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Sept. 14, 2006
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‘Nun Run’ gives young women
chance to meet sisters |
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Marquette student discerns vocation thanks to experience |
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Maggie Voelker, a senior at Marquette University, is considering religious life and believes that opportunities to meet with sisters, such as during the October Nun Run, help young women discern a possible religious vocation. (Catholic Herald photo by Sam Lucero) |
MILWAUKEE — If you look close enough, you just might see the twinkle in Marquette University senior Maggie Voelker’s eyes. But unlike many women her age, the stars in Voelker’s eyes are not from a recent romantic date, but rather from the love of Christ.
The Milwaukee Area Nun Run, Oct. 14-15, offers women like Voelker the opportunity to experience and meet other women with an overwhelming love for Christ. During the 24-hour “nun run,” women travel from convent to convent, seeing and interacting with women who have answered the call to religious life. Transportation, overnight accommodations and meals are provided. All that is required of participants, ages 18-35, is an open and prayerful mind.
Sr. Barb Linde, a School Sister of Notre Dame who is helping coordinate the run, said that Nun Runs are an opportunity to bring sisters out of the convent and into the limelight, exposing young women to the possibility of religious life.
“Sisters are not really seen today, except in the media, which shows a bit of a stereotypical view of them,” Sr. Barb said. “The Nun Run really gives young women the chance to see what everyday life is like, to pray with them and to eat with them, to talk about what they do. What is the role of prayer? What is their style of living? This gives women the opportunity to find out.”
Any stereotype from the media is quickly shattered in a Nun Run, according to Katie Devitt, 22, a religion teacher at Assumption High School in Wisconsin Rapids, located in the La Crosse Diocese.
“Nun Runs really help with the discernment process because they give a concrete, accurate view of what being a sister is really like,” she said. “So many girls are only vaguely familiar with the sisterhood, and the stereotypes that are usually floating in their heads are incorrect — that sisters are a bunch of old, crabby women who hit children with rulers and are bitter about their life of sacrifice. A girl learns how fulfilling and joyful her life would be if the Lord is calling her to the consecrated life.”
Voelker, 21, said the joy of sisters is evident on their faces, and it resonates with young women.
“This joy, in some shape or form, is something that each person longs for,” added
Voelker. “Although you can always catch hints of how very human they are, they inspire us to strive for great holiness… These women prove that the grace of God is sufficient enough to make saints out of even the most horrible of sinners. Through their vocation stories, the sisters point out how very beautifully divine providence works in leading each young girl to her vocation, wherein lies her greatest happiness in life.”
For Voelker and Devitt, seeing joy in the nuns they have encountered through Nun Runs has left them with a desire to join their ranks. Voelker said that the first time she encountered a nun while in high school, she knew where God was leading her.
“Something about the radical nature of their lives, that they would surrender even their dress as a sacrifice and as a sign of their consecration to the Lord moved me greatly,” Voelker said. “I guess from that moment on I heard a small whisper and felt a light pull on my heart.
“As one Poor Clare nun in Kokomo, Ind. recently put it, ‘If you run from the Lord and are a good, moral person, He will eventually catch you.’ That is what happened to me. I kept feeling called to the religious life, yet couldn’t give up my desire for marriage. Through the years, and my interaction with many nuns and sisters, the Lord has led me to a great joy in the thought of a religious vocation.”
“Even after I felt the Lord calling me to the sisterhood, I resisted for what seemed like a long time,” Devitt said. “I used to pray to God, ‘Lord, you can change anything. If my vocation is to the sisterhood, change it to the married life.’ Now I find myself praying, ‘Please, Lord, let me enter somewhere now.’ I envision myself being totally (with) Jesus and the peace and joy I feel is overwhelming. I choose Jesus over a human husband and children because He first chose me.”
Not all women feel this way. While the desire for marriage and children may rank high as one of the reasons women are not choosing to enter religious life, it’s not the only reason, according to Sr. Barb.
“The number of young women joining the call to vocations has decreased for a number of different reasons,” said Sr. Barb. “For starters, visibility-wise we’re not seen the way we used to be. Today, there are many things that women can do in the church that they could not do in the past. And our culture is just different. There isn’t that religious atmosphere. Families are smaller. Parents want to see grandchildren.”
Nun Runs, along with several other efforts from the archdiocese, such as increasing visibility of sisters on college campuses, reaching out to youth via the Internet, and sponsoring programs such as Theology on Tap, are an attempt to combat these issues. |
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