Healing Love
It was Holy Week and we were coming in hot from another intense Lenten season. Our family had received some challenging news two days before, and we were all still reeling quite a bit. But, we were just upon the Triduum, my favorite three-day stretch, so I had renewed hope.
As I was driving to an appointment that Holy Thursday morning, my phone rang and it was my mom. I quickly sent it to voicemail and three seconds later, it rang again. I hurriedly parked the van and answered the phone. My heart was not ready for her news.
Through choked sobs and half-sentences my mom shared that her 91-year-old father, my beloved Papa, had passed away unexpectedly. He was in perfect health, living independently, so we were all devastated. All my life he had been my biggest cheerleader, loving me so well.
I canceled my appointment, called my husband and shared the news and told him there was one stop I needed to make before coming home.
At the time, Dominican Sisters lived just around the corner from us, across the street from our two Catholic schools. I pulled into the convent driveway faster than I should have and marched straight to the front door. The Sisters had seen me coming and held the door open as I fell into their arms, sobbing. We all made our way to the convent chapel. As I knelt before the tabernacle, one Sister took her place beside me, while three others laid their hands on my shoulders and head, and we all prayed and wept together.
Quite literally, they sat with me in my grief, and it was easily one of the most profoundly moving spiritual experiences of my life. To really be held, seen, and loved on one of my hardests days reshaped me. Those Sisters were like firefighters, running straight into the blaze of suffering and pain with me. It was beautiful and it was hard.
As I dried my tears after going through an entire box of tissues, one of them grasped me by the shoulders. She taught one of my children, so she knew our family in a special way. “No one loves you as completely as a grandparent,” she said lovingly.
Sometimes we don’t see how God heals us until we look back, but in that moment, I was given a glimpse of what it must’ve been like for Jesus to be held by His mother. These Sisters have given me new eyes for Mary, the mother of Jesus, allowing me to love them both with even greater depth. Jesus never wastes a moment to show us His love and for me, it came in the arms of a Dominican sister.
Completely Themselves
I used to cry when I saw nuns. I know it sounds weird, but my heart would be so moved by their natural beauty, kind smiles, and joyful dispositions that I had no other option than to ugly cry and unsuccessfully try to compose myself. When I was twenty years old, I visited a cloistered convent with my teammates from the National Evangelization Teams Ministries (NET Ministries) and was completely undone! I met a nun with braces! BRACES! I just thought that Sisters had to deal with bad teeth because braces are expensive and they take a vow of poverty. Through the grates, the Sisters laughed and whispered to one another and I realized that Sisters have inside jokes! Of course they observe times of silence, but they also live in community and actually enjoy each other’s company. And to top it off, when one of my teammates did a backflip the Sisters cheered as if their team won the Superbowl! Beyond the applause, “Ooh!” and “Aah” filled the room . . . along with my sobs!
I was a mess around these Sisters because I wanted to be one. I wanted to be the Sister so in love with Jesus that it was written on my face. I wanted to be the Sister who was willing to surrender everything to the Lord and also receive care from Him through my community. I wanted to be the Sister who recognized that community life was going to be difficult but not without joy and laughter. I wanted to be the Sister who was completely herself with women who were completely themselves, all for the glory of God!
I no longer cry (all the time) when I see Sisters, but the internal effect is still the same. Sisters are a witness to me of what a life, as a religious sister or a lay woman, should look like. They are not ethereal, supernatural, perfect beings. Sisters are normal women who love God, and through their relationship with Him, exude confidence, joy, love, and learn how to thrive in community.
You probably don’t cry when you see a nun, but what do you experience when you see a Religious Sister or visit a religious community? How is your heart and mind moved? What can their presence teach you about who God is, how He wants to encounter you, and how He wants you to encounter Him?
Seen and Loved
We wrapped up the interview, originally scheduled for just ten minutes, but we’d gone thirty. Sister Veritas quickly took off the headset mic, and as I thanked her for taking the time, she gently touched my arm and said, “You’re really good at this.”
“Oh, thanks, Sister,” I quickly replied.
She leaned in, held my eyes for a moment, and said it again, “Katie, please hear this. You are gifted in this area, and thank you for doing it.”
After a half hour of fruitful and fulfilling conversation about her vocation story and discernment and religious life in the Sisters of Life, Sister Veritas was thanking me for asking the right questions and listening to her answers. And she was determined that I hear her affirmation.
I felt seen. And loved. This Sister, noticing and gently complimenting me, but making sure I didn’t just brush it off and move on too quickly, she wanted me to feel cared for at that moment.
And really, every moment since when I’m in the presence of a Sister of Life, whether at an event or when I’ve visited my own sister in formation as a postulant with the community, I’ve felt their unique gift to make the person right in front of them feel like the most important person in the room. They cherish the men and women they are with and genuinely love them by being fully present to them in that moment. These women have never been hurried or rushed. They see someone for all that they are, affirm what they see is good and beautiful, and invite us all to do the same whenever we can.
Called by the Same Name
After making note of every trim and fixture in the hallways, I stumbled into the dining room. Big questions loomed on all of our minds, but the ones here seemed manageable. I filled my mug with coffee, not tea. Let’s have one, no, two individual servings of vanilla cream. With mug in hand, I searched the room for a welcoming smile. This was the first “Bethany Brunch” in this new old house. Trying not to spill my coffee, I joined a group of women in conversation, eager to make friends and deepen my own discernment while hoping I could keep my bubbling hanger (hunger + anger) to myself.
One of the women in our group asked the Los Angeles Carmelite Sister in our circle, “How did you get your name?” Each community receives their religious name differently. Often, the soon-to-be Sister submits three names for the community to decide on. Sometimes she can submit her baptismal name as one of them. Like changing one’s name when someone gets married, it’s another sign that a Sister has given their whole life for Christ.
My jaw began to dig into my upper teeth.
In recent years, I have come to love my baptismal name. My first name comes from a tree whose leaves crowned Olympians and poets in Ancient Greece. The middle name took second place because my parents couldn’t agree on the nickname they would call me if it were my first name. Now that I knew my name represented a victor’s crown, how could I give it up?
With a little less than a breath after her story ended, the concern burst out of me. Face unchanged, her eyes met mine. “What’s your name?” When I told her, a smile spread across her face. “That’s my baptismal name too!”
My mouth remained open as she reached into her bag and handed me her driver’s license, which still had her baptismal name on it. I smiled in surprise. Even the spellings matched.
To this day, this moment makes me smile. I am grateful to have encountered a Sister who had the same concerns as me during her discernment. It was also a sign that the Lord knew where my heart was and continued to meet me there during my discernment. Every day, God sends His brides into our lives and creates these big little moments to remind us that we’re not alone.
Fidelity in Love
I heard her wheelchair coming closer before I saw her. But I knew who to expect. It was time for my weekly Holy Hour and her time to tend to the altar.
When she reached the foot of the altar, she slowly lifted herself from the wheelchair and steadily bowed her head toward the monstrance. Over sixty years His bride and she never lost her awe of Him.
The oldest Carmelite in my town was a well-beloved figure although her life was mostly hidden. Those who were graced with her occasional presence spoke of her peace, joy, and warmth. For years, I was gifted this quiet presence from my pew.
On this day, as usual, my eyes followed her as she rearranged the floral bouquets next to the statues of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Joseph. She removed dead stems and leaves and fluffed the remaining flowers still in their fullness. As she moved about her work, she subtly reached out to touch the foot of the Marian statue: a humble hello to the handmaid and a reliance on her for physical support.
She exchanged the altar candles burnt low with fresh ones that rivaled her height. She caught my glance and smiled her maternal smile. I can still close my eyes and see it.
During this season of our overlapping time in the adoration chapel, I was a young wife and new mother. My life had been radically changed by this entrance into my vocation and the unfamiliar demands of being someone’s source of nutrition and nurture. Uncertainty and fatigue plagued my mind. These Holy Hours mostly consisted of me begging Jesus to show me the way in this new world while nodding off in my exhaustion. And, of course, Sister.
Amongst her duties as a religious, Sister was tasked with caring for the residents of the nursing home run by the Carmelites. Residents and their families entrusted themselves to her medical knowledge and her heavenly wisdom. I entrusted myself to her example.
Witnessing the way she cared for the altar of adoration radically shaped my understanding of my role in my home. I could have completed her tasks on the altar in half the time she did; yet each of her movements overflowed with an intentionality motivated by love and not by lists.
Nearly a decade later, I return to those moments in the chapel when I need to be reminded of the purpose of my own vocation. These short, seemingly insignificant moments of quiet interaction with Sister refocuses my mind and reorients my heart toward the One I serve.
I must slow down. I must look at Him with love. I must rely on Our Lady. I must prune the flowers and keep the light burning. I must smile. Day after day. And through this fidelity, modeled to me by Sister, I will offer Jesus my continual adoration.
A Mothering of the Spirit
My daughter’s hands slipped into hers. Our guest made her way towards her sandals at the door. Her fellow Sisters did likewise. My daughter held onto that special moment with the sticky grip of a child who has also spent the evening handling her ice cream cone. This cheery group of women passed through the doorway onto the front porch, enjoying the lingering Midwest goodbye. The six-year-old, still sure that she would go home with our friends, trotted out to their passenger van. Last photo taken, last hugs pressed heart to heart, last goodbye waves as their van eased out onto the busy intersection and was gone.
“Why can’t they stay forever?” she asked after bath time, after the chaos of all five kids being bathed and de-ice creamed had settled into bedtime stories and dimmed lights. “I want them to come tomorrow,” piped in our nine-year-old son, “just so we can have ice cream two days in a row.”
These beloved women weren’t long-time friends, extended family, or even moms our kids knew from school. They were brand-new friends we met by chance after daily Mass and invited spur-of-the-moment to share dinner with us, Sisters who don’t even live in our city. Yet they felt like forever friends because they were religious sisters. And religious sisters fit differently into the heart.
I’m a wife and mom to five kids, a lay woman, a cradle Catholic, the kind who shops at bulk food stores and wears sensible flat shoes in her middle years. I’m active with moms’ groups at our parochial school, surrounded by close friends and family members also raising children, living down the block from my own beloved mother. I have no lack of moms in my day-to-day.
And yet, my understanding of motherhood has taken new root and blossomed since religious and consecrated women stepped into my life over the past five years. I am a different mother. They mother me through the prayer poured into our friendship, my heart’s opening to being the Beloved of Jesus, and the encouragement to present my fiat to the Father alongside their own.
For our children, the presence of women religious has done more than open their eyes to this sometimes hidden call to become a Bride of Christ. Yes, it has prompted many of those conversations about a vocation to religious life. But a generalized notion of vocation feels distant and a bit vague compared with hearing that God called this particular woman to Him. They begin to believe that He has a particular call for their lives, too.
And our God is a God of particulars, isn’t He? He is a God of specifics. He is incarnate and delights in His creation, in our every quirk and heartbeat.
In this instance and through this encounter, our youngest daughter knew that she liked these three Sisters after dining with them in our dining room. Our room filled with icons, beeswax candles flickering because of the toddler’s breath, food passed on plates, some room temp and some too salty. She knew she wanted her sticky hand in Sister Therese Marie’s after hearing her stories about college soccer that led to a knee injury that led to campus ministry that led to Our Lord asking her to be His Own. She felt the love of God pouring out of this vibrant young Sister and she wanted to draw near, hang on with her ice-creamed hand.
And my little lesson from an evening of Sisters’ laughter, chanted Evening Prayer together in our upstairs prayer room, and that lingering goodbye was once again that to mother well, to love with our feminine hearts well, is to tend to the particular person in front of you. To listen and respond personally, to share and consider what would give delight, and to be wholly and truly present, mind and heart. A mothering that extends beyond childrearing. A mothering of the spirit.
My husband and I marvel at the gift of religious sisters in our lives. We want every family to feel the encouragement of their presence for children and parents alike. The Church needs these Brides of Christ in order to see in each woman a particular reflection of the Bridegroom’s love. And then to trust that He holds the same personal passion for each of us.
Cultivating Trust
It was the spring semester of my junior year in college. I was studying abroad in the beautiful city of Rome. The entire semester was an experience unlike any I had had before and, I believe, ever will have. Each day I walked the ancient streets of the Eternal City and passed by beautiful churches containing the bones of saints I’d heard of since I was a child. I studied at the same university so many brilliant theological minds had attended. I was living with about thirty other students who, to this day, are still some of my closest friends. My semester abroad was everything I wanted it to be.
A few weeks into the semester, our study abroad group received an invitation. My fellow classmates and I were invited to work with a community of women religious called “The Little Sisters of the Lamb” once a week in their garden. Many of us decided to go the first week. When we arrived, the Sisters greeted us with so much joy. They showed us to their chapel where we prayed for a brief time before they took us to the garden. The garden, which they had recently inherited, was expansive and in much need of tending. We joined the Sisters in weeding, clearing, and harvesting. To conclude our time together, the Sisters shared some refreshments before sending us on our way.
I returned to the Sisters week after week, every Wednesday, regardless of how many of my classmates went. I relished the quiet of their garden, the feel of manual labor. Through a mix of English, Italian, and a little French, I grew to know the Sisters. They shared where they were from and about their days interacting with the poor of Rome. By the end of my semester, the Little Sisters of the Lamb had entrenched themselves in my heart. Their impact on my life was an unexpected grace that I have been immensely blessed by.
What was this grace I experienced by being with the Little Sisters of the Lamb? Well, the grace was twofold. First, through my time with them, I developed an indifference to the will of God. I was blessed with this indifference because the Little Sisters of the Lamb revealed the beauty and goodness of religious life. Leading up to that semester, I had been fearful that God would call me to be a religious.
Fearful! I thought God was going to ask me to do something that I absolutely did not want to do. I dreaded hearing the call in my heart. So much so that I resisted going deep in prayer. I was confident that I would have no joy in the religious life.
But the Little Sisters of the Lamb changed that. Through their witness of life, I saw the pure and inexplicable joy that is embodied in a bride of Christ. It became clear to me that a consecrated life serving others could hold just as much joy and purpose as any other vocation. That semester in Rome, I learned how good a vocation to the religious life is. Through the Little Sisters of the Lamb, I learned to trust in God’s will and in His plan for my life.
A Mother’s Heart
It was morning. I stepped off the bus and started walking to my apartment as I balanced both a baby and bags from errands. I walked along the quiet street with my little baby nestled asleep in my wrap and noticed an older woman peacefully watering her garden.
I approached the iron gate to her late 19th century house and tentatively asked, “Excuse me, do you speak English?”
Quite tall and regal, she turned her grey head to face me with a magnificent smile, “Yes, I speak a little English,” she answered with an Austrian accent.
“My name is Clare,” I told her, “and I heard that Jesus lives here! Is that so?”
“Yes, yes!” She answered joyfully.
I explained that my husband and I along with our five children lived a few houses over in an apartment, and that a friend had mentioned there was a convent on our street. “Is this the place?” I asked her as the baby started to wake up.
“It is!” She answered and opened the gate. “Won’t you come in? I can show you the chapel!” She proceeded to unlock the gate and lead me inside the house to make a visit with Jesus in the Eucharist. Then she invited me for a refreshing drink in the backyard and offered the baby an ice cream. He was much too young for it, but she was eager to give.
A stranger passing on the road, yet instantly I was embraced as a neighbor and a sister.
This was the first touch of many I had with The Spiritual Family “The Work.” The Sisters of this house welcomed me again and again into their home, as if it was the very extension of my own. We hadn't any outdoor greenery, yet my kids were always welcomed in the Sisters’ yard with a ball in summer or to build igloos in the winter. For Christmas one year, they opened their chapel to us for Christmas Day Mass.
This tired mother in a foreign land was included in their evening prayer and adoration, fully translated into English to accommodate me. Upon another occasion, a homemade cake was delivered to my doorstep to celebrate my birthday.
As true mothers, their thousand acts of love and service to their family—the Church—remain hidden, buried in the Lord until the end of time. Their foundress Mother Julia once reflected, “Since 18 January 1938, the Lord has called me and others with me to live this unity in a family, to make His life and His prayer our own, and to work for Him and with Him for this unity.”
In their mothering of me, I learned and hope to mother others likewise.
Thank you, dear Sisters, for nurturing me.
Come with Me!
“Here’s the plan: I’ll drop you off outside the Cathedral, circle around the block a few times and pick you up again in about 15 minutes or less,” the trip leader said to me as we were preparing to leave town.
We’d spent the last few days on a “nun run” in New York City, visiting different religious orders and convents as we prayed for our vocations. In between volunteering and Holy Hours, I pleaded with the leader of the trip to make a stop by St. Patrick’s Cathedral before we returned home to Michigan. At that time, Venerable Fulton Sheen, whom I have always had a great devotion to, was buried there and prior to this trip, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the opportunity to pray at his tomb. My heart yearned for the opportunity to visit this dear friend of mine and entrust the intention of my vocation to his intercession.
However, our schedule wouldn’t allow it. I began to lose hope until the very last day when I found myself standing in front of St. Patrick’s as our group’s van drove off and my fifteen-minute timer began. I hurried into the cathedral as the mass exodus of Sunday Mass attendees made their way out and soon realized: I have no idea where to go.
Knowing the clock was ticking, I panicked and looked around for anyone that wasn’t leaving and might be able to help. I quickly noticed a familiar habit sitting in a side chapel and thought, A sister! Thank you, Lord.
The dear Sister finished up her prayers as I approached her and greeted me with a warm smile. I explained in haste my mission to pray with Fulton Sheen to which she responded, “No problem! Just come with me!”
I followed her through the massive church and down to the crypt (as she assured the security guards that I was with her and it was no problem for me to join her in the lower church), through a hallway and into the room where Fulton Sheen laid in rest. I knelt down in gratitude as the Sister waited for me outside of the chapel and asked Fulton Sheen, who had played such a pivotal role in my formation thus far, to intercede for my vocation and prepare my heart for whatever it was God was calling me to.
I looked up and saw December 9th, 1979 etched in stone as the day Fulton Sheen died and thought, Hmmm, maybe that will be his feast day one day.
About five years later on another December 9th, I met my now-husband for the very first time and began to see the glorious work of God in my own vocation.
For many years, I have looked back with profound gratitude for the dear Sister of Life who received my heart so generously at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and allowed me that grace-filled moment that set my vocation in motion. Even more, I look back in gratitude for the many Sisters who had shown me such maternal care throughout my life that prepared me for the flood of relief I would feel when I saw that Sister across the church that summer day, knowing I was in good hands with a Bride of Christ.
This encounter is just one of the many examples of the way religious life has shaped and enlivened my heart, as both a single and now joyfully married woman. The witness and care of Sisters in my life has played a profound role in my own vocation and the life of the Church. What a gift they are to the Church!
Behold, the Bridegroom
As I arrived at the Motherhouse, one of the first things I noticed was the beautiful graveyard. Just that combination of words—beautiful graveyard—feels like an oxymoron. But not at a convent.
As I walked into the beautiful 19th century building, I was struck by the beauty of the place, the joy of the sisters, and the simplicity of their life. On this particular day though, I was most pierced by their witness to the reality of eternity. As the Sisters showed me around, one of them excitedly whispered that I was here at an incredible time: a Sister had just died.
There was a sort of solemn joy to her voice. These aren’t women who grieve without hope; they grieve with a profound reverence for the dignity of this woman’s life and a striking knowledge that this isn’t the end of the story. For the Sisters, it was beautifully evident that death was the beginning of the wedding feast with their Divine Bridegroom.
As I listened to the Sisters chant ancient prayers of the dead and we walked to the grave amidst stinging wind and rain on an unusually cold day, I found my own heart deeply moved by their beautiful testimony to divine life. The Sisters taught me about their traditions and told me of the vigil that was held for this beautiful religious woman from the moment that they knew death was near. She was never alone—the Sisters were by her side until dirt began to cover her casket.
Witnessing the depth of the Sisters’ belief in the Resurrection, so much so that joy surrounded a funeral, deepened my own longing for eternity. These women remind me who I am—a bride longing to be united with the long-awaited Bridegroom.
Radiating Christ
The summer before my senior year of high school, I spent a month in a small coal-mining town in Kentucky. Several friends and I went to serve with the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa’s order, at their summer day camp.
I had never been around women with such abject joy. The joy of the Lord was their strength. These were the happiest people I had ever met (and I had grown up around a lot of really good, faith-filled people!). These women radiated Christ!
By the end of my time with the Sisters, I found myself praying about a vocation to the religious life, in spite of my desire to be married. I had tasted the joy these women had, and I wanted it for myself. Lord, I remember praying, I just want to be deeply happy.
This willingness to consider becoming a nun stayed with me for several more years, as I navigated my last year of high school and started college. In a beautiful full-circle moment, it was at another summer camp with the MCs, this time in Harlem, New York, that I recognized my call to marriage and also fell in love with Paul, now my husband of thirty years!
What the Sisters showed me in those weeks being around them, and in many interactions with them since, is that a deep, abiding joy is available to us all. God offers this same freedom and wholeness to each of us; our job is to be open and to surrender. This is what the Sisters have in their life: surrender. It’s life-changing, and it’s contagious.
Make Something Beautiful
Sr. De Lourdes, my high school art teacher, didn’t reach five feet tall. She couldn’t have weighed more than 80 pounds and was at least in her 60s when she began teaching me. Despite her sprightly appearance, she was a force and one of the most respected teachers in our school. She taught me more about beauty and what beauty says about God than anyone.
As freshmen, we first studied calligraphy. We spent weeks simply drawing page after page of simple straight lines. It seemed redundant until she would remind us to look back at our first efforts to see the vast improvement over such a seemingly simple task. Sister taught me that the details matter, that working toward perfection in my little lines was exactly like the discipline of becoming virtuous. You don’t master a virtue all at once but over years of practice, breaking it down to the simplest elements, and you keep practicing, practicing, practicing. The discipline she taught me I often apply to my writing.
Sr. De Lourdes taught me to pay attention to details, and she had a way of breaking down—for example, the human face—such that we would make elaborate studies of eyes, ears, noses, lips. I became so fond of this exercise and found it so helpful; I still have sheets from high school filled with nothing but various drawings of eyes. She taught me not just to look at a thing but to “see it,” another principle I have applied countless times in spiritual direction.
But more than anything, Sister taught me that beauty matters, that beauty in the world, in art, in one another, speaks to the eternal beauty of God. At the end of every school year, we would have an art show in our gymnasium. Every art student could choose one or two of their best pieces from the year to put on display. The gym was filled to the brim! Parents and students and neighbors would wander through our little earnest high school masterpieces. That such a small school—my class had only twenty-five students in it—could produce so much art always touched me. It was clear that art class was an essential part of our formation as Catholics.
I never became the world-class artist I had once hoped I would be when I was little and first discovered the masters like Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Rembrandt, and Fra Angelico. But I will always be grateful to Sr. De Lourdes for the countless hours she bent over my frame, guiding and coaching and encouraging me to make something beautiful for the Lord.
Sister lived to well over 100 years old. May she rest in peace. I hope I make you proud, Sr. De Lourdes. Bless you for all you gave to me and to my life.
Mothered by Mother
Thirty-three years ago I was a young wife and mother, struggling in my vocation. I loved my husband, my two-year-old daughter and six-month-old son, but the mundane and repetitive tasks of daily life, and the powerful messages of the culture, made my hidden and often thankless role as a mother seem insignificant and replaceable.
One day, my husband announced that we had been invited to speak at a large family conference in Germany. It would be a short trip with our nursing baby in tow, but it would give me a chance to express some of the gifts I had previously used in full-time youth ministry. Little did I know that this trip would not be about what I could do for God, but what He wanted to do for me.
From the moment our plane was airborne, everything seemed to go wrong. My son Michael cried for most of the flight, and I was exhausted with a horrible migraine. Our luggage was broken into, my jewelry stolen, and baby food jars smashed into my nice clothes. To top it all off, we arrived and the conference organizers announced that they only needed one of us to speak, and my husband Peter was chosen. Amidst my fatigue and disappointment I tearfully asked the Lord, “Why did I come? Wouldn’t it be easier to just have stayed home?”
On the last day of the conference as we made our way to the large auditorium to hear the keynote speaker, one of the helpers stopped us and said, “Excuse me, but I noticed you have your baby with you. Mother Teresa would like a few of the mothers with babies to sit on the stage with her as she speaks today.” Stunned, I made my way onto the stage with our baby.
I sat with ten other mothers and babies, just a few feet away from Mother. As she spoke about the dignity of the unborn child, you could have heard a pin drop. When the session ended, the same conference worker approached me and announced, “Mother Teresa would like to personally meet each mother and baby.”
Before long, I was standing in front of Mother Teresa. I bent low to greet her, and she pressed a Miraculous Medal in my hand and traced the sign of the cross on Michael’s forehead. As I turned to go, the most amazing thing happened. She pulled me closer and looked deeply into my eyes.
“Never forget,” she said, gesturing with her index crooked finger, “that your job as a mother is the most important job in the entire world.”
Her words instantly pierced my heart, and I knew without a doubt that God had brought me to Germany and to Mother Teresa to speak this profound truth into my life.
I went home and began to read everything I could about Mother Teresa. Over the years, her words and her example of love became the bedrock truth and inspiration for my vocation as a mother of four children, a grandmother, and a spiritual mother to many. Quite often I remember her words to me that day, and I know that Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta continues to guide and teach me what it means to be God’s love in a world that so desperately needs it.
“Momma, look!”
I saw a small group of Sisters fill the pew just ahead of us one morning in Mass. We had come in rather flustered, per usual with two kids under four years old and myself pregnant. We often came in search for reverence at church in a time of simply trying to control the new chaos of our phase of life. And so I saw them and didn’t think too much of it.
Until my daughter knelt next to me and whispered, “Momma, look! Brides!”
She was enthralled with their habits, white just like brides or photos of me on our wedding day that she had seen a few days ago. She didn’t see a difference, just the same (kind of) veil.
And my first instinct was to correct her, to say, “They are actually called Sisters!” But I didn’t. Something held my tongue back. And as she stared at them, I took the fleeting moment to close my eyes and pray before the Mass started. And immediately the Lord told me in my heart, “She’s right, you know. They are My brides.”
After Mass was over, she asked if we could “go over and say hello to all the pretty brides,” and I said yes. We made our way upstream against the exiting crowd to the praying Sisters, and my sweet three-year-old daughter said to the Sister, “Are you a bride? I love your veil!”
The whole pew lifted their heads to look at my daughter. Surprise and joy spread across their faces. The Sister said, “Yes, I am! A bride of Jesus Christ!” And my daughter smiled and was overjoyed at her kindness. The Sister looked at me and invited me and my daughter to sing the Vespers with them every Saturday evening. And my daughter answered yes before I could.
I don’t have a lot of experience interacting with Sisters. A priest was my first point of contact in learning about the teachings of the Catholic faith when I converted in 2015, and he remains a good friend of mine and my husband. We go to him for friendship and for spiritual mentorship. So these sisters were my first real “Sister interaction,” and an odd intimidation I always had instantly wiped away.
I felt silly for ever having it in the first place.
Seeing those Sisters—the BRIDES—go through Mass, receive Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, and then interact with my daughter in such a way, has impacted me forever.
What I thought was a type of woman so different from me (being married, and a mother) that we couldn’t ever really intertwine our lives, was shattered instantly and replaced with the truth: a fellow daughter, a joyful Bride. Just like me. (But not just like me? You know what I mean.)
I think the Holy Spirit anointed the whole interaction. It’s led to a sweet friendship that I have with the group of Sisters, a renewed love for the sisterhood within our Catholic faith, for their veils, for my own Mass veil, and for the tenderness of being called to a vocation. My daughter talks about becoming a bride one day, and I don’t know if she means a bride like me or a bride like the Sisters. But I know she means a joyful bride. A bride who loves God very much. And that’s all I could ever hope for her little heart.
These Sisters represent the Brides of Christ, a facet of being called to a vocation that is irreplaceable. I’m so grateful to know them. I’m so grateful my daughter wanted to say hi to them and wanted to pray with them. And I’m so grateful the Lord calls us to vocations. What a sweet Father He is, to invite us to become more like ourselves the way He does.