Evolution of a Call
By: Fidelis Tracy, CDP
When I think back on my childhood, I don’t remember learning pious practices. My German ancestry assured that my family would keep all the rules but we were not among the families whose lives revolved around church events. I was an extremely shy child and always wanted to fade into the shadows or hide behind a chair. God forbid that I should appear “different” in any way or stand out because I was not like everyone else. Religious sisters were different. I tried to avoid them lest I catch something that would make me different.
For the most part the other people in my elementary school and neighborhood were similar to me in upbringing and socio-economic status. In high school I came in contact with a more diverse group of people and noticed that not all of us had the same kind of care and protection growing up. Some of my classmates seemed to have been on their own for quite awhile. They did not appear to have had the same kind of guidance from family.
It occurred to me that the circumstances of my life were not accidents. I had been given the parents, family, friends, neighbors who were the ones I needed in order to be the person God intended me to be. I really thought that I could not have survived without the care I had received. So the call I heard started with an urgency to express my gratitude for the love God had given me through the family and other situations that had been part of my life. I began to see all as God’s providential love for me. I wanted others to see that I was aware of God’s love but didn’t know how to say it.
In addition, the sisters who taught me always seemed to expect me to be more than I imagined I could be. They expected me to excel and even be a leader in areas I had not considered places in which I had talent. Often I rose to the occasion. So the second part of my call was a desire to be for others what sisters had become for me–a person who let others know they were truly more than they thought they were. I wanted to help other people be all they could be, to believe in themselves as beloved of God.
At first the thought of religious life was very peculiar for me. I wanted it to go away. I prayed that it would go away. But it persisted. So eventually I investigated and decided that I at least had to try it out. It wasn’t always easy. Every now and then I would think, “How did I get here? What am I doing? This is surely a dream from which I will awake.” But still I know that I had to continue the path I was on. Something said it was right. Anyway, I found myself growing in relationship with God and others.
The reasons I stay are not exactly the same as the ones that started me on this journey. I stay because this is the way of life that opens me to ever new revelations of God’s love, that challenges me to see more than my own needs, that calls me to be “for others” as Christ was. I stay because I feel an urge to make the search for a deeper relationship with God, self, others and all creation the very center and purpose of my life. This life supports that desire and is a way to express it. I stay because the person I have become on the way is more and more a woman striving to abandon herself in joy and service to the God of compassion. I stay because I know that more than anything else I can say of myself, “I am a Sister of Divine Providence.” It is part of the essence of my being.
