A sample of the Rule
The opening of the Rule. The whole document, with the Guide and the parish information sheet, is shared with any parish that asks.
A word to you
When the angel came to Nazareth, he did not find Mary at the Temple. He found her at home, in a small town, in an ordinary day. God asked her to receive His Son, and her answer changed the world: "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord."
You are being asked something similar. Not to do something small, but to say yes in the place where you already are: your parish, your family, your school. The world will tell you that hidden work is wasted work. The Gospel says the opposite. The most important thing ever done in this world - the Incarnation - began with a young woman's yes, spoken where no one was watching.
No one becomes a woman of God alone. You need sisters who will pray with you, work beside you, tell you the truth, and call you higher. That is what this sisterhood is for.
Our story: the women who cared for the Body
The Handmaids do not borrow their story from a legend. It is written in the Gospels.
- Mary wrapped the newborn Body of Christ in swaddling cloths and laid Him in a manger (Luke 2:7). The first hands to care for Him were a young woman's.
- At Cana, Mary noticed what everyone else missed - "they have no wine" - and brought the need to her Son (John 2:3). Attentiveness is a form of love.
- The women of Galilee followed Jesus and "ministered to Him out of their means" (Luke 8:3). They stayed at the Cross when nearly everyone else had fled (Mark 15:40-41).
- The myrrh-bearing women watched where His Body was laid, prepared spices and ointments, rested on the Sabbath, and came at dawn to care for Him (Luke 23:55-24:1). Because they came to care for the Body, they were the first to hear that He is risen.
The Church has never forgotten them. St. Clare of Assisi, even when illness kept her in bed, sewed corporals and altar linens and sent them to the poor churches around Assisi. For centuries, women religious and parish altar societies have washed, mended, and pressed the linens that hold the Body and Blood of the Lord. The Handmaids take up that same work.
Every Sunday, a corporal is unfolded on our altar. Its name comes from corpus, the Body, and Christian tradition has long seen in it the linen of the tomb. When a Handmaid washes and presses that cloth, she stands in the line of the women who came at dawn. The same women carried the Word. Mary received the Word of God into her own life when she answered, "be it done unto me according to thy word." At the empty tomb, the risen Lord sent Mary Magdalene and the other women to announce His Resurrection to the apostles (Matthew 28:7-10; John 20:17-18), and the Church has long honored Magdalene as the apostle to the apostles. When a Handmaid proclaims the readings at Mass, she stands where they stood: a woman who has first received the Word, and then carries it to others.
Why "Keepers of the Lamp"
Three lamps stand behind the name.
- The lamp before the Lord. God commanded that a lamp burn continually before Him in the tent of meeting, kept from evening to morning (Exodus 27:20-21). The Church keeps that command today: a special lamp burns continuously before every tabernacle where the Eucharist is reserved, to show and to honor the presence of Christ (Code of Canon Law, can. 940). Handmaids help keep that lamp lit, keep the sanctuary ready, and keep the Lord attended in prayer.
- The lamps of the wise virgins. The wise virgins kept oil in their lamps, so they were ready when the Bridegroom came (Matthew 25:1-13). A Handmaid keeps her own lamp filled with prayer and the sacraments.
- The lamp each Handmaid receives. At the Rite of the Lamp, her lamp is lit and placed in her hands, and from that day she carries a light that is not her own.
A keeper is not an owner. She guards what belongs to Someone else, faithfully, whether or not anyone is watching. That is the whole vocation of a Handmaid.
The Handmaids are not a club, a committee, or a service-hours program. The sisterhood belongs to its members and is run by them. The chaplain and the consœurs (the women of the parish who mentor the Handmaids) guide, teach, and support - they do not run the chapter.
Ask us and we will send you the full Rule and the Guide to read.
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