On July 4, 2026, five Novices of the Institute of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM) including three Ghanaians professed their first vows in Kenya.
Among them were a Liberian from the Divine Providence Region, and Vinusta Peris Alosiousa a Sri Lankan from SVP Region.
The ceremony, which began at 10:30 a.m. and drew to a close at approximately 3:30 p.m., was held at the Assunta School grounds within the Novitiate community, and brought together the young women from the Divine Providence Region, a region of the Institute that unites FMM Sisters serving across four nations: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, and Liberia.
With calm resolve and radiant joy, the five novices stepped forward to bind themselves, for the first time, to the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience according to the Constitutions of the Institute.
With the profession of their First Vows, they formally begin their journey of temporary profession within the Institute founded by Mary of the Passion.
Presiding over the Eucharistic celebration was Rev. Fr. Francis Kanyire, OFM Conv., of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, who serves as the newly appointed Vice Chancellor of Consolata University, Director of Franciscan Spirituality in Kenya,
and Director of the SAPIA Program at Tangaza University.
In his homily, Fr. Kanyire centred his message on three pillars and urged the newly professed and all present religious and Franciscans never to neglect: a committed prayer life, fidelity to community life, and a firm grounding in one’s identity as a Franciscan.
Fr. Kanyire concelebrated the Mass alongside Fr. Praveen, OMI, a formator at the postulancy, and Fr. Zoninou Komla Hubert, a Salesian of Don Bosco (SDB) and Director of Youth Educational Service (YES) Nairobi-Kenya.
Joining them at the altar was the Regional Superior of the FMM Divine Providence Region, Rev. Sr. Julia Mombo Pelenah, who received the vows of the novices on behalf of the Institute.
She callex each one of them by name, welcomed them into this new stage of consecrated life in the family of the Franciscan missionaries of Mary.
Sr. Pelenah gave a splendid address to the newly professed, and invited them to see how the FMM family has gathered around them to celebrate God’s faithful love and their generous response to this call through their self-offering to the Church and the Institute.
She also reminded the newly professed how they left home telling their parents that they wanted to become sisters, and how that thought became a reality as they have pronounced their vows declaring before the Church and the world that Jesus Christ is their greatest treasure.
The occasion drew some representatives from the Church family, including a Sister from another Religious Congregation, a faithful couple friends of the novitiate community journeyed to witness the profession of these “brave daughters of Blessed Mary of the Passion,” foundress of the Institute and a woman whose vision gave birth to a global mission of service to the poorest.
The timing of the celebration carries particular significance.
Religious vocations in many parts of the world continue to experience a marked decline, and while the African continent has not been wholly exempted from this trend, the decrease there has been comparatively gradual.
Against this backdrop, the profession of five new Novices was received not merely as a congregational milestone, but as a sign of hope, evidence, in the eyes of those gathered, of God’s continuing invitation to young people even in an age of uncertainty about religious life.
Following Holy Communion, Sr. Julia Mombo Pelena addressed the newly professed sisters with words of encouragement, affirming them as they stepped into this new chapter of consecrated life.
She then led the mission sending, announcing to each of the five sisters the community to which she would be assigned to begin her missionary apostolate a moment that gave concrete shape to the vows they had just pronounced, sending them out, in the spirit of Blessed Mary of the Passion, to the peripheries the Institute has always sought to serve.
Further speeches followed the final blessing, after which the gathered community moved into a time of photographs, shared lunch, and the presentation of gifts to the newly professed sisters, a fitting close to a day that had begun with prayer and unfolded into celebration.
For the Divine Providence Region and for the wider FMM family scattered across 74 countries in the spirit of universal mission first envisioned by Blessed Mary of the Passion, the day was one of quiet triumph.
The joy on the faces of the five young women, and of the sisters who accompanied them to this threshold, spoke to a deeper conviction shared across the congregation: that the call to consecrated missionary life, however diminished in visibility elsewhere, remains alive and answered.
As one Sister present remarked in the spirit of the celebration, “Where the harvest seems scarce, the Lord still sends labourers and today, we give thanks for five more hands answering His call.”
The five newly professed Sisters now begin their period of temporary vows, having already been sent to their respective mission fields, as they continue their formation within the Institute in preparation, in due course, for perpetual profession a lifelong commitment to the charism of universal mission bequeathed to them by Blessed Mary of the Passion.
By Sr. Joan Tore,
FMM ( Catholic Sister Communicators Network, Ghana – CASCON-GH)
