Catholicism often has the negative connotation of being rigid, unwelcoming, and behind our modern times. During my exploration of spirituality, I wondered how someone in this community, maybe even a priest or nun, would face the same questions I have. I also wondered how someone would make the decision to choose a religious vocation. Lucky for me, my first cousin once removed (yes, I had to look that up) has been a Catholic nun for over 50 years. I had the privilege of talking with Sister Mary Lisa of the Sisters of Notre Dame community in Chardon, Ohio one summery morning. Get ready to break some stereotypes: she's funny, open, and delightful. Here's her story.
Stephanie: I’d like to hear the story of how you became a Sister.
Sister Mary Lisa: I went to a Catholic school. In the 5th grade, I had a very young, vivacious teacher. She started a little club, the Christopher Club, where we did some prayers and things…and I thought, “Gee, I would really like to be a sister!” So the teacher outlined it [and I thought], let me look at this just like I would look at being a nurse or teacher, because there weren’t that many great careers then. Then as 6th, 7th, and 8th grade comes, your hormones start changing, boys enter your life, and all that other teenage stuff. So I thought, I’ll put that little thought aside!
In the 8th grade, I was hoping and praying that I would win this scholarship to a Catholic high school. I knew I was smart enough. It was based on where you fell in the entrance exam. Well I didn’t fall in the top 4. I thought to myself, “God, I have prayed, you know my parents can’t afford to send me there. What’s gonna happen now?”
After school, I had to wait for the second bus, and I would help out my teacher. One day, she said to me, “Diane, did you ever think about becoming a sister?” And I thought, Oh geez! What am I gonna tell her? And since I had thought about it before, I said yes. She said, "I know you didn’t win the scholarship to Regina High School, but if you became what they call an Aspiring or a Prep thinking about becoming a nun, you could go to Notre Dame Academy on a sliding scale!" Then she dropped the bomb: "You would live there, like in boarding school! " And I’m listening to this, taking it all in. I’m thinking, ok, I’m an adventurous person. If this is going to be a sliding scale, I might be able to do this.
The best was brought out of me when I made that crazy decision to become this Prep. But I remember as a sophomore, things were getting a little more stringent. I remember thinking, Hey! We’re not nuns yet! We weren’t allowed to date or go to the dances. I thought this was a little much. I remember saying to our Directoress, Sister Mary Frank, “You know, I don’t what this thing about being a nun is, about a religious vocation. But I don’t wanna waste my life. If you can see anything in me that says I shouldn’t be here, let me know as soon as possible." She said, "Don’t worry, I certainly will." I trusted her implicitly to know whether I was showing signs that this might be my life’s path. And then in every step of the way, I clearly made the decision to take the next step.
It wasn’t until 6 years after I made final vows that I got in big trouble with one of my major superiors. At that point, something happened that made me so horrendously angry that I almost wanted to just walk out of this community. I didn’t care about signing papers or anything. I remember going to chapel later on [that day], nobody was in there, it was late at night, and I was just sitting in there. I was continuing to calm myself down about this whole thing, to look at it from a perspective of not anger or agitation, but a little more calmly.
All of a sudden, I was given that grace, that gift, that I knew I was not here for this woman or for this community. I was here only for God. Amen, done. There’s a whole wake of when you realize that is Who you are here for. God is calling you back to him through this lifestyle, and this is really his plan for you.
It’s not at all that you ignore your community relations or ministry, but it really keeps you on the straight and narrow when you start to think about climbing the “ ladder” in the community. I was a teacher, then a principal, regional superintendent, department chair at the college…you could get so bound up in your work or your ministry that you miss the boat about why you’re really here. To be honest with you, Steph, as intelligent as I was, [the direction that] God gave me at an early age made all the difference in the world. I just went along with it, I found people who I could trust to help me all along my formation. God put good people in my life. I am not saying that I didn’t have some reather crummy experiences with other people in there, going through them pointed out different parts of me, including the shadow side of me.
I found out even some of the more “scandalous” things that I might have been involved with were telling me something about me, opening myself up to a fuller me, and I could put them into a perspective. I knew there was part of me, not ALL of me, that I should be ashamed of. It was ok that this happened. It’s not the end of the world. You could go on from here. You learn. I never went for a Ph D, but I’ll tell ya, I think I have a Ph D in living life from the school of hard knocks in my life. Do you know what I mean? That’s the story of how I became a nun.
A couple of times here and there I fell in and out of love and that kind of thing. This is just part of it. It’s part of growing up. I’m 72 and I’m still growing up! And having different life experiences. I just went to a holistic retreat with an Indian priest and an Indian sister, and I really realized that how unquiet I am because of all the different things I have to do. I’m asked to do them, I do them well, I’m hardly ever pushing back that this [other thing] is what I want to do.
[When Sister Mary Lisa received her obedience assignment as a young nun, she was sent to be an elementary school teacher instead of to study to be a doctor. Here, she is talking about her first assignment as a teacher.] Stephanie, in my life, it’s the people that make a difference. Whether they’re your clients, or the people with whom you rub elbows when teaching. The job? You could take it and shove it! But the people I loved, as far as that goes.
This was another thing that came to me: it isn’t so much [about] what I do. I thought I had planned out my life! And God says, guess what, no, I have other plans for you. I tell ya, my hindsight is more than 20/20. I have to remember that when I am in a difficult situation: I will know, I will know, I will be given to know what this was all about in my life when God is ready to tell me what it is. Just hang in there tough, and go to the next thing and the next thing...
Nothing has ever been so horrendously devastating in my life that I would have just said, "That’s it God! No more!" It’s like, I’m starting to be like the kid who looks at a manure pile and says “Something in there is a pony!” Even though naturally, I’d say “What the hell is that shit!” Excuse me, tape recorder.
Part II coming soon, with lots of great perspective on spiritual questions from Sister Mary Lisa.
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