Answering God's call

Yesterday Ms. Girard of our theology department announced to the student body via a letter that she is leaving Trinity High School after this year and will be joining the Dominican Sisters of Nashville, TN (now you know why two of them visited Trinity last week!).  Ms. Girard found out this Sunday that she had been accepted and wanted to share the good news with the students.  She is the second staff member in recent years to leave Trinity to pursue a vocation (Our former Campus Minister Andrew Nelson of course entered the seminary in 2008).  I have known of Ms. Girard's intentions for about 6 months but she didn't want many people to know in case things didn't work out.  I am so proud of her and happy that she is answering God's call to serve Him and His people as a sister.  God willing, she leaves for Nashville in August.

Here is the text of her letter to the students:


Hello Everyone,

I want to share with you some exciting yet bittersweet news. First of all- I love Trinity High School. Second of all- I am not returning in the fall.

Why, you ask? I fell in love. With Jesus. I am going to be His bride- I am going to become a Dominican Sister. This is not the life I had planned for myself. In fact, if you asked me a few years ago- I would have promised you that I would never become a sister. Yet, strangely, it is the life I know God is calling me to, and I have never felt so honest in my entire life.

To tell the truth, I have been running from this vocation for most of my life. Growing up, I viewed sisters as an old, bitter women, not anything I wanted to be like. Two years ago, I brought my sister to Nashville TN to look at colleges during February break, because she wanted to be a country music singer. While we were there I visited my friend who had become a sister. One evening my sister and I were in the elevator going to our room at the hotel in Nashville. I looked out the window of the elevator at the convent across the street and had this sense within myself- this is will be my home. That night I stayed up late thinking and praying- what would this mean? I was only too happy to throw myself back into teaching and forget about the whole thing after February break. It felt right, but I did not want it yet.

The past few years I kept consuming myself in being busy, because when I was silent, I had a sense of restlessness that would not go away. I felt called by God to travel to India and wondered if I would ever return to the US. I did, and still had no more clarity in what I was supposed to do next. Finally, in January I went on a vocations retreat, and I felt so at peace, even though I realized that this life was not going to be easy. I was leaving behind friends, family, and a man who I could have married in order to live a life of poverty, chastity and obedience. If it was not my calling I knew there was no way I could do it. Yet, as Picarda said in the Divine Comedy, “In His will is our peace”. This past Sunday, after 3 months of fulfilling the application, I found out that I am accepted.  Provided I am able to fundraise to pay for my student loans, I will enter the Nashville Dominicans on August 15th. 

I want to thank each and every one of you here at Trinity High School. Never before have I encountered a community which is so warm, inviting, and is, in all honesty, a family.  From Pep Rallies, to Trinity Week, to Cardboard City, and the notorious Theology Fair, Trinity is bursting at the seams with school spirit. It has been such a gift to walk along this journey of life with you the past four years. I am always amazed by your selflessness, creativity, and drive to succeed.  At no other school in Manchester could you find students arriving at school at 4am on a weekend in order to go on a pro-life march, or willing to sleep outside in cardboard boxes, even in the rain. But you have. You inspire me to give life everything I have, and to never get tired of serving. With students who are eager to use their gifts, I have been challenged to face my own fears and take the time to discern my vocation.  One of the hardest parts about answering this call from God is that I will miss all of you next year, and in the years to come.  Know that I care for each of you, and you will always be in my thoughts and prayers. This is the next step in my journey, and I look forward to seeing where God leads you in yours.
As you walk through life and are faced with tough decisions and the prospect of change, I hope that you can take comfort in these words that have challenged and inspired me. As Pope Benedict said, 

“Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom? . . . No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return.”

Don’t be afraid. As Pioneers you are doing incredible things in the world today, and I am confident that you will continue to do so in the future. I am so proud to be called a Pioneer.