How to Become a Nun

I clearly heard a voice telling me to “enter the convent”. Now, I’m not much for hearing voices, but this message would not go away. I remember going into our church which was a huge, quiet place. I would kneel by the statue of Mary and ask her to have her son leave me alone!

At a point along my discernment journey, I was given the advice, “It’s not a career question, Maria, it’s a vocation question.”

I first contemplated the call to religious life in the seventh grade when I heard a diocesan priest talk about religious vocation. His talk touched the core of my being. Without fully understanding what it meant, I decided to be a sister, and found my way to where I was meant to be.

One of my first-grade students asked me, “How do you turn into a sister”? I responded by saying, “You ask God to guide you. You listen and then follow what you hear in your heart”. She tugged at my elbow and whispered in my ear, “I’m starting to turn”.

It was through my experiences with the monastic community that I began thinking about religious life as a possibility for me. After a couple of years of discernment, I formally joined the community as a postulant.