With prayer and cultivation, the sisterhood still calls

Mary Klein and Megan Otten entered the nursing program at Truman State University in north central Missouri a year apart. They didn't know each other that well, except that they were both Catholic - two out of about 2,000 who make up about a third of the school's student body. And they shared a secret.

Mary, tall and freckled with an incandescent grin, was one of four kids in a close-knit family that prayed the rosary together daily. Megan, petite and shy, admits her family wasn't like that. "We went to Mass Sundays and holydays of obligation," she says. "We'd say grace before meals and sometimes prayed before bedtime. But faith wasn't something we talked about."

Each, though, felt the quiet tugging at the heart that signaled a call to the religious life. Each thrived in the atmosphere fostered by the public college's Newman center, support-ed by Catholic Extension.

And after graduation, each followed that call. Mary entered the Domin­ican Sisters of St. Cecilia Congregation in Nashville, Tenn., where, as a novice, she is now known as Sister Gianna. On Mother's Day, Megan received word that she had been accepted to the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus in Kirkwood, Mo.

Prayer, opportunity, invitation

Yes, young women are still becoming sisters, and that's good news to the many mission dioceses who desperately depend on their services.

Their numbers took a major hit in a culture and a time that glorified women more for style than for substance, but they may be bouncing back. And the experience at Truman State shows that, in a climate centered in prayer, opportunity and invitation, vocations to religious life actually blossom.

Both Mary and Megan, in their 20s, credit the Newman program for providing opportunities for discernment and encouraging them to develop them for their peers.

Megan, for example, met a group of young Car­melite sisters while attending the National Catholic Youth Conference in St. Louis during her freshman year in high school. "Before that, even though I'd gone through Catholic school, I'd never seen a sister under age 50 and didn't realize that young women were still entering. It was an eye-opening experience," she says.

The St. Louis Archdio­cese sponsored a vocations discernment group for young women, "and it was helpful for me to see others discerning. You start to think, ‘Am I the only one my age who's thinking of this?'"

She brought the idea with her to Truman State, and helped start a vocations group at the New­man center. At first it was called Fiat, the response of the Blessed Virgin to the Lord's call. Now it's simply called the Vo­cations Discernment Group. They wanted to be clear about the group's purpose - and it hasn't scared any inquirers away. If anything, it's opened up more students to the process.

"Everyone's hungry for the truth at our age," says Sister Gianna. "You can sense that in people; they're passionate, and they're questioning."

For her part, she helped establish weekly Eucha­ristic adoration at the center, a devotion modeled for her by her mother. Sister Gianna is certain that it helped her vocation to gel at college.

"Once I started giving the Lord that time, I know that my vocation came from that. I just wanted to be all His. I didn't think I could love anybody like that."

Since the center didn't offer daily Mass, the students organized carpools to Mary Immaculate Church in Kirksville. They called the service "Mass Transit."

And it made a point of offering plenty of opportunities such as "nun runs" - visits to convents within driving distance of school - to those who wanted a closer look at religious life.

Choice of a lifetime

While Megan had decided fairly early that the Carmelites would be a good fit for her, Sister Gianna explains that her choice took longer. She explored communities with the same kind of fervor that students bring to the college selection process; she knew this choice would be not for four years, but for a lifetime.

Sister also is aware that she lives in a time when young wo­men have many more options, even in ministry, than her mother's generation - as a lay minister, as an associate, or as a fully professed sister. When she fell in love with Jesus in the Blessed Sacra­ment, her choice was made.

"I think there's something in all of us that we want to be total," she says thoughtfully. "We're meant to give ourselves entirely to someone, and we're not satisfied until we've given all."

So, for now she's living with the 12 other novices at the Nashville motherhouse, her "room" a simple desk, chair and narrow metal bed, curtained off from the row of other novices whose quarters look the same. The only distinguishing feature is what's on their pillow: a crucifix, holy card or other spiritual memento that has special meaning for each. Meals are taken in common, and each day the sisters stroll the serene grounds together to pray the rosary.

Novitiate is a more cloistered time than Sister Gianna's postulant year. Candidates focus on their studies, learning to find a necessary balance between work, recreation, community life and, of course, prayer.

This year, Sister is allowed to write home once a month, receive mail once a week. With no phone or e-mail for now, at least, it's a world apart from the one that most 20-somethings know.

She'll have three visiting days this year, and admits that the hardest part of convent life is being away from her close-knit family, but there's not a speck of deprivation in her face, just uncontained joy.

"There's such a strong community here, you don't feel lacking in love," she says. "God provides for it all."