By this time next year, God willing, Amanda Dick will have begun her life as a religious sister.
She plans to enter her initial time of formation, a one- to two-year period referred to as the postulancy stage, with the Franciscan Sisters, T.O.R (Third Order Regular) of Penance of the Sorrowful Mother in Toronto, Ohio.
The Grove City Our Lady of Perpetual Help staff member and Ohio University graduate joins an increasing number of young women from the diocese who are answering a call from God to serve Him in religious life.
During National Vocation Awareness Week, which runs Nov. 5-11, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has asked the faithful to pray for women and men who are discerning a call to serve the Church in consecrated life.
Every discerner follows a unique path to a vocation. Some know as children that they want to dedicate their lives to the Church in a special way. Others might have never entertained the thought of becoming a priest or sister until adulthood.
For Dick, 24, becoming a religious sister wasn’t exactly the career plan she had in mind when she began her studies at Ohio University in Athens.
She had attended Our Lady of Perpetual Help School through sixth grade before going to a public middle school and high school and admitted that she didn’t know much about Jesus. But as she transitioned to college, her mother, Jennifer, encouraged her to check out the Newman Center on campus.
“So, I went there and found this really beautiful community that I was interested in and wanted to get involved in and learn more about,” she said. “All of a sudden, I was surrounded by these wonderful people and just really was intrigued by the way they were living and knew there was definitely something different, so I started getting more involved.”
A campus minister introduced her to one of the Franciscan Sisters, T.O.R., and the campus minister took a small group of students on a spring break service trip.
“It was really my first interaction with sisters,” she said. “And I just remember being so struck when one of the sisters looks at me, and she’s like, ‘Hey, what’s up?’
“I was like, ‘Oh, are you allowed to say that?’” she laughed. “And so, I was just immediately intrigued and just found it so beautiful how joyful the sisters were.”
The sisters’ singing while performing their service work struck a chord with Dick, a music therapy major.
“The fact that both of my worlds were combining, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s really interesting.’ And as I was talking to one of the younger sisters, I just suddenly had all these questions that I wanted to ask her,” she said.
“So, I’m talking to her, and she looks at me, and she was like, ‘Well, Amanda, are you discerning religious life?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know how to answer that question because I don’t really know what religious life means.’”
She remembers going back to her parents’ house and telling her mother about the experience and said that she felt the need to visit the sisters again.
“I have two older sisters, and my mom said, ‘Well, I just always imagined them married with babies,’” Dick recalled. ‘“And when I think about you and your future, it was always a little bit more up in the air.’”
She returned to campus and began researching various orders and putting them on a spreadsheet but soon realized there were too many to list and the process was too time consuming.
“I went to my campus minister, and he said, ‘I really don’t think your vocation story is going to be within this spreadsheet because it’s a love story,’” she said. ‘“And the Lord’s going to lead you through it.’”
She went on a retreat with other young women at the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration convent in Mishawaka, Indiana, and while she found her time there beneficial, she thought that the order wasn’t the best fit for her.
After returning to school, she had more encounters with the Franciscan Sisters, T.O.R. on campus and decided to go on a discernment retreat to their motherhouse in Toronto in far eastern Ohio’s Jefferson County.
“It was the most joyful and peaceful experience I’ve ever had,” she said. “I was feeling like this is a place that can help me get to heaven, and these women, this community, is like the community that I’ve always been really searching for.
“The big thing that really sparked that for me was an experience in confession and for the first time profoundly experiencing the Father’s mercy in a way I hadn’t before.
“Then I come to find out that one of the sisters’ charisms is mercy and that their mission is to bring people to the foot of the cross and experience the Lord’s mercy there – and that I would love to be able to help people do the same.”
After four years in college, she went off to Indiana for a six-month internship as part of her degree program. Not knowing anyone in the small town where she interned gave her time to reflect and pray.
“It was just such a challenging time but also some of the most fruitful time in my discernment because it was really just me and Jesus, and I had to depend on Him and seek Him out and ask these big questions,” she said.
‘“Can You really fulfill all of my desires,’ because at that point, I was very seriously discerning, but the Lord just really took that time and drew me so close to Him.
“It was really confirmed for me that I was made for something more than even the degree that I had studied and the job that I was doing because it just wasn’t fulfilling me in the way that I had anticipated that it would. So, I just felt like there’s something else for you.”
After completing the internship, she returned home to central Ohio. At that point, she was relatively certain she wanted to profess to the Franciscan Sisters, T.O.R. but was approached about teaching religion at Our Lady of Perpetual Help School.
“I said that I don’t know how long I’ll be around,” she said. “But they really needed a religion teacher. I said I had to pay off my student loans, and that this could be just this one year.
“And the principal said that, ‘We’re just so excited to have someone who’s discerning and can be that witness.’”
She had hoped to join the sisters in August but was asked to wait a year because of the student loans. Men and women going into religious orders are not allowed to have any debt.
That made her available to work another year at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in the parish religious education program and as an aide for the school.
While teaching middle schoolers last year, she shared her discernment story.
‘“If I had to miss a day of school, it was actually because I went to the convent this weekend ,”’ she told the students. “I did also try to encourage them that this is a time even at your young age to be asking God, ‘What do You want for me; what can I be doing for You?’”
Throughout the process, her family has remained supportive.
“For a mom, letting your children go off and do something where they can’t come home as often as you might like I think that’s definitely a challenge,” she said. “It makes me realize it’s a sacrifice for the whole family, but I just really know that the Lord’s going to reward her as well.”
To other young women who might be considering a religious vocation, she suggested going on a retreat to spend time with Jesus and ask questions.
“It’s taking that initial step and trying to be around more sisters,” she said. “What really helped me so much was just realizing that they’re just people, they have interests and they do things, and their life isn’t boring, that it’s actually really full.
“It’s just having an openness and trusting in God that He really wants what is going to make us happy and fulfill us.”
For more information on vocations in the diocese, contact the vocations office at vocations@columbuscatholic.org.