REGINA: And Sister Jacinta?
Sr. Jacinta: I was blessed to grow up on a ranch in a very rural area in eastern Montana. My parents converted when I was three months old and passed on to our family of eight, of which I was the second and oldest girl, the value of hard-work, honesty, and the charity that is still among “country folk” of always being ready to offer a helping hand plus the shirt off your back if needed, without hoping for a recompense.
My mom was especially careful to pass on the faith and to us as she learned it and I can say from her I received the seed of my vocation. My home life was beautiful and simple as we worked with the animals and were outside working as a family together. God allowed me to feel when I was very young that He desired something of me and I remember a few distinct times when I was alone, either praying or sometimes when riding my horse gathering cows when all was still that He wanted me to do something for Him.
REGINA: How did you find your vocation?
Sr Jacinta: In Montana there is little opportunity to experience religious life, but when I think I was eleven I read St. Rose of Lima, who I took as my confirmation sponsor, and she stole my heart and I knew I was supposed to be a nun like her. Unfortunately, when I went to public high school I fell away from living my faith from the peer-pressure and absence of God in society.
It wasn’t until college, where I was studying to go into nursing, that God in His mercy, allowed me, like the prodigal son, to loathe the corn husks of sin and come running back to Him. Everything was very rapid after that and my godfather, who is a priest and a true father, helped me to get in correspondence with the Benedictines of Mary and set up a visit. I knew even before I visited that God wanted me there.
REGINA: Are there any obstacles young women tend to come across
when discerning?
Mother Abbess Cecilia: The faith that the Sisters here must have by their obedience and denial is tremendous, but it leads to so much grace and so many blessings.
Sr. Scholastica: One’s own independence costs the most. The distraction of social media has also created a false sense of security, making it harder to renounce oneself when casting it aside. The silence we observe is painful because it is the silence Christ needs to form us after His heart.
College loans also sometimes pose a problem. We have an active aspirant in the Laboure Society, which also works to eliminate student loans
for vocations.
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