Here is the next installment of The Monitor’s special monthly series in observance of the Church’s Year of Consecrated Life, featuring stories of different individuals in our Diocese who have committed their lives to serving God as a religious priest, brother or sister.

By Mercy Sister Rosemary Jeffries

As I reflected on my vocation story to write this article, I recognized that it was a story about a “call” that didn’t go away over time or despite challenges rather the “call” strengthened and grew as I responded along the way.

Like every little girl in Catholic School in the mid 1950s through the 1960s, I was asked to consider becoming a “sister” like the revered sister teachers who staffed our schools. Most of the way through elementary school, I thought that would be my destiny.  But like most teenagers, I began to think there were a million other things I would like to be. That initial desire to be a sister got lost in being a normal teenage girl going out, having fun and growing more and more independent.  Becoming a sister was the farthest thing from my mind.

Then in my senior year of high school, the question about becoming a sister returned to my thought precipitated by a profound discussion in religion class about what was a vocational call.  That conversation ushered in thoughts about religious life that did not go away. As the days and weeks of senior year continued the thought of religious life became stronger and somehow I thought I needed to look at this more closely.

I decided to talk over the possibility of entering the convent with my mother late in November, thinking she would be happy. To my surprise, she was not at all enthused and offered many reasons that this was not a good idea. That skeptical and often negative stance about my becoming a sister persisted through all phases of my applying to the Sisters of Mercy and throughout all of my early years of religious life.  I was challenged by the lack of support from my family for my decision to enter religious life. Yet, as I reflect on that time, I believe the challenge  helped me sort out for myself what I felt called to be and not looking for outside affirmation, rather, seek interior affirmation of my choice.

My story of call is laced with many significant sisters who inspired me as far back as first grade, but I was captivated and drawn to the Sisters of Mercy who taught me in Holy Spirit High School, Absecon. They modeled for me a joyous, innovative and inspiring community I wanted to be a part of and so I joined, believing that I would come to know if this was the right path for me.  Conversations I had with some of the sisters, friends who were searching for their path, and classes where discussion provoked thinking about life choices all contributed to my growing desire to enter the Sisters of Mercy.

My desire to enter the Sisters of Mercy some 47 years ago was a decision to follow a call that kept on revealing itself to me but required me to pay attention.  Every day since my entrance, my life has been anchored in the gift the community offers me and the deepening relationship with God, both of which require that I renew my commitments, pay attention daily and take seriously the ongoing call I encounter in the conversations, events and challenges of my life. Religious life, as I have come to realize, is dynamic, not static, and leads me to places and circumstances I never plan on but learn to embrace as my path to holiness.

Making a decision to enter religious life was only a beginning of a vocation story that offered me opportunities as an educator, a communicator, an administrator and as a leader always trying to be faithful to the spirit of our Mercy community that distinguishes itself by our fourth vow of service.  Those ministries put flesh and bones on my commitment to serve but amidst all the activity of each of those ministries, it is the ever present “call” to come closer to God and “pay attention” to the invitations to holiness.

As the word “vocation” itself means “to call forth,” I simply say, my vocation story is really about the “calling forth” that doesn’t go away.  I believe God still calls women to this life and I pray that some pay attention long enough and hard enough to have the courage to follow.

Sister Rosemary Jeffries, a professed Sister of Mercy for 48 years, has served in a number of ministries including in education and communication. She recently retired as president of Georgian Court University, Lakewood.