Local women answer call to religious life

By Julie Pfitzinger
For The Visitor

While most of their peers are heading off to start college this fall, two local young women are each about to embark on a lifelong spiritual journey in response to God’s call.
Mary Wilder of St. Cloud and Kirsten Willenbring of Dent are both 18 years old, and this month are becoming postulants of the Dominican Sisters: Wilder in Nashville, Tenn., and Willenbring in Ann Arbor, Mich. With their entrance into this order, they will take their first steps toward the final vows they hope to take within the next eight years.
Four years ago this month, Sister Melissa Schreifels, 41, took her first vows with the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Mankato. Currently a student at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Sister Melissa is majoring in education and would like to teach math to urban middle and high school students. She acknowledged that the path to her vocation was a longer one, but calls living in the sisters’ community at St. Rose of Lima in Roseville “one of the biggest blessings.”
The Visitor recently spoke with all three women about their vocations, how their lives will change and how their devotion to the Lord has led them in new directions.

melissa

“Teaching math to young people is a way to bring God to them, to give them confidence and to help them know that God loves them.”

Sister Melissa Schreifels

Parish: St. Rose of Lima in Roseville (raised in Sartell)
Order: School Sisters of Notre Dame, Mankato
When Sister Melissa first entered the vocational life at the age of 33, she was answering a call she first considered when she was 7 years old.
“Religious life just kept coming back to me. When I was 18, I just wasn’t ready, but God continued to work through that,” she said.
Sister Melissa spent about 10 years discerning other communities. As a former student of the SSNDs in Sartell when she was young, she said she wasn’t necessarily thinking that this order would be the one for her until she said it became apparent that God had other plans.
“I don’t second guess God,” Sister Melissa said. “I really feel called to bring God to the world through the School Sisters of Notre Dame.”
Daily life in community with two older sisters has been a gift, she said. As the youngest of the three, Sister Melissa said she has benefited from the wisdom of the older women and cherishes the common vision they all share.
“I believe God calls us through other people and living in community has made that very real for me,” she said.
For Sister Melissa, the most powerful aspect of her vocation is the life of prayer. “It has sustained me, it has cemented me,” she said.
When she finishes her studies, Sister Melissa, who will take her final vows in two years, said she could be sent to any of the many SSND communities throughout the country to serve as a teacher and she is fully open to wherever God is calling her.
Over the years, she has visited communities in Dallas and Boston and spent her novitiate in St. Louis. “Wherever I go, I feel like it’s home,” she said.
Sister Melissa is looking forward to having the opportunity to teach, a step she calls “another part of the path in my own journey to God.”
“Teaching math to young people is a way to bring God to them, to give them confidence and to help them know that God loves them,” she said.
“God has blessed me with so much. I want to give that back in any way I can,” she continued. “I don’t want to put limits on anything.”

kirsten

“Every vocation story is a long one because it’s all a beautiful journey.”

Kirsten Willenbring

Parish: Sacred Heart Church in Dent
Order: Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Kirsten Willenbring, 18, begins talking about the road that is leading her to the Dominican Sisters of St. Mary in Ann Arbor by saying, “Every vocation story is a long one because it’s all a beautiful journey.”
Willenbring said her own story began when she was a young teenager, contemplating college and a career in veterinary medicine. All that changed after she was confirmed at the age of 16.
“The Holy Spirit was very strongly pointing me to the Dominican sisters,” she said. “And in my mind, I was saying ‘Not me, God. I want to have my plans.’ But I needed to listen to what God was saying to me.”
Willenbring also attended discernment retreats with the Dominican Sisters — after the first one, the vocation director suggested she finish high school before taking the next step. (Willenbring was home schooled using the Seton Home Study program and graduated in May).
Several months later, she met with the vocation director, Dominican Sister Joseph Andrew and others at the monastery before she, too, began the application process. Willenbring learned of her acceptance on Christmas Eve and says, “It was a beautiful gift.”
The Ann Arbor monastery is a fast-growing community: Founded by four sisters in 1997, there are already more than 100 sisters in residence. When Willenbring arrives in late August, she will join 22 other new postulants.
“I was drawn to the Dominican Sisters because they are very traditional, very eucharistic and very loyal to the pope,” she said.
Willenbring will be leaving behind a younger sister and two younger brothers. She knows it will be challenging to be separated from her family but takes comfort in a story that another Dominican sister shared with her.
“She actually wrote a beautiful song called “See You in the Eucharist” about how we are all part of the Body of Christ,” said Willenbring. “I will get to see my family every day in the Eucharist. That is a beautiful thought.”
During her postulant year, Willenbring will be studying exclusively at the motherhouse in what she calls “a whole introduction to community life,” focusing on theology, the catechism and community living. After she completes her third year and takes her first vows, she will then attend Eastern University of Michigan to receive her college degree.
Willenbring believes she is right where she is supposed to be now, but she acknowledges that the next several years are still a period of discernment for her.
“People ask how I know that this is where God is calling me,” she said. “In my heart, I just know.”

wilder

“I love everything about the community. I’m
looking forward to leading the religious life.”

Mary Wilder

Parish: St. Michael Church in St. Cloud
Order: Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville, Tenn.
Mary Wilder has a certainty about God’s plan for her life that belies her 18 years. Earlier this month, she began her postulancy with the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecelia in Nashville. In an interview prior to her entry, she called the monastery a place that “feels like home.”
Having already visited the motherhouse in Nashville several times, Wilder said she has always experienced “a deep peace when I am praying there, unlike any I’ve ever experienced elsewhere.”
It was during the summer following her sophomore year at Cathedral High School that Wilder first began discerning her vocation and was particularly struck by an encounter she had at that time.
“I was attending Mass at the Poor Clare Monastery with my confirmation sponsor,” Wilder recalled. “A woman approached me, telling me that Jesus wanted her to give me a note which asked if I had ever considered the religious life. I had been praying about a vocation for awhile and looking for a sign that this was God’s plan for me.”
Wilder, who spent her senior year in a homeschool program called Seton Home Study and graduated in May, first went on a vocation retreat to the motherhouse in Nashville earlier this year. After meeting with vocation director Dominican Sister Mary Emily and Dominican Mother Ann Marie Karlovic as well as participating in a thorough application process, Wilder learned on Easter Sunday that she had been accepted into the order.
During her postulant year, Wilder will attend classes at Aquinas College, which is run by the Dominican Sisters, and will also be spending a great deal of time in prayer and theological study at the monastery.
The youngest of four children, Wilder admits it will be difficult to leave her family, including parents Dave and Cari, who are youth ministers at St. Michael’s, and brand new niece Brigid Rose. She said her best friend, while sorry to see Wilder leave, has been “very supportive” of her decision, as has her family.
“I feel like we’ll actually be closer in many ways through what I will be doing,” she said.
The family will only be allowed four daylong visits with their daughter during the first year; she will also be permitted to make one trip home next May. E-mail and Facebook contact is not allowed, but Wilder can write a few letters home each month.
Wilder is excited about taking this step.
“I love everything about the community,” she said, adding that she will be one of six postulants under the age of 20 who will be entering the Nashville order this year. “I’m looking forward to leading the religious life.”