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- THE VOCATION STORY OF A SYMPHONY
by Sister Mary Regina, OP
My vocation story is so simple that one would think it hardly worth considering for a written account. In fact, it is almost silent, because I live the silent life of a cloistered nun, the life of Nazareth in a way, silent and most uncomplicated. The life story of each of us is indeed a symphony that God has built into nature, for we live what we profess in the depth of our, being. I was the second and last child of Ruth, Syrian, and Elmer, Swedish. My father, a very good and gentle person, suffered much of his life with alcohol. I never saw him under this pall, since he and my mother divorced when I was an infant.
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All the same, when I began to know him after many years, I could see that much of what attracted me to the contemplative life were attitudes I noticed in him and in myself, a love for meaning and a quick response to the beautiful that God has woven into all He has created. My mother perhaps offered a more immediate influence since she loved Catholicism, although ironically, for many years did not go to Church. Her love for the Church and the sacraments, however, were paramount in her heart and attitude.
So I grew up with the Catholic faith ready at hand, but I also grew up literally cock-eyed, since I was born without the connecting muscle between my two eyes. This, and general inadequate vision, not too good, but not too bad, caused me to have to put forth a bit more effort in school. Thirty-five years later, when I was in my mid fifties, and after optometry had advanced, eighty percent of the connection was forged between the two eyes.
Interestingly, I always wanted to be a nun. Dominican Sisters taught me in grade school and high school, so I was fortunate to have role models. Forty-hours devotion was observed once a year at our High School, and as a freshman student it was my first exposure to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. I was in awe and I remember telling Jesus as I prayed that I wished he could arrange to let me have this privilege for the rest of my life. Three years later, after graduation, I entered a Dominican Cloistered Monastery where we had perpetual adoration and I've spent most of my life, until we made our foundation in Canada, living with this tremendous Reality: Christ in the Eucharist.
It would have been natural that I enter the congregation of Dominican Sisters who taught me. To my amazement, the Mother General told me no, that instead I should seek a cloistered monastery. Then, God in His providence provided me with another confirmation. One of my close friends in my senior year had a sister who entered a Dominican cloister. She said to me point blank, "I don't think my sister belongs there, but I know that you do, you were mad for the place." So I visited and stayed all these years. Then in 1999 six nuns, I was one of them, volunteered to found a Dominican
monastery in the Archdiocese of Vancouver, requested by the Master General of the Dominican Order and graciously accepted by Archbishop Adam Exner and the priests of the Archdiocese. We have set up a small monastic environment at Rosemary Heights Retreat Centre in Surrey, but will soon move to wonderful property in North Langley that is supremely conducive for contemplative life. It is a real consolation for me to say that our prayer life, which is our ministry in the Church, has taken root. So too has our love for the Canadian people, so good to us, and such a great witness to us that Christ dwells among us.
What do Cloistered nuns do all day? We pray, we work, we share, we eat, we sleep and we pray again and again. it is a simple life, yet it is profound, profound as the Paschal Mystery, because it is engaged in the contemplation of these mysteries. My vocation did not find fulfillment when I entered the monastery, or any time during the past forty years that I have been a Dominican nun, nor when we came to Canada. A religious vocation reaches fulfillment over the span of one's life. Every ordinary action, every reception of the Eucharist celebrated with love, every prayer for God's people everywhere becomes an act of religion, a praise of God, and a joy to the heart
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