Archdiocese striving to keep sisters ‘home’

Karen Robinson’s first-grade science assignment called her to write about making a flying saucer.

Instead, she wrote about what she wanted to be when she grew up: a nun.

“I must have been moved by the Holy Spirit,” she said, “because my love for God took over the assignment.”

The Holy Spirit continues to move Robinson, who now decades later is engaged in discernment for Religious Life in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, answering the call to serve a new community, an effort to keep more discerning sisters “home” in Oklahoma.

Religious Life is a vocation in which members live in a community with a shared apostolate (or mission), charism (the particular expression of the community’s life, the community’s “culture”) and spirituality. Within the archdiocese, opportunities for vocations for Religious Life have been lacking, with those discerning often leaving the state.

A need for women to serve locally prompted the call for a new community, spearheaded by Father Phil Seeton in an initial “Sister Study.” From there, a committee was formed to start taking the pulse for discernment in the archdiocese, highlighted by hosting a Day of Reflections and Talitha Koum.

Currently, seven women emerged and are in discernment for this pioneering community.

“Historically, vocation offices in dioceses and archdioceses, including our own, have focused primarily on the promotion on the promotion of the diocesan priesthood and left the promotion of religious life to the religious communities of women and men themselves,” said Father Jerome Krug, assistant vocation director in the archdiocese.

“However, due to the grave near absence of women religious in our archdiocese – especially religious local to our archdiocese – our vocations office has attempted to take a more active role in this effort.”

That effort has involved Talitha Koum, a retreat for young women ages 15-30. This past year, more than 40 women participated in Talitha Koum, offering optimism for the path forward.

“This is a significant number and it tells us that we have young women who are being called and want direction and support in responding to this call,” Father Krug said. “I’m aware of around 10 young women who are in formation or are recently professed to religious communities outside of the dioceses.

“I can’t help but think, why not do everything we can to help them stay here and serve the local Church in Oklahoma?”

In many cases, nuns are disappearing from sight, not nearly as visible in schools and parishes, mostly due to the lack of local opportunities to serve. 

“Young women don’t see sisters in habits anymore,” said Father Don Wolf, rector at the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine. “We might have grown up with it, but it’s not common anymore.”

While the community is still in discernment, only a few things have been decided under the guidance of Archbishop Paul Coakley:

1) Through their religious consecration and vows of poverty, chastity and obedience they
would become brides of Christ, spiritual mothers, servants of charity and signs of the
presence of God in the world.

2) The proposal of founding a community of Sisters in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City foresees these Consecrated women serving in schools and parishes in the archdiocese.

3) The community would live a common life of daily Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours, personal prayer, growth together in holiness through their union with God and each other
and serve in the corporate apostolates mentioned above.

4) The proposed community would wear a recognizable religious habit as an outward sign of their consecration to God and service to the Church and world.

5) The community would be animated by their devotion to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament and to his Virgin Mother,

6) Candidates would have a maternal desire to share in the salvation of souls.

For Robinson, the opportunity has rekindled a calling that began with that Holy Spirit-inspired paper long ago.

“God is persistent,” she said.

She recalls her earliest most vivid memory of becoming a religious sister at her First Communion. She dressed as a sister for Halloween, convincingly enough to win top costume honors for her grade. As a cradle catholic, she was taught by the School Sisters of Saint Francis in Panhandle, Texas, and was close there to Sister Bernadette, who invited Robinson to Come and See.

“Looking towards the future, we would like to start living together in community,” Robinson said. “However, God has not yet blessed us with lodging big enough for all of us to have private rooms. Once that prayer is answered we will be able to discern our charism and community name.

“Until then, we pray.”

John Helsley is editor of the Sooner Catholic.



O God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who through a life of poverty, chastity and obedience consecrated his own life to you and to the people he died and rose to save,
Raise up within our Church of Oklahoma City women willing to give their lives in imitation of
your Son.

Raise up within this Church of Oklahoma City women of faith who will consecrate themselves to service in this local Church.

Raise up women who through the evangelical counsels will be brides of your Son, mothers to your people and servants of charity.

Raise up women filled with apostolic zeal and the fervor of faith, filled with the Holy Spirit, so
that the mission of the Gospel and the work of the Church may flourish in new and deeper ways. Grant to our archbishop the gifts of the Holy Spirit of wisdom and understanding to guide us in this endeavor.

By the prayers of the Mother of God, She who shows the Way, Blessed Stanley Rother and all the angels and saints, through Christ our Lord. Amen.



archokc.org/sister-study
archokc.org/qa
okcvocations.com/religious-life
okcvocations.com/religious-life/vocational-inquiry
 

Photo: Karen Robinson in the St. Francis de Sales Chapel at the Catholic Pastoral Center in Oklahoma City. Photo Avery Holt/Sooner Catholic.