After several years of casual discernment, I concluded that my vocation was to marriage and family life. At this point, a priest asked me if I had ever considered the Religious life and I told him that I had discerned for a good while and felt called to marriage. He responded by asking me if I had spent any time visiting with any Religious sisters. I had not and knew that this again was the Holy Spirit prompting me to be open to what the Lord would have for my life. Convicted by the Lord to act upon this priest’s advice, I began spending time with Religious Communities. At the end of a five-month period, I still thought my vocation was to marriage and continued to follow that path. But, during my times of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, my heart longed to live with and for Jesus alone. I longed to dwell with Him in prayer and to be undivided in my love and service to Him.

Following my graduation from the University of St. Thomas, an opportunity arose to serve full-time with a college ministry called Saint Paul’s Outreach. During this year, I was able to grow in my relationship with the Lord and allow Him to reveal Himself to me through relationships and prayer. I really felt prepared to take the next steps in embracing my vocation, which I was still convinced was a call to holy matrimony. Then, God gave me a particular grace at Pentecost, revealing his great love for me and inviting me to life with Him alone, to be espoused to the Great King and to forsake the goods of this world to live for the Kingdom to Come.

As you can imagine, I was delighted but confused: All this time I thought I was being called to marriage. And yet I still was--only my Spouse would be Jesus, not a mere human man. My "children" would come as the fruit of my love for Him and be numerous in the Kingdom of Heaven. It was through the wisdom of my spiritual director that I came to recognize the grace of God being given to me to follow the Lord in a particular way.

Through a long course of events, I have thus been led to embrace a life of consecrated love for Christ within the Community of Christ the Redeemer, a Catholic lay association of Christian faithful located here in St. Paul, Minnesota. While working with many young women through Saint Paul’s Outreach, the Lord has led me to serve Him through the archdiocesan Vocation Office. Here I handle projects like the monthly Theotokos faith formation group for high school women, Miryam Dinners, Quo Vadis Retreats, and the Women’s Discernment Household.

John Paul II states in his encyclical, Vita Consecrata, "as the [People of God] become better acquainted with the consecrated life, they will be able with greater awareness to thank Almighty God for this great gift." With great joy, I hope to respond to our late Holy Father’s words by working to promote and uphold the immense dignity of the Religious and consecrated life in the Church and in the world. Please pray for me that I might be ever faithful to Our Lord Jesus Christ and to his Bride, the Church.