Sister Christine

In eighth grade my teacher asked for someone to represent our classroom patron saint, Edith Stein, a Carmelite nun and martyr, for our school’s All Saints Day celebration. This was my second semester in this Catholic school, so I was happy to volunteer. My mom and I designed and sewed a Carmelite habit for the occasion. Standing in the foyer before the school Mass, dressed in my costume, an elderly lady approached me and told me that the habit looked good on me. She then asked if I had ever considered becoming a nun.

The idea had previously occurred to me since I was a lifelong admirer of St. Therese of Lisieux, the widely loved Carmelite, also known as the Little Flower. I stammered, “Y-yes” and the lady assured me that she would pray for my vocation. 

The idea stayed with me through Catholic high school, public college, and graduate school. Even though I amassed a large quantity of vocational materials, and I scoured the web for information on nuns and religious life, I went through my education assuming I would find a normal career at the end.

In the meantime I frequented Mass during the week, did an adoration hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament when I could, learned to pray the Liturgy of the Hours on my own, and got involved in campus ministry at St. Thomas More, the university parish. There I especially came to appreciate the importance of community and the Mystical Body of Christ through being faithful to weekly college student nights, working on volunteer projects, attending and staffing retreats, going to Washington for March for Life in 2008, visiting Australia for World Youth Day 2008 and joining a mission trip to Mexico in 2009. These experiences sustained my faith during my undergraduate years at the University of Oklahoma, stayed with me through graduate school at Indiana University, and remain a source of grace and good memories for life.

I visited both active and contemplative communities, and found I was more drawn to the contemplative life of hidden prayer and sacrifice, despite having much admiration for the active congregations. I attended a Monastic Experience Weekend here at the Carmel of Terre Haute and felt drawn to return again and again. After graduating from Indiana University with my Master of Library Science in December 2011, I made a six-week live-in at the monastery. The Terre Haute Carmel attracted me by their balanced life of prayer, work, and recreation, and their loving relationships with each other, and most importantly, the Carmelite spirituality really resonated with me.
I made my application to enter in March 2012 after praying a novena to St. Joseph. I was accepted and entered the Carmel of St. Joseph in Terre Haute, Indiana, June 3rd, 2012, Feast of the Holy Trinity. A year later as a postulant, I made another novena to St. Joseph to decide whether to go ahead and ask to receive the habit. The community accepted me, and I received the habit June 2nd, 2013, Feast of Corpus Christi.

I chose Sister Christine of the Eucharist as my religious name, taking inspiration from this quote by St. Elizabeth of the Trinity as a beautiful expression of my longstanding devotion to the Blessed Sacrament: “It seems to me that nothing better expresses the love in God’s heart than the Eucharist.”

After two intense years of novitiate, taking classes and being more immersed in the daily life in the monastery, I petitioned to make first vows. On Pentecost Sunday 2015, our chaplain, Fr. Mark O’Keefe, celebrated the Mass of First Profession and I made my vows in the presence of the community and my immediate family. Three more years of formation followed and finally on June 2nd, 2018, the vigil of Corpus Christi, with great emotion, I made solemn profession in the presence of Indianapolis Archbishop Charles Thompson and a wider gathering of family and community friends. The journey was not over, but just beginning.

Now I serve the community in a variety of jobs, including cooking, baking, helping in the garden, playing the organ for the liturgy, cataloging the library, and writing letters. I thank God for my vocation and pray that He will grant me the grace of perseverance until I arrive at the gates of our heavenly homeland.

I make as my own this prayer of St. Therese: “I desire, in a word to be a saint, but I feel my helplessness and I beg You, O my God, to be Yourself my Sanctity!”