World Vocation Day of Prayer ~ An Unexpected Vocation

Greetings,

Every sister's call to follow Christ to our community is unique. Some sisters felt their religious call from a young age while others were surprised by God after college or career. In honor of the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, we are sharing Sister Ann's vocation story.

My story is probably unique in that I joined the Benedictines to prove that I didn't have a vocation,  that God wasn't calling me, and that I would leave the community as soon as God and they were satisfied that I wasn't cut out to be a nun.

At the time I was sure that convent life was not for me.  It seems, however, that God had other plans.   Some of my former teachers, especially Sister Celestine Comeau, who taught me in fourth, fifth, and seventh grades,  kept counseling me even after I had graduated from eight years of elementary school where all my eight teachers were Yankton Benedictine nuns—insisting that she saw the nun in me.

She shared that feeling with  Mother Jerome Schmitt who, when she visited the Sisters teaching in Aberdeen,  would then call me to visit briefly with her while I was in high school—always encouraging me to consider life as a Benedictine.  She had been told, it seems, that I was also very interested in going to college to qualify for teacher certificate.

We talked, and I kept postponing a decision.  When I graduated in 1945 and had been offered a scholarship to a Minnesota Catholic college, I knew I had to try out life there, even if briefly—just to prove to others and myself that I didn't belong.   That was seventy years ago, and I’m still here.  God and they knew better I guess.  I know today that the choice was the right one for me.  I have no regrets that I made the choice to remain.

The community and the daily prayer and Mass schedule plus I did get that college and even higher education and spent forty-eight years teaching—the last forty at our college here.  I can’t picture my life being so fulfilling elsewhere. 

Sister Ann's unique story continued to draw her closer to Christ and our Benedictine traditions throughout her ministry as a teacher and professor of Church history and author of Benedictine history. Her perseverance in seeking God's call has been a blessing to us all.

Blessings to all as you discern God's call in your life...