that he desires of her at every present moment.
Called to live in and to proclaim the Today of Our Lady, we look to her to teach us how to live in that disponibility in the Spirit, cultivated through what Saint Ignatius called the discernment of spirits, and which we will pursue through the lens of Marian Fittingness. This Marian interior communion is our source from which we will know how and when to speak a good word to someone, drawing them to the heart of the Church where Saint Paul says there is no spot, stain, or wrinkle.
The Daughters of the Immaculata were born at the foot of the Holy Cross, and the path forward can only be received with, through, and in our Immaculata, who always keeps vigil before her Son there. Our primary, and in a way our sole, apostolate is to console His Most Sacred Heart through our life of contemplation. We hope to receive everything from here and give everything from here.
“What do you have that you have not been given?”
—Saint Paul
“What you receive as a gift, give as a gift.”
—Our Lord Jesus, Mt 10:8
Semi-contemplatives?
Disclaimer: These excerpts are from our proposed statutes, which we hope the Church may one day approve.
“‘Behold your mother’ (Jn 19:27). These words of Jesus from the holy cross are the north star of the Daughters of the Immaculata. We are spiritually born kneeling at the foot of Jesus’ holy cross with our Most Blessed Mother standing beside us, calling us to purity and singleness of heart. We trust her maternal presence, as though hearing her say, 'I am always here,’ and we respond by living in habitual communion of hearts here. We offer our whole lives in response to the Father’s goodness and mercy through evangelical service, repentance, and intercession for those furthest from the heart of the Church or who have left her completely. Here, we say with the beloved disciple, ‘From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace’ (Jn 1:16).”
“We interiorly place ourselves in the lowest place, especially at the Holy Sacrifice, to call down the Father’s blessings with confidence that His bounty reaches like a rush of water. He distributes freely and reaches even the lowest place—His place of rest.”
“Prayer is the foundation of our lives. Our members will dedicate four to six hours to prayer in addition to the active life of the community. Therefore, the first apostolate of the Daughters of the Immaculata is to console Jesus’ Most Sacred Heart by gratefully receiving the Blessed Trinity’s love through repentance, reparation, intercession, and generous response marked by alacrity and disponibility, especially noting even God’s smallest invitations and gentlest whispers. We cultivate joyful confidence from our Lord that our life of contemplation draws down torrents of grace for all humanity.”
“Our formal hours of prayer transform the whole of our lives into continual prayer and discernment, that is, dialogue with God.”
How do we hope to pray four to six hours a day in addition to the active life and prayer of the community?
Think of how many hours professional athletes and musicians spend practicing their craft. Through years of formation and discernment, the Daughters of the Immaculata will gradually learn to spend these many hours in prayer and to dedicate very little time to other things, including the use of digital media. Although some members will collaborate with professionals to produce media content, the community will guard our time for contemplation in joyful, discerning austerity.
What will we pray for these many hours?
We will be encouraged to spend these hours before Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament. We will pray the full Rosary every day, meditate on the Readings of the Day, and make an examination of conscience. Our Lord and our Lady will help guide us in formation of prayer, in accordance with God’s desire. A spirit of alacrity, core to our identity, will enable us to cultivate genuine cheerfulness and be profoundly rooted in joy.
Will we fast?
Since we hope to be called, by our proposed rule, which we hope will one day be approved by the Church, to be the delight and glory of God, our fasting will be primarily an adherence to that rule and our daily duties. We hope to live in fittingness; therefore, we will fast from something simple at each meal, with prudence. (Under our proposed rule, a superior would care for the health of each member and the good of the community, and would grant permission for any extraordinary fast.)
What will the active apostolate be?
We will serve the needs of the local Church, with attention to those furthest from Her heart. All of us will be well-trained and capable of helping the local Church in catechetical, teaching, and retreat capacities, but the Daughters of the Immaculata are firstly called to be prayer warriors for the local Church. Therefore, Daughters of the Immaculata will strive to discern what our Blessed Mother desires her daughters to do within the charism.
How will we support ourselves?
We will live on Divine Providence, but will live by the work Our Lady gives us. Generous, experienced benefactors are helping the Daughters of the Immaculata wisely lay the foundations for a sustainable apostolate that will support our primary focus: hours spent in prayer and the needs of the community, both daily and for formation.
Will there be a habit?
We hope so, but only if the Church permits it one day.
Provide for the spiritual needs of her children
We are called to be prayer warriors, and although some would be uncomfortable with such language, we are called in our Marian and Pauline Charism not to fight like we are shadow boxing, because the reward for knowing and following Our Lord Jesus is so great and glorious, and the converse is contrary to human flourishing. Therefore, we take passages like this one from Our Lord Jesus to Saint Faustina to be like clarion calls to us, who follow in the great line of women disciples of Jesus after Our Lady’s own Immaculate Heart: “But child, you are not yet in your homeland; so go, fortified by My grace, and fight for My kingdom in human souls; fight as a king’s child would; and remember that the days of your exile will pass quickly, and with them the possibility of earning merit for heaven. I expect from you, My child, a great number of souls who will glorify My mercy for all eternity.”
— Diary of Saint Faustina, 1489
Proposed Schedule - not approved
(Horarium)
3-7 am Possible time for prayer before the Most Blessed Sacrament
6:30 am Morning Prayer/Lauds & Mass
7:30 am End of Grand Silence with Breakfast
8:30 am Active apostolate, personal prayer, study, and lunch
6:00 pm Evening Prayer/Vespers
6:15 pm Supper & Recreation
7:00 pm Beginning of Grand Silence
7-10 pm Possible time for prayer before the Most Blessed Sacrament