Then and Now

Sister Joan Chicoine, IHM

Joan was born in Barton, Vermont, and spent her early years in Lebanon, where the family moved due to her father’s job. She attended grade school in Sidon, Lebanon, in a one-room schoolhouse overlooking a refugee camp. Seeing the realities of extreme poverty instilled in Joan a lasting desire to help people.

In Sidon and later during high school in Beirut, Joan experienced the Muslim call to prayer, sung from minarets five times a day. Each time, thousands of people stopped and began to pray. “Although in a different language and culture, the call invited me to prayer too. It invited me into a deeper oneness with God,” says Joan. After high school, Joan attended the University of Vermont in Burlington, earning a B.A. in Music Education. For several years, Joan taught in a New York state public school. “It was very fulfilling to help students experience music and its ability to transcend the everyday and touch into the divine.” Joan went on to attend Boston University College of Fine Arts, earning a M.A. in Music with a major in Voice. She was later awarded a singing fellowship from the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts. For a number of years, Joan soloed as a vocalist with chamber groups, choral groups and small orchestras and performed as a recitalist in Boston and New York.

Being a professional musician was very challenging, says Joan, but also very fulfilling. “Music, like all the arts, is a powerful place of encounter with the divine, a place of hope and new life—not only for those who create music but also for all who experience it.” After her career as a performer, Joan attended Boston College where she earned a M.A. in Counseling Psychology and opened a private practice for artists of all kinds. She also trained in analytical psychology. In Jungian ideas about the conscious and unconscious mind, the inner and outer worlds, and the world of symbols and dreams, Joan found new ways to grow in oneness with God and help others do so as well. Joan began considering religious life on a trip to the Caribbean, where she worked among impoverished St. Thomas islanders after a devastating hurricane destroyed what little they had. Joan later attended a vocation retreat and was encouraged to contact the IHMs in Monroe. “I visited the IHMs and was drawn to the ways that they expressed the liberating mission of Jesus in their lives. I also resonated with IHM ideas about prayer, contemplation, God and social justice.” After entering the congregation, Joan established a private practice as a Jungian psychotherapist, working with people to explore the depths of their lives. Joan reflects on her IHM life with a spirit of gratitude. “I am thankful to my community for the time and space to listen deeply to God within myself and in music, symbols and dreams, and to walk with others in their spiritual journeys.”