Q: Tell us about your background.
A: I grew up in East Brunswick, New Jersey, the seventh of eight children. We were that out-of-the-norm big Catholic family on the block. We have a big age gap at the end, me being six years younger than my next older sister, so I both had the experience of growing up in a big family and many years of junior high and high school being just two of us at home with my parents.
We went to St. Mary of Ostrabama parish in South River, New Jersey, which was a Polish church just under 10 minutes from our house. We aren’t Polish, but when my parents moved to New Jersey, just a year before I was born, my mom fell in love with the parish, and so we always went.
It was a good parish but had a very elderly population. I only had six other kids in my year for religious education classes. So there wasn’t any sort of youth groups or other ways to really get involved as a kid and teenager. I didn’t really think much about faith at all. Mass and regular family rosaries was just something we did but not something I ever initiated or really looked forward to.
I went to public school all the way through and was really lucky to have a lot of opportunities in our town. I was also on the swim team in high school and did a summer swim team every summer from age 8 to 17. I loved hanging out with friends, reading, doing sports or other outside activities. I was a pretty follow-the-rules kind of kid, nothing too exciting or out of the ordinary.
Q: Why did you decide to attend Ohio State University? How was your experience at OSU? What year did you graduate and what was your major?
A: I went to Ohio State because God wanted me at OSU, but I didn’t know that at the time. As I said, I am the seventh kid, so I always had the feeling of not wanting to just do all the same things as my older siblings. So when college came around, I did not want to go to Rutgers University, which was 25 minutes from my house and where four of my older siblings had graduated from.
My parents were going to help pay for my schooling, but they told me that they could help up to the price of Rutgers (basically in-state tuition), so I was free to go anywhere, but I needed to either get scholarships or pay the difference if the school I wanted to go to was more expensive.
Then one day, my Mom saw in one of the million college promotional mailings we got that OSU had a merit scholarship for out-of-state students that would bring the price to basically the same as Rutgers in-state. So we decided to visit, and I went on a tour in the pouring rain, and instead of hating it, every minute I was telling my mom, “OMG how amazing is this school!” She knew from that tour I was going to end up in Ohio. And, long story short, I did end up there.
It was beyond amazing. I loved going to a big school and having the option to take courses in basically anything I could even think of studying. I went in undecided but ended up majoring in business with a double focus in logistics and operations management. I also got a minor in history because I loved the subject but didn’t think I would want any of the jobs history majors have! I graduated in May 2019.
The reason why I said first that God got me to OSU was because it’s at OSU that I really made my faith my own and had a real encounter with Jesus. I arrived and didn’t know a single person and was nine hours away from all my friends and family. So my main goal was to make friends.
At the involvement fair, I stopped by the (St. Thomas More) Newman Center’s table to pick up one of their plants (because, of course, everyone wants a plant) and picked up their schedule of welcome week activities. The next day they were going to have capture the flag on the Oval – and I was in, there was no way I was going to miss an opportunity to play capture the flag, our favorite family/neighborhood game from childhood.
So I went, but I was a little late, and they had already started playing, and I was standing there – about to run away because I was too scared to try to jump in – when two girls came right up to me and introduced themselves and asked me if I wanted to play. I talked to them more throughout that evening, and at the end one of them who was named Anna asked me if I would be interested in joining her Bible study. I said, “Maybe, really not sure about it,” but knowing that I really liked her and wanted to be friends.
Later when she followed up in a text message, the first question I asked her was, “I don’t have a Bible here, is that a problem for joining a Bible study?” She said of course not, she could give me one, and so I said yes, and that little yes was the crack in the door God needed.
That semester I started reading Scripture and learning from the other women in that Bible study what prayer looks like, and what a real relationship with Jesus looks like. It changed my world. I agreed to sign up for a holy hour on Fridays at Newman in the spring, and that broke my heart open even more. Slowly but surely I was falling in love with Jesus.
Then with the many opportunities for retreats and conferences through the Newman Center (and St. Paul’s Outreach, a national organization dedicated to evangelizing college students) my faith just kept growing. I had been so shocked when I met people from the Catholic community for the first time because they were just radiating a joy I had never seen before. Later I realized that joy was from a life given to Jesus!
Q: I understand you were involved with St. Paul’s Outreach (SPO). Tell us about that, and was that instrumental in your religious vocation?
A: That girl Anna I met that first day lived in an SPO household. So, as I got to know her and other people at the Newman Center, I also got to know SPO. I ended up living in a women’s household my junior and senior years. It was really a wonderful experience. I learned so much about living in community there and how to love my sisters I lived with even when they might leave dishes in the living room or other little annoying things.
I also learned how to be able to let go of my own ideas on how to do things and listen to others and follow others’ leads. With SPO was the first time I really experienced praise and worship, which was really pivotal in the beginning of my re-conversion. I also profitted majorly from their formation courses and small groups where I learned more about the faith and growing in virtue. Most of all, I was just impacted by the men and women I met who were trying to live out their lives fully for the Lord, which inspired me greatly.
Q: When did you first start thinking about a vocation?
A: I first thought of a vocation midway though my second year at OSU in January 2017. A friend had shared a talk by a Sister of Life (a religious order dedicated to helping mothers in need and their unborn children) from the SEEK conference, and I watched it and was completely struck by her joy, how young she was and how NORMAL she was! I felt like I could be friends with her.
My only experience with religious growing up was with a few elderly sisters, and so I never really pictured myself in their shoes. I hadn’t thought at all about it. I always thought I’d meet a great guy in college, get married and hopefully have a big family. So the wheels started turning, I “internet stalked” a bunch of orders starting with the Sisters of Life but didn’t go any farther than that because I was pretty intimated by it all and scared of letting go of my plans.
Lo and behold, that spring semester we had a vocations course in the SPO formation program. So, throughout the semester we had different talks about discernment, married life, religious life, etc. The talk about consecrated life was given by a priest, and, to be honest, I didn’t connect to anything he said.
But after his talk, an SPO alum, Emily Schafer, gave her testimony. She was working on paying off debt before entering with a community in Steubenville. As she was talking, I was thinking, ‘Dang it, everything she is saying sounds like me.’ I knew that the Lord wanted me to talk to her after, but I was a little annoyed because I still didn’t want Him “to be right” and have to give up my plans.
At the end of her talk, Emily said, “So the community I am going to be entering is having a discernment retreat this weekend, and since I came down to Columbus for this I’ll be driving back to Steubenville tomorrow and can drive anyone who wants to come but might not have a way to get there.” Then I was like, really, “Dang it, now I really have to talk to her.” So I talked to her and told her I wanted to go but I didn’t know if it would be possible because I was a resident adviser in one of the dorms at OSU and so we only had a certain amount of nights away from the dorm.
So we exchanged numbers, and I told her I would let her know the next day (this was a Thursday night). Then God just cleared away all the things that were blocking me going just like that, and I found myself less than 24 hours after meeting Emily in her car driving three hours away for a discernment retreat.
God majorly worked in my heart that weekend. The sisters explained religious life so well and what discernment looks like and how important prayer is. The whole time I never felt super drawn to that particular order, but I saw the beauty of their life and the beauty of religious life in general. It was a complete game changer for me and the start of my discernment journey.
Q: When did you first encounter the Bridgettine Sisters?
A: Those sisters in Steubenville had suggested having a spiritual director for helping with discernment, and Emily had told me about Father Stash Dailey in Columbus who had been her spiritual director and recommended I reach out to him. So I reached out, but it was right before Easter, so he had zero time understandably, and then I was leaving Columbus for the summer, and then one thing after another, including me pushing it off further and further because I was intimidated about the whole idea of really entering into discernment still, and it took me until December 2017 to finally meet with him.
In that first meeting after I told him my story, he gave me a list of communities that he thought I might be interested in looking into based on what I had said. One of those communities was the Bridgettines! Because I was about to go home to New Jersey for winter break, he suggested I reach out to them since their convent is in Darien, Connecticut to see about visiting while I was home on the East Coast and close by.
So I looked up their website and was immediately excited to see they had daily opportunities for Eucharistic Adoration in their prayer schedule. I called the superior, and she immediately said I could come anytime. So we planned that I would come for three days a few days after Christmas, and I convinced one of my friends and housemates to join me. It was a really beautiful visit and opportunity for prayer.
Q: What drew you to the Bridgettines?
A: Eurcharistic Adoration was really instrumental in my conversion in college, and so I was pretty sure I wanted to join a religious community that had Eucharistic Adoration as a part of daily life. Eucharistic Adoration is a major part of the Bridgettines’ charism, so I was immediately drawn to that. I also was immediately drawn to the story of St. Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad, who founded our order in 1911 based on the original Bridgettine Order started by St. Bridget and her daughter St. Catherine.
St. M. Elizabeth was a convert to the Catholic faith and just an amazingly strong and couragous woman. Then the other part I was attracted to was their prayers for unity both in the Church and among the Christian denominations. I have always had a desire to bring people together and to make sure people feel included and welcomed, so the Bridgettines’ focus on hospitality and unity spoke to those desires of my heart.
Q: When did you decide to enter, and tell us about that process. Did you consider any other orders? How was your experience with the Bridgettines in Columbus?
A: So, I definitely felt an attraction to the Bridgettines right from the first visit with them in December 2017, but I also was really intimated by an international order and the idea of being sent far away from home and learning new languages, which I never felt was my strength. It was so early in my discernment process that I thought, “OK, there is something here, and I do need to come back for another visit at some point, but I’m going to go back to school now and leave it there for now.”
So, I went back to school, I continued to learn about St. M. Elizabeth and tell everyone I knew about her, my newest saint friend. I also looked at other communities of religious and continued meeting with Father Stash. The Bridgettines were still put aside. I found out they had opened a convent in Columbus because I went to the Marian Dinner in Columbus in fall of 2018 and saw the sisters I had met in Darien there. But that year I was seriously considering entering with a community of Franciscans even to the point of applying. So I didn’t look too much into the Bridgettines more because I didn’t want to be confusing myself between two communities.
But that summer after graduation, the door was firmly shut for me with the Franciscans. It was a total shock for me at the time. Father Stash immediately recommended I make a holy hour and then we would talk later about where to go from there.
I had graduated school, my lease with SPO was almost up, I didn’t have a job lined up or any place to live. But I was quickly convinced I needed to stay in Columbus because that was where my community was and where my spiritual director was. I went home while I applied for jobs, and the first interview that I had, I loved the people and the work. Just a few hours after the interview I got a call from the woman who had interviewed me, and she wanted to offer me the job. Just like that God solved the job problem.
Then I was put in touch with a woman from Father Dailey’s parish who I would be able to live with for a few months while I looked for an appartment, and just like that God also solved the housing problem. So I moved back to Columbus and started working and attending Holy Family Church. Guess whose convent is right next to Holy Family? Ah, yes, the Bridgettines! Funny how that works, right?
So soon I found myself going to their Tuesday Adoration on my way home from work, then joining them for rosary and Vespers on Saturdays and then Sundays, too. By January 2020, my roommate knew if I wasn’t at our appartment I was probably at the Bridgettines’ convent or at Holy Family.
In one of my meetings with Father Dailey, I was talking about the Bridgettines once again, and he said, “Laura, you know that you can’t discern by yourself. If you decide you want to enter with the Bridgettines and they don’t even know, it’s kind of weird. You need to call Mother and talk to her about it. It’s not just you deciding if God is calling you to a community, it’s also the community deciding if you are called to their order and charism.”
So I called Mother Renzy in Darien wanting to ask her if I could come and visit again, and she invited me on their community retreat in March 2020. I went, and it was a big confirmation for me that this was the place I was supposed to be. It wasn’t totally easy, and I knew that entering an international order would be challenging at times, but I also knew in my heart it was home. It was where Jesus was waiting for me.
I talked to Mother Renzy in Darien, and we decided that I would come back for a longer visit – at least a month – later that year to continue the discernment/application process, and in the meantime I could keep joining the sisters in Columbus for prayers. But then I got home to Columbus, and within the week we were in lockdown due to COVID.
It was a really hard few months not being able to go to Mass, Adoration or prayers with the sisters and spending much of my time in my apartment. But the Lord provides grace for every moment, and I learned a lot from St. Joseph in that time as he became one of my good saint friends and intercessor.
Over the summer, as things started to open up again, I was able to go back to spending time with the sisters in Columbus and continuing to get to see them live out their vocations with great joy. In the end, with Mother Renzy and approval from Mother General, because the sisters had the chance to get to know me well enough already from being so close in Columbus, I ended up instead of going for the monthlong stay, entering officially as an aspirant in February 2021.
Q: Were Father Dailey or any other religious sisters or priests helpful?
A: Father Dailey was incredibly helpful in the whole discernment process. I am a very external processor, so it was so helpful to be able to bring him my thoughts and experiences and hear his insights and wisdom. And it was so helpful to have a third-party person to see what was from God and what wasn’t.
Basically, all through college, I was that person who would see a sister and immediately want to go talk to her and hear about her congregation and her story, usually dragging along whatever friend I had with me. So all of those conversations were helpful in the whole process. You can’t underestimate the power of a joyful witness to religious life just in every day life.
Q: How was the experience of receiving the habit?
A: It was incredibly beautiful! It’s a very simple ceremony for our order. After morning prayer, the postulants come into our choir with the habit on but no veil. Then the whole community processes into the church singing a hymn with candles with the postulants and Mother coming last. We go to our places and kneel, and then one by one Mother calls our new name and we stand. Then she asks what we are asking for, and we ask to live in community and learn their life of prayer and penance and charity and all the things that go along with religious life.
Mother says a prayer, and then one by one we go and she puts our white veils on and gives us a copy of our constitutions. After we have a reading of the Gospel, Mother says a few words, we have prayers of the faithful and sing another hymn. And then it’s finished! We then followed with our daily Mass.
Q: Describe what your formation will be like over the coming years.
A: So I finished aspirancy and postulancy, which were the first experiences of life in community and times to learn more about what our life looks like and the spirit of our Mother Foundresses – St. Bridget of Sweden and St. M. Elizabeth Hesselblad.
Now I have just entered novitiate, which is a year and a half. The first year is called the canonical year, and it is spent in the novitiate house, which is in the motherhouse here in Rome. It is the time in formation most dedicated to study and prayer as you prepare to take vows. Then we will have the opportunity for a six-month experience in one of our other communities.
After that you take your first vows, which are temporary vows. So you take vows of poverty, chasitity and obedience for one year at a time and renew five times so six years total. After six years of temporary vows, you can ask to make your final vows, vowing poverty, chastity and obedience for life. That is the end of your official time of formation, but formation really continues for your whole life, because there are always new things to be learning!
Q: Will you be returning to Columbus?
A: Maybe one day, if God calls me there! I will be going wherever Mother General sends me next!
Q: What advice would you give to young people discerning a religious vocation?
A: First, pray! You can’t know God’s will if you don’t talk to Him about it. Spend time in Adoration, and just keep getting to know Jesus. Everything else will folllow from there. Don’t be afraid to go on a discernment retreat! There are no obligations attached to joining a certain congregation just because you visited once. They are so helpful for learning more about religious life and what it actually looks like.
Talk to people you trust and who are further along the faith journey, especially priests or religious you have in your life who could help guide you along the way. Remember that God hasn’t given you a vocation that you are going to be miserable in. Look at where you experience true joy and peace, that is where God is!
And last, God’s timing is perfect! It’s not always easy, but in the end He always knows what He is doing. We just have to have patience!
