A Vocation Story by Sister Ann Clark, CPPS
Sisters of the Precious Blood, Dayton, Ohio
“God gets you where God wants you to be.” I have made that statement many times in my life. I say it partially to convince myself because where God wants me is not always where I want to be. But it is also something that I truly believe.
I was taught by the Sisters of the Precious Blood at Assumption School in Dayton. I remember making visits to 4830 Salem Avenue to visit the chapel and the altar bread department. I also remember visiting there to show the sisters who taught us the sports trophies we had won. When they moved into the newly built convent at the parish, we would take our trophies there to show them off! What most impressed me, and what I still remember, is how happy the sisters seemed to be.
I began my college career at Wright State University. After my freshman year at WSU, I decided to enter the Sisters of the Precious Blood. To this day I am not sure why I entered, but I do know why I left after a year and a half: I wanted to get married, have a family, and own a house. That is where I wanted to be. God, obviously, had other thoughts.
After leaving, I began working full-time and going to school part-time. Five years later I had saved enough money to finish school as a full-time student. After getting my degree in elementary education I had looked in vain for a job as a teacher. In late July of that year, I got a phone call for an interview for a teaching position at Dayton Catholic Elementary School (a consolidated school — housed in the Assumption school building! Besides that, a Precious Blood Sister, Sr. Rosemary Goubeaux, was the principal.) I got the position and began teaching. Not a coincidence, I believe. After a couple of years there I realized that I was being called to be a Sister of the Precious Blood — again!
Since then I have come to realize how important the Eucharist had become to me, how much Mother Maria Anna Brunner’s devotion to the Precious Blood had made an impression on me. I realize how precious life is and how each person is precious as well because we are all loved by the God who created us.
“God gets you where God wants you to be.” I truly believe it!
