Discernment, Dating, and Deciding: My Story

Here's my story of entering religious life, discerning out, and meeting my husband.

If you read my blog post on Discernment called "Bringing God Into Decisions," I shared Fr. Mike Schmitz’s four steps for when making a big decision or discerning something. I am now going to use these same four steps as an outline as I share my story. Enjoy! 

1. Is this a Good Door? 

When I was a senior at Franciscan University, I remember talking to a friend who was also discerning religious life about how when the devil knows you aren’t going to choose mortal sin, he likes to trick us with another good that we are not called to. We can be torn between two options that are both good and can lead us to holiness. For example, if we’re called to married life, since religious life is a “supernatural” calling, it looks like the “better” calling. It is easy to think that you are supposed to be married or supposed to be a priest or sister, but we have to think and pray hard about this. You have to look at the desires that were placed on your heart since you were a kid and ask the Lord to reveal what He has in store for you personally, which is always for your GOOD and your sanctification.

In my last semester at Franciscan, I went on a discernment retreat with the TOR sisters and one of the sisters described how those in religious life live Heaven here and now on earth. They do this through the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, which they live out with Christ as their Spouse. We all will be fully united to our Bridegroom Jesus in Heaven, but religious have a supernatural calling to live this here and now on earth. This really resonated with me. It was on that retreat in adoration that I felt resolved that the path the Lord had me on was to pursue religious life. I left that retreat knowing I had some news I needed to share with my friends before graduation that was soon approaching and with my family back home, although I didn’t know yet where or which religious order would be my home.  

2. Is this an Open Door? 

After graduating, while working as a youth minister at my home parish, I was set to fly to do a discernment retreat with the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa's community, who I grew up volunteering with in Sacramento, California. A week or two prior my grandfather dropped off a book on discernment by the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist (Ann Arbor, Michigan) called And Mary’s 'Yes' Continues. In reading this, I felt strongly that their charism aligned to mine and so I reached out to the community, who I also knew well since they were at my home parish. I received a call almost immediately from two sisters I knew that said they had a discernment retreat in about a week and I should attend. I felt it was the Lord’s prompting and so I changed my flights and attended this retreat instead of the one with the MCs.  

When I arrived, I came to find out this retreat was for the girls who had already applied to enter and would be entering in a few months' time. I see what the sisters did there! I remained open and listened to a talk on Dominican spirituality that really touched me. I felt this spirituality was where the Lord was leading me, but I also kept feeling the call on my heart for more Eucharistic adoration in the community I would enter. The vocations director told me that everyone hits a road bump in their discernment, and she thought mine would be that I would always wonder if the contemplative life was for me since I desired more adoration, so she said I needed to go look at a Dominican cloister. She thought I would realize the cloister wasn’t for me and come enter her community, as I had studied teaching and hers was a teaching order. She said my long search to find the right order seemed to be coming to an end very soon and I sure hoped so!

There happened to be a Dominican cloister about thirty minutes away (Providential!) and she would make a call. Her community orders communion hosts from that cloister and had just spoken with them that day, but for some reason their phone lines were down and they could not get in touch. I told sister I thought I should go visit and so she said to pack up and they would take me there to the monastery. I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye to the other retreatants as a sister drove me to the Monastery of the Blessed Sacrament in Farmington Hills, Michigan, just outside Detroit. They didn't even know I was coming so this would be quite the adventure to share with my family when I got home! Who randomly knocks on a cloister door and asks to stay a few days? Me, I guess, ha! I arrived at the monastery's bookstore where a woman was at the desk and joyfully told me the sisters were expecting me. Despite squirrels chewing the phone line, one of the sisters had received an email.

I knelt to pray for the first time in that chapel and my desire for adoration was quenched – with over 110 years of adoration and counting! I started to cry and knew without a doubt: I was home. Sister was right: on the feast of Peter and Paul, the search was over. I was drawn immediately to the three extern sisters. These three fun ladies are the sisters that take care of the needs of visitors outside the cloister, grocery shop for the cloistered nuns, and run the bookstore. This is where I wanted to be- a vocation within a vocation. Things continued to get better as the vocations director told me there was a conundrum (no pun intended). There was actually construction going on in the passageway between the guest room outside the cloister where visitors usually stay and the public side of the chapel where I would join for prayer. Although they don’t usually do this on a first visit and because I was dropped on their doorstep unexpectedly, the nuns held a council meeting and it was decided I could stay for a few days INSIDE the cloister (God is good!).

Little did they know, I already knew they were to be my sisters! In my time there, I even got to visit a sick sister on her deathbed right before she passed, who had given her life in particular for vocations. I met 26 Dominican sisters and was home. God kept opening doors for me, and I kept stepping through them. I texted my family I had a surprise for them when I came back, and I entered this cloistered monastery six months later. On that day I was surrounded by my two sisters, three brothers, sister-in-law who was pregnant with my first nephew, my parents and paternal grandparents, and a couple friends there to watch my Entrance ceremony as I received the veil and went by Sr. Jamie.

3. Is this a Wise Door? 

As I was there for one year as a postulant, I kept mulling over if this was actually where I was called to be. He had clearly called me there for a time, but the Lord continued to work on my heart for if this was where I was to be for good. I had grown so much, but I wondered if a different order or even vocation would be a better fit. I wondered if I was supposed to be married with a family. I was on my retreat to prepare me for my Investiture, where I would receive my new name of Sr. Maria of the Immaculate Heart and receive the Dominican habit and rosary. I sat in our little hermitage in the backyard, away from everyone, and had time to think and pray. The desire for marriage and family increased. I knew what I needed to do. I asked to leave.

I happened to arrive back home on December 22, 2018, for my family's annual celebration of their conversion to the Catholic faith. My grandfather had prayed for me by name 3-4 times a day in that year. He told me that Thomas Merton's best advice was, "Don't try to figure it out - just trust," words I often think about today. He ended up passing away a few months later. I returned from the convent a completely different person. I was radically transformed, in body and spirit. A year-long retreat at the age of 23. Family and friends did not recognize the new person I was.

4. Do I Want This Door? 

It was a very challenging decision to leave the convent, but the transition back to the world was even harder. To go from 22 hours of silence every day to TVs, grocery stores, and talking in general is a huge culture shock. With time, healing came bit by bit. Six months later, I found a job an hour from home. A coworker invited me to a Catholic young adults' group that was doing Fr. Dave Pivonka's video series and Vespers, a great fit for me.

The first day I went, I chatted with of one the guys running the group. He told me he had discerned out of seminary. I was busy judging how he was unschooled and obsessed with Lord of the Rings and he was judging how I was a Catholic school girl. After coming back week after week, this guy kept telling me about the nuns he was close to in the area and teaching me about religious life. I finally broke the news I had freshly left a convent and soon enough we started dating, with a lot in common.

I wouldn’t say the dating journey was all butterflies. We broke up for a time, in March 2020, and the Pandemic led him to move to Steubenville, Ohio, to finish his bachelor's degree from seminary. During this difficult year of long-distance dating, I was starting to feel more confident about Peter as my future spouse and had asked Our Lady for a sign that this was truly my vocation, to marry this man. I asked for yellow roses and sure enough, yellow roses arrived at my house from Peter! Although an answered prayer, there would still be more time before we would even be in the same state. Peter wanted to stay in Ohio for two more years for his Masters, so eventually I moved out there too and we got engaged. Even that wasn’t the perfect story of the fairy tales as we were trying to find community and jobs, on top of planning a long-distance wedding.

Despite the ups and downs, by the time August 13, 2022 came around, we were ready and at peace. We were married in St. Eugene’s Catholic Cathedral, in Santa Rosa, California. The Marian sisters of Santa Rosa were the choir, two priests who were fellow seminarians with Peter back in the day were at the altar, the traditional Latin Mass was celebrated, the Missionaries of Charity were present, and we were surrounded by the love and support of many family and friends. The Marian Sisters learned and sang the Dominican Salve (that I sang in the monastery) while Peter and I brought yellow roses to Our Lady, dedicating our marriage to her and as an act of thanksgiving.

We enjoyed a lovely day and were touched by family and friends who came in town from Louisiana, Texas, Indiana, and more. We were surrounded by a lot of people who had been our rock and prayer support over the years all in one spot, and many prayer warriors from afar. At the reception, my matron of honor (and goddaughter) started to cry giving her speech and Peter's little goddaughter supported her with a loud empathetic "Oh no" and everyone thought it was a joy and delight. My household sister (Catholic sorority) from college took me and all the young adult women to the back patio to pray over me, as is tradition. Peter and I danced to Love Songs and Lullabies by Luke Spehar, a song from a man who also left seminary and married the love of his life. I danced with my dad to our song Sunrise, Sunset from Fiddler on the Roof and sang. Peter and his mom danced to Pavarotti. We danced and enjoyed each other's company. As wedding favors we gave decks of cards with our names and little candles made by Dominican cloistered nuns. We concluded the night with everyone in a circle as we all sang Piano Man, and then Peter and I processed out as family and friends lined either side of the back patio holding sparklers. It was a blessed evening.

We've now been blessed with three and a half years of marriage. During my sophomore year of college, I consecrated myself to Jesus through Mary for the first time. In my diary I wrote, "I wonder if my future husband is starting this consecration tomorrow too." Sure enough, on December 8, 2013 (6 years before we would even meet) both Peter and I made the Marian consecration for the first time on the exact same day and year. At the time, I was with my eventual bridesmaid and household sister in the grotto at Franciscan University and Peter was in Nebraska at St. Greg's Seminary, but the Lord knew. God has blessed me abundantly with the husband He picked out for me from all time.

I hope that reading my journey pushes you forward to keep trusting in God's plan for your life. Please pray for Peter and I and know that I am praying for you. God bless.