I have wanted to be a nun for as long as I can remember…
When I was about 12 years old, I began to attend a certain “nun camp” every summer with a community of religious, where young girls would spend a week in living the life of a nun.
One year in particular, I desired a sure confirmation from the Lord that I was on the right track in my discernment. Did He truly want me to be His bride, or was this fascination merely frivolous? Mother Superior that year had in her possession a little bag of holy medals – all of them typical medals with the exception of one which contained a second-class relic of a nun on the road to canonization, who Mother Superior had known personally. She instructed all of us “nun campers” to one-by-one reach into the bag and choose a medal at random. Seizing the opportunity, I made a quick but fervent prayer: “Lord, I am almost certain that You want me to become a nun, but I want no doubts at all! If it is truly Your will that I become a nun, I want the relic!” Mother Superior approached. My fingers slid into the bag, grasped a medal and began to draw it out when it slipped and fell back into the pile! “That must not have been the right one…” I speculated as I hastily chose another. My heart raced as I beheld the answer from my Lord: there, pinched between my two fingers, was the relic!
No longer would I have any reason to doubt my calling! I wore that holy medal throughout my years of high school as a reminder of the great vocation that God had in mind for me.
--Sr. CMA