Sisters of Reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
•PO Box 9   •Steubenville   •OH 43952   •740-282-2144
 
 
Vocations

 

 
"It was not you  who chose me but I who chose you and
                          appointed you to go and bear fruit that  will remain."    John 15:16


Sr John Mary
Postulant Jennifer
Vocation Story
 

“God is the one who, for His good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work.”-Philippians 2:13

     At the ripe old age of six I had surpassed many adults in today’s world in self-knowledge. I knew who I was: a beloved child of God, and I knew who I wanted to be: a ballerina/skater/ nun. I wanted to love God with all of my heart and this was the means that I felt would best accomplish this desire. I even went so far as to profess this desire to a religious sister one day when in a park with my aunt, walking straight up to her and professing boldly, “I’m going to be one of you someday”. I don’t know if I really understood what religious life was as a kindergartener, but I did know that I wanted to belong completely to God.
     I’m not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way, I, like some many others, forgot these basic truths about myself: who I was and who I wanted to be, yet I

 
  alwaysquestioned within myself, “how could I be so convicted as a six-year-old, what I wanted in life?”. I went through the rest of elementary school and high-school with a deep love for God, but also with a deep desire to find fulfillment through human relationships and personal accomplishments. Yet many times the thought  
  would come, “Life is so short, why not begin your eternity now?” But I would drown this thought out, occupying myself with sports, watching TV, and socializing.
     In high-school I loved to teach others about the faith and so the obvious career choice seemed to be a high-school religion teacher—with this in mind I applied and attended the Franciscan University of Steubenville. During my sophomore year of college I studied abroad in Gaming, Austria. I was able to travel across Europe and experience the beauty of the Church but even more importantly I was able to pray. We had a small adoration chapel on campus and I would go there several times a day. In this small chapel I encountered silence and in this silence that “still small voice”, “that whisper in the wind” could no longer be ignored. It was before the Blessed Sacrament that I felt distinctively called to be the Bride of Christ.
     The Lord has always made His will known to me through the desires of my heart. As I prayed I really began to ponder the reality that God created me with certain desires, certain gifts, and a particular capacity to love. “You have made us for yourself oh Lord” never rang truer for me then when I meditated upon what I wanted in life. God had indeed “made me for Himself” not just as His child, but as His spouse, His particular companion who, like all spouses would console and compassionate Him—and this could only be accomplished through a daily surrender of self, like Mary. All women have a deep desire to love and to be mother, but there is more than one way to fulfill these deep longings; in marriage and in religious life. I got the sense that my heart was not created to just love a few persons deeply but to love many. The appeal Jesus makes to His Brides is that they give Him all of their love and secondly that they spiritually adopt His other children. I felt that this was my particular mission in the Church.
     I returned to Franciscan University’s main campus and started visiting religious orders. I looked for a community that would fulfill the desires of my heart, those desires were to console the heart of Jesus and to be a true handmaid of the Lord—I found this in the Sister’s of Reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Once I visited and asked to enter the community I had another obstacle: my educational debt. I had been formed in my faith and convicted of my vocation while in college but now I had to pay over fifty-thousand dollars in educational debt before I could enter the community. I felt the Lord saying within me “to wait to enter will be your first offering of reparation.” So I waited, returning home to work as an English and religion teacher at a Catholic elementary school.
     I prayed everyday that the Lord would allow me to do His will, and I prayed specifically for the Lord to pay all of my debt. A local Catholic newspaper reporter heard about my desire to enter a religious community and asked to write an article about it and I agreed. Ten days after the article appeared I received a call from a lady who had read my article and wanted to pay all of my debt. I was in shock. I was able to enter August 2010. The Lord’s timing was perfect- because I had worked for a year I grew to truly long for the convent and recognize the gift of religious life. It has been here in the convent that I have come to rediscover who I was: a beloved daughter of God, and who I wanted to be: a Spouse of Christ.