If you have heard the Lord’s gentle invitation to religious life, it may have taken you by surprise. Fear is not an uncommon response to the first stirrings of a religious vocation. However, one who opens herself to the call to give her life wholly to Christ will find that she can only surrender to this irresistible prompting that He has placed within her heart.

By the grace of the sacrament of Baptism, the Lord has called each of us to holiness. As a young woman prayerfully seeks to discern her vocation in life, the Holy Spirit guides her in discovering how the Lord is specifically inviting her to respond to this call. She will discover that true happiness is realized in doing the Lord’s will and she will come to recognize the invitation of the Lord in the silence of her heart.

“Every vocation is born of that gaze of love with which the Lord came to meet us…. We will succeed in discovering and embracing our vocation once we open our hearts in gratitude and perceive the passage of God in our lives” (Pope Francis, St. John Lateran, March 8, 2020).

As the vocation director for the Monastery of Mary the Queen, I am here to assist in the discernment and discovery of the Lord’s calling. Please feel free to contact me with questions, knowing that I welcome the opportunity to share what it means to be a Dominican Contemplative Nun. The Lord desires to reveal his plan for your life and will give you the grace to respond with a generous and joy-filled heart!

I approach this role as an instrument of God's grace, because I know well that the call to religious life is ultimately the work of God within the soul.

My community has appointed me to walk alongside those who knock at our Monastic door as one who once knocked the door herself. I am happy to accompany and support, those aspiring to join our community, knowing fully it is God who plants, nurtures, and brings each vocation to fruition.

As you courageously consider the Lord’s call, look to Our Lady, as Pope Francis exhorted in the 2015 message for the Day of Prayer for Vocations: “With the generous courage born of faith, Mary sang of the joy of leaving herself behind and entrusting to God the plans she had for her life. Let us turn to her, so that we may be completely open to what God has planned for each one of us” (St. Peter’s Square, March 29, 2015). Place your vocation in Our Lady’s hands and ask her to pray that you may respond as she did. Our Lady, cause of our joy, pray for us!

In Christ Jesus,
Sister Marie Tersidis of the Eucharist, OP