Amazing Grace   by Sister Scholastica Elizabeth Ampadu

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. The only glimpses I had of religious sisters was when I attended Mass on Sundays at Saint Peter's Cathedral, my home parish, where the sisters from St. Louis Training College sometimes attended the children's Mass.

I was born into a staunch Catholic family, the fifth child and third girl among 10 children. It was considered natural in our family to be baptized while an infant. We were also encouraged to receive the sacraments before reaching adolescence.

The boys in my family went to St. Peter's boys' school; the girls attended St. Bernadette's, then popularly known as Roman Girls. As I look back on those years, I marvel at how reserved I was in school, having only a few friends. I mostly socialized with those who attended Roman Girls from my area.

My family and teachers nurtured in me my love for God and the joy of being a Catholic. All Catholic holy days were observed in school and were compulsory for every pupil. Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on every first Friday of the month took the first two hours of the learning period.

My father was strict with us about attending Sunday Mass. For us, weekday Masses were optional because of our schools' schedules, but my parents never missed 5:30 a.m. Mass during the weekdays. Now I fully understand why my parents wanted so much to instill their Catholic faith in us.

During vacations, my mother visited Saint Mary's Grotto in Obuoho and came home with many different plant cuttings from the grotto. Whenever any of us fell ill, she put some of these herbs in our bath water, morning and evening. Of course, she also made certain that we took our medications from the family doctor. She had a strong faith in Our Lady and wanted us to share in this faith. She always enticed us with stories about what Mary did for those who visited her shrine. Mother succeeded, and we all were eager to accompany her to the grotto to pray to Our Lady, especially during vacations and feast days. I learned to pray the rosary from these visits and also developed other devotions to Mary.

One morning at school, the bell summoned all pupils from grades 7 to 10 to the assembly grounds. A diocesan priest was waiting to talk to us about religious vocations. At the end of his talk, he invited those interested to see the cathedral administrator for application forms to Saint Hubert's Seminary. This was the first time that I, now a seventh-grader, had heard how to become a religious. Call it love at first sight or curiosity, but his talk touched the core of my being and, there and then, I decided to be a sister – without fully understanding what it meant.

By the end of that month, I applied and together with a friend took the seminary's entrance examination. Though my father was aware that I was preparing for an examination, he presumed it was the entrance examination to secondary school. I did not know how to explain my hopes to him. He finally learned what I wanted to be in life when the seminary invited me to attend an interview for successful candidates. Before the end of the academic school year, I was accepted into the seminary. My brothers and sisters said nothing about my going to the seminary, but were always willing to support me. Luckily, my friend also passed both the examination and the interview.

My father took my friend and me to the seminary on our first day and left only when he was satisfied that we had settled in. All the activities in the school emphasized academic, spiritual and moral conduct – and the seminary staff never hesitated to dismiss any seminarian who fell short. Both boys and girls were treated equally even though only 5 percent of the student population was female.

During the five years that I spent in the school, my interactions with the opposite sex challenged me. My male counterparts' attitude was to surpass the girls in every activity. This was contrary to what my parents taught me about boys not being better than girls, so I was determined to excel. The boys did not care for my behavior and tried to subdue me at every opportunity. My quiet demeanor changed and I became assertive. In my fourth year in school, I was the only girl reading history in my class. My male classmates did not take kindly to this challenge, so they called me all sorts of names. Nevertheless, I was not perturbed. With determination and hard work I rose to par with them until we completed school. They contributed quite a bit to my discernment about religious life. At the end of the five years, I decided that I still wanted to be a sister because I felt like doing something special for God.

After school I entered another congregation. I still look back fondly on those years in my former community and am grateful to God for all the gifts he gave me. My stay with them was a hallmark in my life, renewing the conviction that God needs me. I worked as a nurse midwife in Brong Ahafo and the Volta regions of Ghana where I got to know many of the Brothers of Holy Cross. I heard about the Holy Cross sisters from them. Later, when I left my former community, I thought about contacting these sisters.

I was in school doing my undergraduate coursework when I met Sister Jane Chantal Method, who welcomed me and told me a lot about the Sisters of the Holy Cross. I was attracted to the fact that the Holy Cross family has sisters, brothers and priests. From then on I started communicating with the sisters until my graduate courses were completed. I applied formally to the community and began the candidacy program in November 2003. Three months later, February 25, 2004, Ash Wednesday, I lost my father. The family support from the community and the whole Congregation was enormous.

Being in the Holy Cross community has offered me the chance to interact with children and youth. I have been given the opportunity to teach children in the Holy Cross Family Centre and to minister to the sick in a clinic. These have been grace-filled moments for me. The experiences my sisters share about their ministries make me feel part of them and for that I feel grateful. Our togetherness has intensified the unity that already binds us. Prayer and recreation times are moments of joy. Holy Cross has given me the opportunity to deepen my prayer life, reassess my relationship with God, and be hope-filled. God's grace abounds; hence the title of this journey: "Amazing Grace."

For those who want to be part of the Holy Cross family I would say that the Sisters of the Holy Cross are women of courage and hope. Prayer is the center of their lives. With a strong belief in God's divine providence, they discern the needs of the present moment and commit themselves to meeting those needs.

I thank God for all he has given me, for the parents who gave me life and love, bringing me up in the Catholic faith and providing me with all the advantages that a Catholic education and life offer. For all the spiritual opportunities that the community has given me, I am deeply grateful, and I pray that all people may continue to support one another as we continue our journey to God.