Vocation Story
Did you ever meet one of those people that seem to know a song for every word that you say, the kind of person that should be on ‘The Lyrics Board'?
I have to admit, I'd be one of those kind of people, but at the moment the only song that is in my head, in my heart and on my lips is one of immense thanksgiving to the Lord for the many graces and blessings that He has given me.
Let me explain why!
On the 2nd of October 2004 , I, Louise O' Rourke professed my first religious vows in the Congregation of the Sister Disciples of the Divine Master in the Church of the Jesus Master in Rome. When I left home at the age of 18 just after my Leaving Cert in 1998 to join the order, religious profession seemed so far down the road and only a possibility according to my own human reasoning. After all I had just ‘come to see' the lifestyle of the sisters and had placed a large ‘handle with care' sticker on my vocation. As time went on, my own spiritual hunger was being nourished, God's footsteps began to become clearer in my life and I realised that it was getting serious- He was asking me to stay and serve his Church through this particular Congregation. Six years later, after spending three years in Stillorgan, Dublin and three years in our formation house in Rome I arrived at the big day and the most memorable of my life where I consecrated myself to a life of service completely to the Divine Master and His Church with vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
Looking back at these ‘footsteps' I see that my vocation is nothing extraordinary and yet it is special because there are so many people and experiences weaved into it. Being born and reared in Athlone my first encounter with our sisters was when I was 11 years old in one of our Liturgical Centres there in Athlone. I remember being struck enormously by their joy and their openness, they were alive and bubbling and did no justice to my concept of the ‘Sound of Music' type nuns. They invited me to a choir practice in our parish and it was there that the tiny mustard seed had been sown. My love for music and for song was a decisive factor in this initial response and little did I know that it would be a catalyst for my vocational decision a few years later.
It wasn't until my mid-teens that I began to arrive at a crossroads.
I was a teenager of
the generation that saw the birth of ‘Take That', the ‘Spice Girls',
‘Pringles', electronic pets- a generation that continued to be sucked
into the
era of ‘instant everything'. Yet I wasn't looking for things that grew
overnight and then disappeared the next day- I was looking for
stability and to make serious
choices regarding my
future and religious life was on the ‘to do list'. It was at this stage that I
discovered Jesus present in the Eucharistic and the
beauty of Perpetual
Adoration, thanks to the various retreats passed with the sisters in
Dublin and with the group ‘Youth 2000'.
I discovered that He provides a spiritual adrenalin rush with his Eucharistic body and his Word that continues to pass through my blood filling me with new life. I had been searching to close an interior abyss that couldn't be filled elsewhere; the darkness was now becoming light!
It was strange and even scary hearing myself pronounce
those famous words ‘I want to join the convent and become a religious
sister'. I was 17 at the time and like any teenager of that age I
feared the reaction of my family and friends- it wasn't exactly the
‘done thing'. My family was brilliant about it and has supported me
100% all the way especially now that I am based in Italy after my
Profession. Being the eldest of five I didn't know what to expect but
my parent's conclusion was that if this is
what
would make me happy then they would be happy too.
It took slightly longer for some of my friends to embrace the idea and some even thought I was ‘mad' but as I thought to myself : ‘Blessed are the cracked for it is through them that the Lord's light shines!'
As a young religious there are many challenges for me today which involve keeping in touch with a very rapidly, changing, highly technological and increasingly secularised world. It requires me to seek new ways of responding to the deep spiritual hunger in people of all ages, a hunger that I once knew so well. The freshness of our charism allows me to confront these challenges head-on. Our Congregation- the Sister Disciples of the Divine Master has a triple apostolate Eucharistic-Priestly- Liturgical yet they are each born from the same source which is the Eucharist.
So what do we actually do? We give priority to the promotion and the
celebration of the Eucharist and have Chapels of Adoration where there
is Perpetual Adoration, praying for the whole of humanity and in
reparation for the sins committed by the media. As this is the year
dedicated to the Eucharist you can imagine we are bursting with new
ideas and renewed fervour. We accompany priests in all aspects of
their ministry and at
all stages of their lives, providing for their physical and spiritual
needs. We also use the language of art and beauty for the liturgy and
in Churches.
