On Feb. 8, five young adults attended a Life Awareness Retreat to help them discern the next steps God is asking of them. It was the first collaborative vocations retreat, including the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, the Crosier Fathers and Brothers, the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls, the Sisters of the Order of St. Benedict in St. Joseph and the Benedictine monks of St. John’s Abbey.
Maria Marble, a student of art education and art therapy at Moorhead State University in Moorhead, Minnesota, talked about her decision to participate.
“I’ve been discerning a vocation for about a year,” Marble said. “I attended because my friend Makaela was familiar with the sisters — her great-aunt Geraldine was a Benedictine sister.
Marble’s home faith communities are St. Joseph Parish and Moorhead Catholic Campus Ministries, both in Moorhead.
“The presentations and information given at the retreat were invaluable,” she said. “Also, I got a sense of peace while we were eating — Makaela and I talked with a sister who was unrelated to the retreat. She told us the same characteristics that make a person a good mother also make them a good sister. This reassured me, that if I continue to grow as a daughter of God in my character and virtue, I’ll end up in the right place.”
Greg Darr, vocation minister for the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, said the reasons participants attended were deeply personal, having to do with each person’s sense of experiencing a call to service and ministry.
“Most are already actively discerning religious life and priesthood and saw the retreat as an opportunity to explore these discernment questions further, perhaps even gain some insight as to how to go about living with these questions in ways that draw them closer to God,” Darr said.
About the collaborative spirit among the Benedictines, Franciscans, Crosiers and Maryknolls, he said, “We were each able to offer insights from our traditions and life experiences but in ways that identified helpful pathways for discernment that begin with listening, move through interpreting what we’ve sensed and choosing a life of purpose and joy in service to others.”
Benedictine Sister Laura Suhr, who coordinated registrations, said, “Participants were grateful for the opportunity a retreat offered, glad they came. One wrote, ‘I appreciated being able to hear from the different orders’ and another, ‘You have helped me greatly with my discernment.’”
Sister Laura said, “The Benedictines (Sister Marilyn Mark and Brother Michael Peterson) talked about listening. We gave examples from our own lives of times we listened to God in various ways — quiet times in nature, through others, through Scripture, through events and experiences. We also had questions for participants to reflect on, how others see them, how they see themselves, how they listen best.”
Marble said, “My vocation was slightly more clarified after the retreat. My personal follow-up plan is to continue to devote myself to prayer and that sometime, this summer or the next, I will contact the Sisters of Life and ask to stay and volunteer with them for an extended period of time.
“I don’t feel too rushed because I’m not graduating from college for a while and every sister I’ve ever talked to has told me to finish my education,” she added. “I recommend this retreat to anyone who is discerning, particularly those who are just beginning their discernment process and are curious to learn more.”