Immaculate Heart Servants of Mary

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Immaculate Heart Servants of Mary

The Immaculate Heart Servants of Mary is a suborder within the Gnostic Order of Christ, an esoteric-Christian ordered community founded in 1988. Both the Gnostic Order and the Servants of Mary have attempted to recreate the life and structure of the former Holy Order of MANS that had been founded in 1968 by Fr. Paul Blighton. Fr. Blighton had a special devotion to the Virgin Mary and in 1972 was inspired to found the Immaculate Heart Servants of Mary. He drew together those females within the Holy Order who felt a special calling to devotion to and willingness to work with Mary in a healing ministry. In the message that Blighton received to found the suborder, his wife Ruth Blighton and Master Teacher Marian Linda Carter, generally known as Master M within the order, were to direct the training of the sisters.

In 1986, the members of the Immaculate Heart Sisters of Mary moved into the Greek Orthodox Missionary Archdiocese of Vasiloupolis and were effectively dissolved. Two years later, Jessica Catherine Burkhouse was moved to revive the Servants of Mary as part of the newly established Gnostic Order of Christ. On April 19, 1984, Sister Jessica was named a master teacher within the Holy Order, and Master M conferred a special Mantle of the Sisterhood on her. In June of 1988 Burkhouse attended a ceremony led by Indian Spiritual teacher Mata Amritanandamayi, during which a mantra was given to her. The use of the mantra evoked the memory of the Mantle of the Sisterhood. The sisterhood became a matter of meditation over the next months during which time the Gnostic Order of Christ was formally organized. Burkhouse also came into contact with another Order master teacher, Mary Elizabeth Hodges, who had had an apparition of the Virgin Mary.

Together Hodges and Burkhouse revived inspiration that the sisterhood should be reestablished as the Immaculate Heart Servants of Mary. The single word change was significant as the new suborder was to be for both men and women and open to all who felt a special devotion to Mary or had a calling to a special work with Mary. Especially it is for those who have a calling in the public sphere to work for the equal rights of women and children.

Those who wish to associate with the Servants of Mary are inducted with a special blessing ceremony and incorporate the meditations developed by the former sisterhood into their daily devotions. Hodges has also formed the Marian Order of Mary's Way, a group that is open to people who are not otherwise members of the Gnostic Order. The Immaculate Heart Servants of Mary may be contacted through the Gnostic Order of Christ, P.O. Box 8660, San Jose, CA 95155-8660. It has a website at http://www.Gnostic.net/ihsm/.