School Sister of Notre Dame Stephanie Spandl knows she started thinking about religious life in seventh grade because it’s in her “seventh grade journal.”
At the time, she was “comparing religious life and marriage, and was curious, and admired her teachers,” she said.
“I would say to anyone, ‘Don’t think you’re too young to be listening to God’s call,’” nor too old, she said. She did “all the normal fun things” in high school, but had a constant interest, pull and curiosity about a religious vocation, she said.
With the Dec. 9-10 weekend marking the start of the 2023 Retirement Fund for Religious Annual Appeal, Sister Stephanie recently joined “Practicing Catholic” radio show host Patrick Conley to share her vocation story and how sisters in her order serve the Church.
Around age 24, Sister Stephanie knew it was time to discern, which led her to the School Sisters of Notre Dame.
“I just felt at home with them,” she said. “I experienced their joy with one another, their sense of community.” God led her to know that’s where she was called, she said.
The order’s charism of “oneness, that struggle for unity in our divided world” resonated with her “inner way of being in a way that I didn’t really know at the time,” Sister Stephanie said, but she eventually came to know where she fit.
Her order’s foundation is “to educate girls and young women in schools,” said Sister Stephanie. The sisters “continue in formal education, and we’ve come to understand God’s call and … education in a broader sense of empowering people to reach the fullness of their potential,” she said.
Sisters are also involved in justice-related issues, including “poverty, immigration and (combatting) racism.”
The SSND sisters serve the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in a number of ways, including Sister Stephanie’s work on the board of Catholic Charities. Some sisters teach in Minneapolis and St. Paul, one is director of music for Latino ministry at a parish, another serves the Minnesota Council of Churches and others are involved in pastoral care and other work.
To learn more about the School Sisters of Notre Dame and their service — and to find out whether the order’s name is tied to the University of Notre Dame — listen to this episode of “Practicing Catholic,” which debuts at 9 p.m. Dec. 1 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM and repeats at 1 p.m. Dec. 2 and 2 p.m. Dec. 3. To learn more about the order, visit its website, ssnd.org. Information on vocations more broadly is posted on the archdiocesan website 10000 vocations.org.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the latest show also includes an interview with Father John Paul Erickson, pastor of Transfiguration in Oakdale, who discusses how the faithful can more fully enter into the Advent season; and Father Erich Rutten, pastor of Christ the King and of St. Thomas the Apostle in Minneapolis, who shares his wisdom about interfaith relationships.
Listen to interviews after they have aired at PracticingCatholicShow.com or choose a streaming platform at https://anchor.fm/practicing-catholic-show.
