Three Sisters, one mission: Why a growing religious community chose southeastern Mass.

Can you pray for me?

Mother Marla Marie Lucas has become used to hearing that question during her trips to the grocery store or gas station.

People notice the gray habit she wears and approach her with questions or requests for intervention with the Almighty. Some share news of a recent illness. Others ask her to pray for a family member or a difficult situation. 

For Mother Marla Marie and the two other Maronite Servants of Christ the Light sisters, their paths did not always seem destined for the small convent in North Dartmouth, just off Tucker Road. But these encounters have become part of their ministry at the first Maronite convent in the United States — part of the growing Maronite Church, an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the pope.

Mother Marla Marie grew up in New York in the 1960s. She went on to study journalism and political science at George Washington University before working as an editorial research assistant at The Washington Post. She imagined graduate school, marriage and children.

“I wanted to go to grad school eventually. I wanted to get married. I wanted to have kids. I had a career,” she said. 

Then, while shopping in Georgetown with her younger siblings, she met two Catholic nuns selling books. They invited her to a retreat and asked whether she had ever thought about becoming a nun. “Oh no, Sister,” she remembered telling them. “Not me.” 

When she explained that she wasn’t worthy, one of the sisters answered simply: “Oh Marla, no one is worthy.” The conversation stayed with her. “I wanted to help others,” Mother Marla Marie said. “I wanted to spread the truth through journalism, but this is even better.” 

She entered religious life as a Parish Visitor of Mary Immaculate in 1983. “I willingly offered my hopes and dreams,” she said. All these years later, she reflected: “I wouldn’t trade it. I wouldn’t trade it.”

Maronites trace their origins to St. Maron, a Syrian monk who lived during the fourth century. His followers formed a religious community that eventually became known as the Maronite Church. Throughout its history, the church has remained in communion with Rome while maintaining its own identity and customs. Today, the church recognizes the authority of the pope and shares the same Catholic faith, but preserves its own liturgy, traditions, and spirituality, which developed in the Middle East and are rooted in the West Syriac tradition. 

The country most closely associated with the Maronite Church is Lebanon, and Mother Marla Marie is of Lebanese descent. Her grandparents emigrated from Lebanon in 1905, just after the Maronite Church first established itself in the United States, during a wave of Lebanese migration in the late 19th century. 

Today there are seven Maronite parishes in Massachusetts and about 80 across the country, serving roughly 75,000 Maronite Catholics. Church leaders say that continued immigration from the Middle East, along with growing interest in the church’s ancient traditions, has contributed to its growth in recent decades.

Despite Maronite expansion across the United States, there was still no active Maronite community for women in the United States when Mother Marla Marie took her vows. Young women discerning religious life often joined Roman Catholic communities or traveled overseas to become Maronite sisters. 

That changed in 2008, when Bishop Gregory Mansour invited her to establish the country’s first active community of Maronite religious sisters. She founded the Maronite Servants of Christ the Light in North Dartmouth, where the sisters could serve the South Coast’s longstanding Maronite community. Today, their ministry centers on Our Lady of Purgatory Maronite Catholic Church in New Bedford, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2017, and St. Anthony of the Desert Maronite Catholic Church in Fall River, which will celebrate its centennial in 2030.

“God brought us to this area because this is exactly where he wanted us,” she said.

The three Dartmouth sisters from worlds apart

The large white Colonial-style house on Tucker Road serves as the convent and home for Dartmouth’s three Maronite sisters. Four chimneys rise above the broad roofline, and white columns frame the front entrance. The neighbor’s chickens and a bay mare live along the outskirts of the property. 

The property dates back to Colonial times when it was used by farming families. In the mid-1800s, the property was purchased by the Prescott family, who built the large home that’s still standing today. The Prescotts lived there until the middle of the 1900s, when a group of Dominican Sisters purchased it and resided there until 2008, when the Maronite Church established the convent.

Off the busy road, the convent is quiet and secluded. Large trees and shrubs form a comforting canopy and rustle in floating breezes. Once inside, a sitting room greets visitors, and to the left is a small chapel that smells of incense. The tabernacle containing the Eucharist is the focal point of the room. It is here that the sisters begin each day in quiet prayer. 

Although only three sisters currently live at the convent, their ministry reaches throughout southeastern Massachusetts and across the Maronite Eparchy of Saint Maron — the church jurisdiction that oversees Maronite parishes throughout Massachusetts and much of the eastern United States. The sisters use the convent as a base from which they teach religious education, organize Bible camps and youth retreats, visit nursing homes, assist at St. Anthony’s Food Pantry in New Bedford, and travel wherever priests ask for help.

“Our mission is to be spiritual mothers in our parishes,” says Mother Marla Marie.

That mission has brought together three women whose paths to Dartmouth began thousands of miles apart.

Sister Therese Maria Touma’s journey began in Sydney, Australia. Raised in a Maronite family, she earned a business degree and started a career in accounting before attending a retreat that changed her direction.

Although she had begun building a career, something felt incomplete. “I felt very empty,” she said, “and realized that God made me for something different.” 

After attending a retreat, she spent an extended visit at the convent in 2008 before deciding to enter the community. She joined in 2010 and professed her final vows in 2017. “I try to see religious life as an adventure with Jesus; it’s a joy, and definitely a learning curve where we constantly rely on God’s help,” she said. “Never are we done yet.”

She smiled while describing what she enjoys most. “I love being with the people and sharing our faith.”

Unlike the other sisters, Sister Emily Mary Lattouf’s path to the convent began closest to Tucker Road. Raised in Brockton and Norton, she first met Mother Marla Marie in 2009 when the founder visited her parish youth group to speak about religious life.

In this encounter, Mother Marla Marie had described religious sisters as “spiritual mothers,” women who give up marriage and biological children to devote themselves to caring for others through prayer and ministry.

“That concept really touched my heart,” Sister Emily Mary said. “I always wanted to be religious, but I always wanted to be a mother as well. It really touched my heart because I thought, ‘I can be both.’”

She stayed in contact with the sisters for years, volunteering with the community while earning her degree from the University of Massachusetts Boston. After graduating and spending time in the workforce, she traveled to Lebanon, where she decided to enter religious life. She joined the Maronite Servants in 2019.

How the faithful spend their days

Daily life at the convent follows a steady rhythm. The sisters spend about four hours each day in communal prayer. The rest of the day is divided among study, household responsibilities, recreation, and ministry. Some days, they prepare lessons for religious education classes. Their work outside the house involves traveling to parishes, visiting residents at The Residence at Cedar Dell, helping at St. Anthony’s Food Pantry, and conducting retreats.

“We’re very approachable,” Sister Therese Maria said. “We’re not just some distant community. … We’re very involved.”

Every summer, the sisters lead Bible camps for children in Maronite parishes. The days are filled with games, crafts, music, meals and Bible stories, all woven together with prayer and time in the church for Eucharistic adoration. By the end, the sisters are exhausted but grateful.

The relationships often continue long after camp ends. Sister Therese Maria said children who once attended Bible camp now return as adults with families of their own.

Some of the sisters’ most memorable encounters happen away from church. Mother Marla Marie remembers standing at a gas pump when someone approached and said, “Sister, my mother’s ill.”

“We prayed right then and there,” she said.

Another day, a man they had never met stopped them in a Lowe’s parking lot.

“He handed each of us $20,” Mother Marla Marie recalled. “He said, ‘I want to thank you for everything you do. You are appreciated. … I’m not Catholic, but I appreciate you.’” The encounter happened on the anniversary of the community’s founding. “It was such an affirmation for us,” Sister Emily Mary said. Those moments remind them why they wear the habit.

“When they stop us, it reminds us that we are a sign for them. A sign of hope, a sign of comfort.”

People often tell the sisters things they have never shared before. “They just want us to listen,” Mother Marla Marie said. “It’s really a privilege to be invited into that sacred part of their life.” 

The sisters say their years in southeastern Massachusetts have deepened their appreciation for the region’s cultural traditions and the relationships they have formed across communities.

“I love this area,” Sister Therese Maria said. “It’s so culturally diverse.”

Rather than seeing those differences as something that divides people, Sister Emily Mary said they have found them to be a source of unity. “It’s very unifying and strengthening,” she said. “Just because we have different traditions doesn’t mean we can’t come together and pray together and strengthen each other.”