Sisters’ Journeys

I was NOT one of those who “wanted to be a sister since the third grade.” I never gave religious life a thought. I avoided daily Mass, and would drive around the block a number of times rather than go into church during the 8 a.m. Mass before school. Yet, I came to the Sisters of the Holy Cross and discovered it was here that God wanted me to be. 

While in Bangladesh I helped abandoned babies find homes with loving couples who seem to be everywhere in the world — those who so much want a baby of their own but cannot have children. I believe every baby should have two special people to call mom and dad.

"How did you know? When did you know that becoming a sister was the right thing for you? Can't you serve the church without becoming a nun?" These are some of the many questions that I am asked by my close friends and relatives. I usually smile, but can't respond with just one answer because it took time for me to discover my vocation to religious life.

I first contemplated the call to religious life when I was in seventh grade. Despite the fact that my school was a Catholic girls' school and well known in Kumasi, a city in Ghana, West Africa, where I was born, there were no Catholic sisters at the school.

I honestly did not enter Holy Cross to do any particular ministry but to be a religious, answering a call to follow Jesus in his life, death and resurrection, reaching out to spread the good news of his presence and action in the world. My heart did cherish a deep desire to be a missionary though, especially to Bangladesh.

Believe it or not, the choice of religious life was one of the first options that I remember making. When I was ready to enter the third grade my family moved to Evergreen Park, a suburb of Chicago, and enrolled me in the parochial school at Most Holy Redeemer Parish. I was impressed by the Sisters of the Holy Cross whom I met there and decided that I wanted to be just like them. This attraction stayed with me through my high school days, alongside many other possibilities that presented themselves.

God has always been with me in my life, especially when I was finding my way to Holy Cross. For me, being a Sister of the Holy Cross demands much self-knowledge in order to be passionately captivated by the image of this God who daily speaks to us: in others, in the silence, in the happenings, in the challenges, and in the suffering and joys of life.

The Navy doesn’t seem a likely place to discover a religious vocation, yet that is the context in which Gertrude Anne Otis recognized her call. As a member of the WAVES in the Navy, she served as a secretary in the headquarters of five-star Admiral Ernest J. King, the commander in chief of the United States Fleet and chief of naval operations.