Vocations

Less than 10 miles north of Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, 22 contemplative Catholic nuns of the Cistercian Order live quietly on 112 acres of farmland. A set of renovated buildings and additions off an 1859 stone cottage make up Valley of Our Lady Monastery, where prayer, study and manual labor set the cadence for this cloistered, contemplative order.

When Dominican Sister Mary Consolata Klucik walked through the St. Agnes School lunchroom on a recent school day, excited kindergartners and first-graders shouted, “Sister!”

Two Carmelite sisters who discerned their vocations in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis returned to the Twin Cities to share their stories and encourage young women discerning religious life.

The Catholic Spirit asked the following clergy and consecrated religious to share a part of their discernment process, what brings them joy in their vocation and their advice for others considering a religious vocation.

While in his early 20s living in a discernment house near Denver, Colorado, a friend’s picture of the bald-headed, bearded Capuchin Franciscan caught Brother Richardson’s attention. He soon came to revere Father Casey, who’ll be beatified Nov. 18 in Detroit.

This year, the Office of Vocations has chosen as its theme, “Pray to the Lord of the Harvest,” a direct reference to the words of Jesus telling his disciples, “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest” (Lk 10:2). Jesus does not make this as a suggestion, but rather a command that we ask, or pray “to the master of the harvest” for more laborers.

Father Solanus Casey and two of his brothers made an unusual threesome as they walked together at the College St. Thomas in St. Paul in the summer of 1937: He and Father Maurice Casey wore brown Capuchin Franciscan habits while Father Edward Casey donned the black clerics of an archdiocesan priest.

Located on Summit Avenue next to St. Thomas More, a parish in the care of Jesuit priests, the novitiate serves the provincial territory from Kentucky to the Dakotas. The novices, mostly in their 20s, come from a variety of backgrounds and education levels.