24-year-old professes vows as a Josephite Sister

Here’s a good article (minus the title) about Anne-Marie Gallagher, a 24-year old who will be professing vows as a Josephite Sister in Sydney, Australia — “A social butterfly gets herself to a nunnery.” Some quotes from the article …

ANNE-MARIE GALLAGHER was in her final year at Domremy College in Sydney’s inner west when the assistant principal suggested, “you would make a good nun”.

“I just laughed it off,” she said. “I thought of myself as a normal teenager and, like most of my peers, [at one stage] I even questioned my faith. I just thought it was normal.”

Just a brief comment here — we all have a responsibility to let others know, especially our young people, if we see a particular vocation in them. Sometimes it takes someone outside of ourselves to call us to become aware of God’s call to us. All you have to do is plant the seed. The Spirit (who has already prepared the soil) will take care of the rest.

While studying education and theology at Australian Catholic University as a 19-year-old, she came across the website for Catholic Vocations Ministry Australia. “I couldn’t believe that I was [looking] there,” she laughed. “Me, of all people. But for a while this feeling of being unsettled had niggled at me.

“I had dated some guys but something else, involving a deeper commitment to God, was demanding my attention.”

Too many times people don’t consider religious life because they think they have to be super-pious or not have any romantic feelings for another person. It’s okay to have dated, to be a social butterfly, to be a “normal” teenager … God calls whomever God chooses. It’s that simple.

Blessings to you, Sister Anne-Marie and the Josephite community!