“For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when some of his sheep have been scattered abroad, so will I seek out my sheep; and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.” Ezekiel 34:11-12
This passage from Ezekiel is one of my favorite Scripture passages since I have always related to God as one of His sheep. In fact, my favorite image of God is Jesus the Good Shepherd. My religious name was inspired by my attraction to the merciful heart of the Good Shepherd shown by Jesus in the Gospels, and exemplified by my favorite saints, St. John Paul II and St. Maximilian Kolbe. I love this image of God who is always pursuing us, His helpless sheep. Jesus never gives up on us. He keeps pursuing us until we finally surrender to Him and allow Him to carry us on His shoulders and bring us home. My journey to becoming a Sister of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration can best be understood in light of my following the Good Shepherd as He has slowly revealed His mercy to me.
During my childhood and young adult life, I struggled to receive God’s mercy since I suffered from scrupulosity, perfectionism, and a false view of God as a taskmaster. My relationship with God was very formal – most of the time that I spent with Jesus was during prayer times such as Sunday mass, confession a few times a year, and a short time of personal prayer before going to bed each night. Unfortunately, I just didn’t see the need to invite Jesus into all of the details of the day-to-day reality of my life. That all changed when I went away to college. The stress of very demanding academic classes, and adjusting to life on my own for the first time, helped me to realize my need for God. It was then that I felt drawn to spend time daily in our campus chapel. I began to pray a holy hour every day in front of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and it was there that my friendship with Jesus truly developed. During my prayer time, I shared with Jesus my joys and sorrows, my concerns, and even the dreams that I had for my life.
As I progressed in my undergraduate career at Walsh University, the face of God as a taskmaster began to fade as I dove into Scripture and encountered merciful priests who revealed to me the heart of the Good Shepherd. It was precisely at this time, as I encountered the Lord’s mercy, that I was awakened to the possibility of a religious vocation. One night, my college chaplain shared with me that when he witnessed me praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament, he envisioned me in a religious habit. He felt that God wanted him to invite me to consider the religious life. I tried my best to forget the whole thing, but Father’s words kept coming to mind when I would pray. It was Fr. Chris who gave me a real experience of God’s mercy and challenged me to be open to the possibility that God is indeed merciful. The Dominican preaching that I was hearing at college simply was not consistent with the taskmaster view of God that I had formed in my imagination as a child. I also asked a wise priest to be my spiritual director as I pursued a lifelong relationship with Jesus in the religious life.
Throughout my discernment, I visited a few convents to get a feel for the different charisms and ministries of various religious communities. The Good Shepherd opened door after door by supplying me with generous benefactors to pay off my college loans and providing the grace for my parents to accept and support this decision. After a few years of discernment, I felt called to enter a monastic community and began formation there with much joy and peace. Unfortunately, after six months of growing closer to the Lord and being formed as a sister in that community, I found myself back home after leaving formation. My health had greatly deteriorated during my time of formation, and after much persuasion from my directress, I decided to return home to recover my health. Due to the heartbreak of not being able to pursue my heart’s desire of becoming a sister, I truly felt that Jesus had somehow rejected me, since He invited me to pursue a spousal relationship with Him and then left that desire unfulfilled. The most heartbreaking aspect was that I felt that my very gift of self was not accepted.
My family also suffered at this time. I had to aid my parents in processing their anger at the way that I was treated, and their grief at the apparent loss of my vocation. They had been adamantly opposed to my religious vocation at the beginning of my discernment, yet God so transformed their hearts through grace that they were the greatest supporters of my vocation when I began formation. The greatest consequence of this painful human experience was that I regressed to my belief that God really is a taskmaster since I felt that He allured me into an intimate relationship with Him and then left me at the altar. As all of these factors continued to weigh on me, I sunk into a deep depression, a darkness of unprecedented level in my life. Even though I didn’t feel close to Jesus during this time, I still maintained a consistent prayer life and through my heartbreak I actually learned to be more genuine with Jesus in my conversations with Him. I no longer tried to hide my anger and disappointment from Him. I laid my entire heart before Him and begged Jesus to help me make sense of it all. During one particularly clear moment in prayer I heard Jesus say in my heart “go to Poland.” So, I booked a trip to Poland and had many beautiful experiences there including celebrating Divine Mercy Sunday at St. Faustina’s shrine, praying in the home parish of St. John Paul II, and visiting St. Maximilian Kolbe’s martyrdom cell in Auschwitz (which had been a life-long dream of mine).
When I returned from my pilgrimage to “the land of mercy,” I began to witness God’s grace at work in my soul in powerful ways. A new hope began to well up within me as I started to realize that difficulties, disappointments, and seeming failures, are not barriers to friendship with Jesus. I finally realized that God had not rejected me. In fact, by teaching me to cling to Him in prayer in the midst of complete darkness, Jesus was actually offering me an opportunity to build an even stronger friendship with Him. Throughout all of this time, even in the midst of my confusion, doubt, and depression, God’s call was still firmly planted in my heart. In fact, this desire to give myself entirely to God was the very source of my pain since I could not see a way that that call would be lived out.
One day, my best friend from college told me about our Franciscan community and urged me to come and visit. After a few years of strengthening my relationship with the Lord through much prayer, frequent reception of the Sacraments, and solid spiritual direction, the Lord gave me the courage to pursue religious life a second time. I had no idea how prophetic my college chaplain’s words would become – I literally entered a religious community whose entire focus is to adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament! How fitting that my vocation was revealed to me while adoring the Lord in the Eucharist and that I would spend the rest of my life in this very occupation, interceding day and night on behalf of the needs of the Church and the world. As my mother foundress, Blessed Maria Theresia says “in heaven we continue what already here on earth is the most cherished work of our grateful hearts: the adoration of God.” Along with participating in our primary charism of Perpetual Adoration, I have also been assigned to active apostolates throughout my time as a junior sister.
I was sent to study Graduate Theology at Franciscan University for two years after my first profession of vows. In the designs of Providence, I was blessed to take two scriptural courses from Dr. Scott Hahn which significantly contributed to my understanding of the utter depths of God’s merciful love. One of the major themes of Scripture that kept popping up was “hesed,” the mercy of God, with the particular focus of how that hesed operates through God’s covenants. As Dr. Hahn taught us salvation history through tracing the covenants, I was amazed to uncover God’s passionate love for His creatures. Dr. Hahn lit a fire in my soul; he challenged me to believe in God’s goodness and in His tender-hearted love for me as an individual. I am immensely grateful to God for blessing me with those two years of study at Franciscan University. I can’t think of a better way to have been formed in the heart and mind of the Church from the very beginning of my vowed life. After graduating from Franciscan, I was assigned to teach Mathematics at Marian High School here in Mishawaka. It has been such a gift to get back into teaching and to minister to the students at Marian. I continue to follow the Good Shepherd as He leads me towards my Final Profession in 2022.
“Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His mercy endures forever.”