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Spiritual Sisters
Four women pursue religious calling
More than 200 religious sisters serve the Diocese of Phoenix every day. They work in hospitals, schools, homeless shelters and pro-life clinics. They spread the Gospel in parishes and from the Diocesan Pastoral Center.
These sisters continue to be a driving force of love in the diocese, constantly bringing others to know Our Lord, Jesus Christ. Four local women are about to join them.
By Ambria Hammel, ahammel@catholicsun.org
June 19, 2008
Christa Parra doesn’t have to be reminded to put her trust in God.
She reads the message daily, “In God We Trust,” inscribed on the money she handles at her job at a bank. She’s also one of four women in the diocese trusting in God’s call to a religious vocation.
Each woman — ages 20 to 38 — felt God’s call to a particular religious community. This summer, they are taking the next step toward final vows.
Parra, 27, has been a candidate with the Loreto sisters in Phoenix for the last four months. This allowed her to live with the sisters and embrace their spirituality while continuing her secular job.
“They’re so hard-working in all of their ministries and there’s a variety of ministries that they’re in,” Parra said of the order, formally known as the sisters of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. “These women do not stop from the moment they wake up.”
The Loreto sisters serve those in need worldwide. The 400-year-old ministry focuses on education, whether that’s in parishes, schools, prisons or elsewhere.
Parra, a parishioner at Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral, looks forward to beginning her two-year novitiate in Chicago this August. She’ll study at the Catholic Theological Union, meet weekly with novices in other religious communities, get involved with ministry work and meet regularly with her spiritual director.
It was Sr. Gabrielle Marry who helped her realize and accept her call to the religious life when she was a senior in college.
Sr. Gabby entered Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral during a retreat to pray for vocations several years ago and found Parra praying near the front. She promptly asked the young woman if she had ever thought about being a nun.
Despite being voted “Most likely to be a nun” in high school and Parra’s dad telling her she’d be a good nun, Parra hadn’t seriously considered it. As the only girl of a Mexican-American family, Parra wanted a family of her own.
Sr. Gabby invited the young woman to the convent and Parra began to fall in love with religious life and with Jesus. She also took a mission trip to Peru, which helped confirm her vocation.
“I had never seen poverty like that in my life,” Parra said. “Yet in such seemingly hopeless situations, there are the sisters.”
They help them find jobs, get an education, and bring them dignity, Parra said.
The variety of ministry is what attracted Carla Flood to the Duluth Benedictine order. She’s been an affiliate with the community since late last year.
Flood, a St. Bernadette parishioner, said this period of discernment taught her patience and to work through imperfections and challenges. She also learned that the women value their sisterhood. Some are biologically related and the others find a common bond in the Lord.
In August, Flood will take the next step toward becoming a spiritual sister with the Duluth Benedictines when she becomes a postulant. This discernment step involves formation classes, lessons on monastic life and living the vows without taking them.
Flood began discerning her call to religious life in 1991 after making her Cursillo.
“Many points of the weekend served to confirm my vocation,” Flood said. “I had visited other communities over the years and had to go through a lot of growth in different areas of my life, but I truly believed God was calling me.”
A friend of hers agreed, saying simply, “We need you. We need you.”
Sarah Cieplinski learned that the Church might need her while preparing for confirmation in 2001. She prayed about her vocation and remained open to God’s plan.
Cieplinski, a St. Timothy parishioner, attended a couple of discernment days hosted by the diocesan Office of Religious to learn about the various communities. The teenager visited the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur community before leaving for college.
“I felt at home there ever since,” said Cieplinski, now 24. She is finishing up a weeklong retreat on the order’s charism and will become an affiliate in the community in August.
The sisters are committed to a broad variety of social outreach, Cieplinski said.
The reach of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist is focused on the classroom, said Jessica Wrigley, who expects to enter the community as a postulant in August.
That lifestyle suits the St. Bernard of Clairvaux parishioner just fine. Their emphasis on study and education is what attracted the philosophy major to the Michigan-based community.
“It all started with a co-worker of mine who had always wanted to join the Carmelites,” Wrigley said. He asked if she had thought about religious life. She hadn’t, but the question got her thinking.
Now, the 20-year-old finds herself praying vespers weekly with the Dominican sisters at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish and is ready to commit her life to the Lord.
It’s that commitment which has these women eager to delve deeper into their religious vocation.
Christa Parra, the up-and-coming Loreto sister, said religious orders have one thing in common, “They spread God’s love and they seek God in all things.”
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