Sr. Maria Clare 's Vocation Story

Hey!  My name is Sr. Maria Clare and I entered as a candidate for the Franciscan Sisters, TOR in August 2008!  I was 23 years old and from Carmel, IN.  I’d like to share with you how God has worked in me and the unfolding of his plan for my life.  I received the call to the religious life at a young age.  The Lord blessed me with a strong Catholic family and the faith was always something important at home.  My mom had a little library and always had a ton of saint books on the shelves.  I loved them and couldn’t read enough of them!  Looking back later on I noticed a trend of being attracted more to the saints who were virgins for the love of Jesus.  I thought, “All of these awesome women gave their lives up for Jesus…I want to be just like them!”  My awareness of this desire to give my life completely to Christ came when I was 12. 

In middle school my family became involved in Regnum Christi Lay Movement.  They played a part in exposing me to the consecrated life and helped me to grow in the spiritual life.  Now fast-forward to my junior year of high school!  I switched high schools for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I wasn’t being supported in my faith.  I was going to youth group every week up to that point and had a couple of good friends at the public school I transferred to, thanks be to God!  One of the girls asked me if I wanted to go to 6:30am mass everyday before school.  I said yes and it soon became an everyday event for the rest of my high school career.  The Lord really blessed me through this because it was from those communions with him that my spiritual life matured.  My heart became gradually more open to the call. 

At the end of high school, I applied for Franciscan University of Steubenville, was accepted and started in the fall of 2003.  On campus, there were Catholic men’s and women’s groups called households, each focusing on a different devotion of our faith.   The one I joined, Agape, taught me so much about what it meant to live in a community and loving one another as Christ loved us from the cross.  They promoted me to attend a retreat called Born in the Spirit, which is a charismatic retreat.  I was prayed over for this renewal and one of the images that Jesus gave me through the leader was of Jesus asking me to dance and I accepting his hand.  I felt that this specifically was connected to my vocation and that Jesus wanted me to be his and his alone.  I was filled with uncontainable joy!  

A year later, I studied abroad in Austria, Spring of 2005.  A significant encounter occurred when the campus went for a pilgrimage to Rome.  John Paul II was sick in the hospital at this point.  He was one of my heroes, so when I found out that we were going to pray for him at the hospital I was really excited!!!  It was during this encounter with the pope that Christ gave me a great desire to give my life for the Church just as John Paul was giving his whole life to it.  Jesus broke through and gave me the courage to discern this call. 

So I came back from Austria and began visiting different convents.  The first I went to was wonderful, but I didn’t receive any peace in my heart.  The next one seemed to fit even more but I still wasn’t completely at peace.  I began to get frustrated.  To add to the overall frustration, my spiritual director was reassigned and so I had to find another spiritual director for my senior year.  I eventually was able to put these situations in Jesus’ hands and trust in him. 

Also during this year, I went on a mission trip to Belize.  I have no idea how I got there, except that I had the desire to go on a catechetical mission, so there I was.  The mission was sent out two by two to the local schools to teach for the week.  One of the postulants (Sr. Eliana) with the Franciscan Sisters TOR went with us and I just happened to be her partner.  Now up to this point in my discernment, I was very superficial.  I wanted to wear the long, ankle-length habit with a long veil and a scapular, but wasn’t really looking into much more than that.  In working with Sr. Eliana that week, Jesus lead me to see that I had desires in my heart for the contemplative life.  She invited me on a discernment retreat with her community, but I politely declined. 

At the beginning of my senior year I found a spiritual director, and through his instrumental work, I finally surrendered to going to a discernment retreat at the TOR Sisters.  The entire weekend was blessed and I think that I was intrigued, but also hesitant.  After a couple more visits, the Lord really made it clear to me that this was where I was meant to be…it felt like home.  Some things that attract me about the sisters are their joy, the call to be contemplatives in the world, on-going conversion, charismatic prayer, intercessory prayer with Mary at the foot of the cross and adoration of Jesus in the Eucharist.  I entered in August 2008 and I can see how the Lord is just showering down his blessings at this new beginning.  Praise Him with all your being!