By Sister Teresa Christine, O.C.D.
Growing up as an evangelical Christian in Boulder, Colorado, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t believe in God. As a teenager, I went on mission trips and started a bible club with my friends at our public high school. I attended Wheaton College, a small Christian school in Illinois, and it was during that time that I first learned of the Theology of the Body of Pope John Paul II. I was stunned to find such beauty and truth coming from the direction of the Catholic Church, which I knew very little about. That started an unexpected journey to discover what the Catholic Church really taught about the Sacraments, the Eucharist, the nature of the Church, Sanctification, Mary and the Saints… all the depth and beauty of it captured my heart.
I moved back to Boulder and entered an RCIA program a year after I graduated. I took Edith Stein as my confirmation Saint and was confirmed at the Easter Vigil in 2010. Becoming Catholic, I didn’t lose anything of the Christian faith of my youth, instead it expanded and strengthened it. I formed a young adult group at my parish to make Catholic friends, and a few months later, I received a message from one of the Carmelite Sisters living at the convent in Denver, to see if we were interested in having them join our group for an evening. Having never even seen a sister before, but interested in all things Catholic, I was curious to meet them. I was struck by their joy and clear love for the Lord, but I wasn’t interested in discerning religious life. I stayed loosely connected to the sisters, joining them for the Walk for Life in Denver and seeing them at different events over the next year or so.
In October of 2013, I was praying at a perpetual adoration chapel near my house. While praying, I suddenly recognized the gentle voice of the Lord in my heart that seemed to come out of nowhere: “Would you open your heart to religious life?” It was so clearly not my own thought, and I was shocked. I was in the process of applying for nursing school, and had great plans for how my life should unfold and what I would do for the Lord. I was afraid of what God might ask of me. But His voice was so clear; I had to respond. I said to Jesus in the tabernacle: “I will give you ten minutes. If you want me to be a nun, then you have ten minutes to tell me!” Ten minutes went by with no answer, but I couldn’t ignore Him, and decided that I would spend the next week to truly discern whether God might be calling me to religious life. Surely a week would be long enough!
The following day, I came down with a stomach flu and forgot about my “week of discernment.” But as soon as I started feeling better, I opened my email to see a message from the sisters about a retreat that weekend. I asked if I could join the retreat, thinking that after a weekend I could say that I had “discerned”, and hopefully move on with my own plans.
When I arrived at the sisters’ convent for the retreat, this quote of Saint John Paul II was waiting for me on the choir stall in the chapel: “Do not be afraid of the radicalness of His demands, because Jesus, who loved us first, is prepared to give Himself to you, as well as asking of you. If He asks much of you, it is because He knows you can give much.” I have often described that as the worst weekend of my life because my heart was turned upside down. I had no desire to lay down all my own plans to be married and have a family of my own; yet, at the same time, I felt something shifting in my heart. Deep down, I recognized in the sisters, something intangible that resonated deeply in my heart. But I was keenly aware of the sacrifice it meant: leaving my family and my friends, all my own future plans, my whole life laid down in a radical life of discipleship.
I went home from that retreat asking myself “Is this real? Could he really be calling me? ME?” Over the next several months, a desire to belong to God alone – to give EVERYTHING to Him – grew clearer and clearer in my heart. I just knew. Only ten months after the Lord first spoke to my heart in the chapel, I quit my job, gave away everything I owned, and drove to Los Angeles – the last place I would ever have chosen if it were up to me – to begin Candidacy with the Carmelite Sisters. It all felt a little crazy, but so certain and beautiful.
Those first steps of my journey in Carmel were nine years ago, but I still feel like I’m at the starting line of an incredible journey that will never end. This life has never been easy; it really is just one step at a time, one day at a time. For all of Christ’s disciples, following Him is never just a one-time surrender. I must choose daily whether I will respond to all that He is asking of me – today. There’s never an ending to the invitation of the Lord, to surrender more deeply as we journey with Him. A vocation is not an end point, something you discover and then settle down. It’s a daily decision and a daily adventure. I’m grateful that I have my entire life to walk more deeply with Him, wherever He calls, and to become more and more who He has created me to be.
