My Journey to Religious Life
Sr. Veronica, M.S.

As in several others’ stories, many different people and events have influenced me on my journey to a religious vocation. One story I particularly like is related by my mother. When I was just a year old, my mother went to the religious profession of her first cousin, Sr. Mary Damian, who had just joined the Franciscan Sisters in Maryville, Missouri. At the reception, the Mother Superior approached my mother and asked if Mom had thought about religious. Mom’s response was: “No, I can’t come. Someday I will send my daughter to be a Franciscan.” The prophecy was fulfilled when I joined the Mercy Sisters of St. Francis (now the Marian Sisters of the Diocese of Lincoln who follow the Franciscan Rule) at St. Thomas Orphanage on August 1, 1958.

When I was about 12 years old, I stayed home from Sunday Mass to sit with an ill sibling. When Mom came home from Church, she said that Fr. Ed Orzechowski had preached a homily on vocations in our small parish, St. Bernard’s in Julian. He had said that parents were not to discourage their children from thinking about a religious vocation by saying, “’You aren’t good enough to be a sister or a priest.’ No one is good enough to be a sister or a priest. God’s call is a special gift to be accepted.” That statement made a deep impression on me.

My prayerful parents, good pastors, and faithful sisters who taught me in high school, all contributed in some way to my vocation story but my Protestant friends had a unique role. After graduating from Brescia College, I began to teach at a small school in Talmage, NE. Almost everyone in town was Lutheran. I had many discussions about religion with the high school students and my boyfriend. I didn’t know the answers to many of their questions so I asked Fr. Clement Siwinski, the pastor at Julian, how to answer them. He gave me advice and recommendations for books to read. I would take this information back to those who had questioned me. After two years of this questioning, I learned much about my faith. I especially remember one evening….I had just returned home from chaperoning a sock hop where I had joined a religious discussion. The beauty and wealth of the Catholic Church were so obvious. Christ was the greatest psychologist there ever was. He had provided for all our spiritual needs by giving us the treasure of our faith in Him as nourished by the church. I knew at that moment that I would have to sue the gift I had received for the benefit of others. I would have liked to host a talk show like “Oprah” and spread the good news all over America of how wonderful Jesus Christ is and that He extends himself through history in His family – the Church.

The call to religious life was confirmed when I made a weekend retreat at St. Thomas Orphanage with the Mercy Sisters of St. Francis. Fr. Tuchek, the sisters’ chaplain at that time, asked if I had a religious vocation. I told him that I was thinking about it. “Some women are eighty years old and are still thinking about it,” he quipped. I was already an old 22. It was time to make a choice. Although I was not looking for a religious vocation, the Lord spoke with such a flow of peace during Benediction at the close of that retreat that I decided to join the sisters the next fall.