Love for Neighbor & Mutual Love

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Bob Cummings

Driven by a lifelong call to community, discipleship, and love of neighbor, Bob Cummings has dedicated more than three decades to ministry, spiritual formation, and vocational guidance across the globe.

Originally from New York and raised in the Chicago suburbs, Bob holds a degree in Finance from the University of Illinois. At the age of 15, his family encountered the Work of Mary, an encounter that profoundly shaped his understanding of Christian life and community. During his college years, he responded to a personal call to give his life completely to God as a consecrated member of the Work of Mary.

Following college, Bob spent three years in intensive formation in Italy and Switzerland. He continued his theological and spiritual formation through studies at the Mystici Corporis Institute, as well as through the ongoing formation offered by Lifelong Marian Internal University of the Work of Mary, the movement’s learning formation program dedicated to deepening the theological, spiritual, and cultural foundations of its charism as he continues to grow in his vocation as a consecrated person.

His subsequent assignments have taken him around the world, where he has accompanied people of many backgrounds, with a particular passion for youth and young adults. In Los Angeles, he combined a career in mortgage banking with extensive youth ministry. He later spent seven years in upstate New York directing an international program dedicated to forming young adults in the spirituality of the Work of Mary, followed by six years in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he served in youth ministry and worked as a trilingual translator.

Returning to the Midwest, Bob served the young adult community in Chicago and worked at the Lumen Christi Institute at the University of Chicago. In 2018, he moved to Corpus Christi, where he established a parish-based Work of Mary house, served as a parish youth minister, and was appointed Diocesan Vocation Director at the request of the bishop.

Today, Bob continues his mission of helping people recognize God’s call in their lives. He recently helped establish a new men’s Work of Mary house in Houston and serves as Associate Director in the Vocations Office for the Archdiocese.

Throughout his life and ministry, Bob has sought to make the love of Christ concrete in his relationships with others. His experience of consecrated life, community, youth ministry, vocational accompaniment, and ongoing formation has taught him that love of neighbor becomes most fully alive when we choose to love one another with the very love with which Christ loves us. It is this lived experience that Bob brings to his reflection on Love of Neighbor and Mutual Love.

Claire Seibert

Claire Seibert brings together a rich professional, spiritual, and intercultural experience to her work of evangelization and Christian formation. Born in Towanda, a small rural town in northeastern Pennsylvania, Claire was raised in a family where her Catholic mother and Methodist father lived a committed and loving ecumenical dialogue, deeply inspired by the spirituality of unity of The Work of Mary. From an early age, Claire was drawn to the Gospel and particularly to the practical way of loving others expressed through the Art of Loving.

As a young person, Claire participated in youth programs of The Work of Mary and continued to seek ways of putting the Gospel into practice throughout her university years. She studied Physical Therapy at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, earning her Doctorate of Physical Therapy in 2009.

Following her studies, Claire felt called to dedicate her life to God as a consecrated layperson in The Work of Mary. She spent two years in the small town of The Work of Mary in Hyde Park, New York, followed by two years near Florence, Italy, at the international formation center of The Work of Mary, where she lived alongside young people from cultures and countries around the world and received a Certificate of Religious Studies in 2014.

During her years of formation in Italy, Claire also pursued theological and spiritual formation at the Mystici Corporis Institute, deepening her understanding of the Church, spirituality, and the Christian vocation to live in communion with others. As a consecrated member of The Work of Mary, her formation did not end with her years of initial preparation. She continues to participate in the Internal University of The Work of Mary, an ongoing program of spiritual, theological, and human formation that accompanies consecrated members throughout their entire lives.

Claire then spent three years in Rome, dedicating herself particularly to accompanying and forming teenagers within The Work of Mary.

In 2017, Claire returned to the United States and moved to The Work of Mary community in Chicago. Alongside her commitment to the community, she worked as a physical therapist at Humboldt Park Health, serving underserved communities and contributing to efforts focused on health equity. Her ministry with young people, particularly teens and pre-teens throughout the Midwest, continued to be an important part of her life.

Since 2024, Claire has been part of The Work of Mary community in Houston, where she works with young adults and assists in developing opportunities for discernment, helping young people encounter its spirituality of unity and grow in their relationship with God and others. She also continues her professional vocation as a physical therapist in an outpatient clinic in the Heights, where she is pursuing specialization in spine health.

Throughout her life, Claire has sought to unite faith with concrete service, discovering that love of God becomes real in the way we recognize, welcome, serve, and accompany the person before us. Her experience of living the Gospel in family, professional, community, and international settings, together with her ongoing theological and spiritual formation, has given her a particular appreciation for love of neighbor and mutual love as a way of building genuine Christian community and making Christ present among us.

For the Embers project, Claire will join Bob Cummings in presenting “Love of Neighbor and Mutual Love,” inviting participants not simply to learn about Christian love, but to discover how the Gospel can become a lived reality in our everyday relationships.