Pathways: Spring 2002
The Call of Lent
-By S. Ileana Fernandez,CSJ
I am always amazed how many people take time on Ash Wednesday to come to Ash Wednesday services.We may not see them around Church the rest of the year.It must be that call to “Return....”
I ask you, who are wondering if you have a vocation, what is the Lord asking of you this Lent?
Maybe you have neglected to make some decisions regarding your future, and Lent would be a good time to take the next step and call that Sister who is vocation director and take the next step in your journey.
Lent is certainly a time of grace. Many opportunities are before us for spiritual growth. Don’t loose your focus this Lent by being too busy about many “important” things; try instead to stay with God’s grace. I envision God’s grace as being a generous, energizing movement of total Goodness. This stream of love is always available to us. It is free and it is powerful. God’s grace can change our lives. All that we need is to be attentive and be open to receive Goodness in our daily lives. This grace will move you to act upon your deepest desires to follow Jesus.
This
Lent, pause each morning when you rise, stretch out your arms
and pray:
God
of love, I open myself to you.
May I be aware of your powerful goodness,
given to me at every moment of this day.
May all that I am and all that I do bless others today.
Let me be generous and respond to your call.
Amen.
Story of My Vocation
By Sister Pat Murphy CS
The first thing to say is that my vocation story is not really my story but an account of God’s action, grace, in situations that never should have worked out except for grace.
I
came into the world on a cold December day, when my French-Canadian
mother was nearly 40 years old and my Irish father was 44.
My baptism was the first thing on my mother’s mind, but
since I was, in all respects, healthy our pastor would not
baptize me during the two week stay at St. Vincent’s
Hospital but had my parents plan the baptism for December
24 when St. Francis Church in Fisher would be warmed up for
Christmas.
In the next four years my parents had three more children. Those days were worse than today’s slow economy; America was at war and there were shortages of food, rubber and money. My parents’ esteem of Catholic schooling led them to have all of us enrolled for a time at St. Joseph’s Academy in Crookston, MN. Finally, after too many grain harvests were ruined by hail, they were forced to a decision to enroll my siblings at the Fisher, MN public school and to have me remain at the St. Joseph’s boarding school since I was in the eighth grade and they wanted me to graduate from SJA.
The orderly regime of study, play and prayers in the boarding school was like that of the life of the Sisters of St. Joseph who ran it. I was certainly influenced by the Sisters and the environment but I was not drawn to picture myself in that life forever. I knew my mother was praying for this, however, because I saw some of her correspondence with the Sisters at the Dunseith Indian Mission. In spite of our poverty, mother would send things to the mission. She also got me a subscription, in my name, to Leaves, a devotional booklet for children. With God and Mom working together, how could I fail to see a little signal about my future?
When
I was a senior I began worrying about that future. Go to college
and become a teacher? Join the Sisters of St. Joseph? How
could I be sure of saving my soul? I was “bugged”
by the nagging thought that some of my classmates had already
decided to join the convent. When I said under my breath (with
some annoyance at God), “O.K. Why not me?” a feeling
of calm wrapped itself all around me and at once I knew where
I was going. The Lord was calling me.
If I thought the hard part of knowing my call was over, I quickly found that to be untrue. My dad’s only sister was a Sister of Joseph in St. Paul and, during her annual summer visit, told me that I was too young to decide my future and that I should attend St. Catherine’s College instead. My best friend wouldn’t believe me and insisted I had to be her maid of honor in the Fall.
But in the fall I entered the convent and began the formation period that lasted approximately two and a half years during which I received the Sister’s Holy Habit and the name “Sister Mary Matthew”. When I began taking college courses, during that time, I had no idea if I would become a teacher eventually but I secretly hoped that was what God had in store for me.
Providentially
I was directed to the classroom and the opening day of school
in September found me in a classroom without an education
degree but with 46 sixth graders in front of me! The pattern
was begun—nine years later I became a Principal, and
after that I completed the Masters degree. Later on, having
earned a Specialist Degree in School Administration, I was
asked to become the RENEW director for the Diocese of Crookston.
That continues to be the pattern of my ministerial life—being
asked to serve in a ministry or take on tasks for which I
do not feel 100% prepared. It becomes more and more obvious
that the Spirit of God is really doing the work and just using
me as an instrument.
So you see, the story of my vocation is God’s story. A poor farm kid should never have had 12 years of Catholic education, earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Catholic colleges and universities, and should never have had the opportunity and privilege of being a teacher for more than 40 years. Someone who worried about saving her own soul certainly needed a conversion of heart in order to profess vows as a Sister of St. Joseph and thereby live for others. I did not make these things happen-
it was all grace.
They
shall live
so that
their Congregation
shall bear the name
of the Congregation
of the
Great Love of God.
-Constitutions