How radically will my life change if I start going to church?

Sister Maxine  
This Random Nun Clip is brought to you by A Nun's Life Ministry. Welcome back to a Motherhouse Road Trip edition of Ask Sister. You're here with Sister Maxine and Sister Julie of A Nun's life Ministry, and our guests, Sister Bonita Gacnik and Sister Carol Jean Van Den Hemel of the Benedictine Sisters of Sacred Heart Monastery here in Yankton, South Dakota.

Sister Julie  
Sisters and community, we've got another question, and this one came in from Ruth from the East Coast. And Ruth wrote, "I'm not a regular churchgoer, and not a practicing Catholic, though I've been drawn to it for a while. The root of the problem is fear. It isn't so much fear of where God will lead me as fear of what would change in my life if I followed. My mom is very private with her religion and my father dislikes all religious organizations. I've considered myself agnostic for many years, and most of my friends are atheists. How radically will my life change if I start attending church openly? What if my calling ends up being a religious one, so far off the mark from what my family expects. I don't want them to see my connection with God as a joke. Though I am happy with college and friends, the spiritual part of my life is so empty, and I don't know where to begin. So I've come here to ask your advice." Ruth, thank you so much for sharing a bit of your story with us.

Sister Maxine  
The statement in here, "It's not so much fear of where God will lead me as of what would change in my life, if I follow" -- it's that unknowingness. Would you have, Sister Bonita, anything from Benedictine wisdom that you might share with Ruth here about what does it mean, to deal with the unknowingness of where God calls us?

Sister Bonita  
Well, I think Ruth is already doing some listening, the first word of the Rule of Benedict. Ruth is listening, and she's hearing this little voice and is not quite sure of what's going to happen when she responds at a different level. And I think that's a very normal thing for all of us: when we make life changes, whether they're smaller or larger, other things change also. And the fact that she realizes that there will be changes happening as a result of her changing her lifestyle or her activities in her life -- that's a real sign of maturity. And no matter what we do, change will occur. No growth occurs without changing and often growth is painful. I just suggest that it's a time for faith. It's a time for trust. I think God calls us to start to move. There's already movement happening in her spirit. But there has to be a beginning to support that with some action, and the actions will change Ruth's life and it will change her relationship -- or possibly change her relationships -- with her family and her friends. And that's a risk that is worth it. And many times our friends hold up very well with our off-the-wall changes. When I came to the monastery, my best friends burst into tears. And they said, "Oh my God, what are you doing?" But you know, they hung in there with me and they're friends of mine to this day. They didn't want me to head off to this part of the world to do this crazy thing. But those people have hung in there with me all of these years -- and we just sometimes sell our friends short. Sometimes we sell our family short. But ultimately, we have to put it on the line -- and what our friends do, what our families do, they have their free will, and we have ours, and our actions can't be conditioned upon what we think they might do in reaction to what we've done. So I think we have to have that inner peace and that inner freedom to follow the call. Wherever we feel that we're being led, take those small initial steps. Take them with sincerity and trust, and be honest and have integrity with our friends and give them a chance to walk the journey with us. Whether or not they can walk those same paths, take those same steps, isn't nearly as important as -- a true friend wants what's best for us and our true friends want us to live a life of integrity. A life of integrity brings us peace and happiness. So I say go for it. I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised: when you find peace in your decision, that peace will overflow into a large part of the rest of your life.

Sister Julie  
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This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.