inspiring moments

In August 2004 I first met the groovy sisters. It was the very beginning of my vocation exploration, and I was invited up to the beautiful groovy headquarters on Lake Washington for a vocation retreat. The retreat was on Sunday, but I drove up on Saturday and stayed overnight. I met the vocation director, took a tour of the grounds, and had a delicious dinner. By 8:00 though, everyone was in bed (mostly our Senior sisters live there, kind of like my neighbors next door here at East Coast groovy headquarters).

So that night I found my way to the library and stumbled upon Peace Pays a Price: A Study of Margaret Anna Cusack The Nun of Kenmare by Sr. Dorothy Vidulich, CSJP. It is a short study of the amazing story of our founder, Mother Clare, born Margaret Anna Cusack. I was enthralled and read the whole book in one sitting.

Margaret Anna Cusack, the Nun of Kenmare, had the many lights of her courageous life dimmed for more than a century. But God did not play games with her nor pull any strings. In creative trust, God just let her be. And that is why her gifts of vision and risk are so much a part of today's new dawn in the church and in the world. - Dorothy Vidulich, Peace Pays a Price pg. 79

Wow! What a story, and how beautifully told. What's more the book gave me some glimpses of the amazing community that Margaret Anna left behind. Here were women who not only spoke the pretty prose of peace through justice, they did something about it!

Flash forward two plus years. I'm living in the novitiate house next door to the east coast groovy headquarters, on property purchased by Margaret Anna. And one of the wonderful things about this experience is that I've been able to get to know some of the Sisters who live next door, including Dorothy Vidulich.

The other day she and I were talking, and she said something about how impressed she is with the three of us novices, and she wonders how the community ever managed to get women like us (or something to that effect). I looked her in the eye and said, "Well, your book for one thing. It was a major inspiration for all three of us."

It's very cool to be able to tell that to someone who inspired you!