By Sister Regina Marie, C.K.
As I look back upon the road on which Jesus led me to arrive at the School Sisters of Christ the King, I can see many ways in which He was preparing my heart to answer His call.
I was born into a Catholic family where love and service were strongly emphasized. As the oldest of six children, I carried extra responsibility in caring for my sisters and brother and these experiences at home instilled in me a deep love for serving others. I also had the privilege of attending Catholic school until I graduated from high school.
While at both St. Joseph Elementary and Pius X High School in Lincoln, I was exposed to many good priests and religious Sisters. Through their example, I saw the beauty of responding to an invitation to live totally for God in a religious vocation. I was attracted to the joy and peace the Sisters I knew exuded and as a girl I often thought I would eventually become a Sister myself.
However, after beginning high school, the sacrifices that entering religious life entailed became more apparent to me and I shied away from the idea. Growing up in a large family and spending many nights each week babysitting had cultivated in my heart a deep desire to be a mother and the thought of giving this up was scary. I stopped going to the events the Sisters hosted which I had previously attended and I tried very hard to convince myself and others I was not called!
After several years of this, something inside was still pushing me to consider a religious vocation and I began meeting with the assistant pastor at my parish for some guidance. I remember being very nervous as I walked into the parish office for our first meeting because I was afraid Father was just going to try to convince me to begin applying to enter the convent, but he didn’t!
In fact, we didn’t talk at all about the possibility of a vocation for months. Instead, he helped me know how to pray and challenged me to spend time alone with Jesus in adoration because, as he put it, it is not possible to know God’s call for my life if I don’t know Him personally. This was such a gift in my life!
Finally, after several months, Father challenged me to attend the discernment retreat that was being put on by the School Sisters of Christ the King. After much procrastination, I finally sent in my registration and made preparations for the weekend retreat. On the retreat I heard several of the Sisters talk about different aspects of their life and some shared their story of how they arrived here. Then one Sister made the comment that sometimes it is necessary for us to let God take from us what we see as good so that He can give us something better, and eventually He may even replace what is better for that which is best for us.
These words resounded in my heart for the rest of the day. That night I had the opportunity to spend an hour with Jesus during nocturnal adoration. As I knelt before the Blessed Sacrament, the tug on my heart was becoming more and more intense.
Finally I said to Jesus, “I have been trying to follow You my whole life and I want to do what You want me to do, but I am afraid of what it will cost. Help me to know what you want and surrender to You.” As I prayed these words, I could feel Jesus calling me to give Him the things that I clung to as good in my life so that He could replace them with the best—with what would make me truly happy.
I felt a great peace in this realization and I was so excited to tell the priest who had challenged me to go on the retreat what I had discovered.
After the retreat I visited a couple different communities and decided that God was calling me to give myself to Him as a School Sister of Christ the King. I entered our community in 2006 and made my final profession of vows in 2014.
In the last 10 years, I have had the joy of teaching hundreds of children and being a spiritual mother to them, especially as I help to prepare them to receive sacraments. In this way, and so many others, Jesus has continued to show me time and time again that if I give Him the good things I hold dear, He will always transform them into what is best for me and what will make me happiest. He certainly is a good and faithful God!
Our community is hosting a discernment retreat Feb. 19-21 at our motherhouse. Please keep the young women who will be attending in your prayers! If you or someone you know is interested in attending the retreat, more information can be found at our website: www.cksisters.org/contact-us/events.
