Learning how to be a woman religious

Sister Rejane  
This Random Nun Clip is brought to you by A Nun's Life Ministry.

Sister Maxine  
We're on a Motherhouse Road Trip, talking with Sister Hannah Corbin and Sister Arianne Whittaker.

Sister Julie  
In our chat room, Laurie asked, "What was the most challenging thing you encountered regarding your vocation journey?"

Sister Hannah  
That starts pretty early.

Sister Julie  
You're like, Whoa, I am on the journey. [laughter] That's usually a challenging piece right there. It's crazy. Because I think sometimes there's so many different notions of religious life and what it means to become a nun. That you have to, in  yourself, overcome some of those things. To me that was one of the biggest challenges. And I knew a lot of sisters and nuns and religious, but when I had to start thinking about it from my own perspective, me, Julie, in this life, then it's like all those stereotypes and ideas and images popped up and it was hard to get through that. And then the next step, of course, was then to be able to walk other people through that, to say, Well, no, it's not like that. You know, you will see me again, and I'm not going to change too much, I will still be watching cartoons, I will still be doing that. It's okay. But for me, that was one of the hardest places in my vocation journey: making that leap myself, and then being good with it, like, Yeah, I'm like, I might be able to do this. And then going through it with everyone else in my life that was like, what? So that was a hard one for me.

Sister Hannah  
I would say my vocation journey -- I mean, it starts like when you're a kid. And so when I think about it that way, I think about when I was growing up, I went to a Christian church and was very connected to them, and was actually planning on going into ministry with them. And so I think the most challenging part of my vocation experience was when all these ideas and thoughts and dreams that I had started to kind of crumble, and my notions of God started to change and how I interacted with God and people and that what that caused was a drastic change within how I practice my religion and spirituality. And so it was kind of a surrender of those dreams that I had, or ideas or thoughts that I thought. It was still -- this is still a life of service. And so even when I was younger, I felt that call to life of service. But how much change had to happen to be where I am today. I think being open to that change was very challenging. And going through the change, definitely.

Sister Arianne  
I was thinking kind of along the same lines, especially in your first few years of formation, how much you go into yourself. I said to many of my sisters, and people and family, friends, and all that, that it felt as if I was taking the puzzle apart. And I was having to say, some of these pieces don't fit anymore and some do fit, and some spaces were new, and I had to figure out what piece went there. And that, I think, for me was one of the biggest challenges: just feeling like I didn't know myself. Entering this new world, learning how to be a Sister of Providence, learning how to be a woman religious, and I'm still on that journey. I'm sure many of the women in this room could tell you, and you both could say, you're still on that journey. That for me was the challenging thing: allowing myself to say, Okay, so these are new things, new pieces of information and having to reintegrate them and be okay with the fact that right now I'm kind of in this area of transformation.

Sister Rejane  
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This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.