MERRILLVILLE – Why did Sister Rachel Dinet, O.F.S., want to become a religious sister? She felt the need to search it out. She needed to find out if God was calling her. So, she explained, her vocation really stemmed from the plea that God would help her to discern her calling.
Sister Rachel left Louisiana and arrived in Chicago in the middle of winter. Being able to smile about it now, she joked that she nearly froze to death. She admits she challenged God in prayer, “You better make me happy because if not I'm going home.”
“It was an awful thing to tell God, ‘Make me happy. Let me know right away, or I'm going back home,’” she acknowledged, reflecting. ”It was a challenging experience, but thank God I did it. And thank God that he did.”
Sister Rachel has now been a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration for 61 years. During her ministry, she has served as a nurse and currently assists with palliative care at Franciscan Health Olympia Fields in Illinois.
Sister Rachel helped to mentor another woman religious living in the Diocese of Gary, Sister Alice Naya, CMC. Sister Alice remembers being taught in high school by Carmelite Sisters. Watching them and noticing the scapular they wore caught her attention.
“That is really what attracted me,” she said. “And I just wanted to learn more about them.”
Sister Rachel and Sister Alice were part of a small group of sisters, representing the women religious communities within the Diocese of Gary, who arrived at the Pastoral Center for the Eucharistic Liturgy in Thanksgiving for Women Religious on Sept. 17. Bishop Robert J. McClory celebrated Mass in the building’s chapel before sitting down for a meal with them.
During the homily, Bishop McClory posed the question “When is the last time that we've had two religious popes consecutively?,” turning the focus to the late Pope Francis, who was a Jesuit, and Pope Leo XIV, an Augustinian.
“I always look to them in particular, with Pope Leo now giving us the many gifts and talents that he has because he can speak to the religious as an insider, someone who has lived that very life and understands it,” he said.
Bishop McClory referenced a sermon Pope Leo gave just two days prior, in which he discussed vocational life and shared quotes from St. Augustine. He stated St. Augustine delivered this exhortation: “Love what you will be.”
“You're starting off in formation and you're not there yet,” the bishop explained. “But love already what you will be as your life is formed and shaped with the vocation as it flourishes.”
Bishop McClory said that concept provides a different perspective of looking at oneself as the sister, priest, deacon, married person or single disciple of the Lord that he or she wants to become and “already love that which we aspire to become.”
“Sometimes people, even us in religious life, can look at that which we aren't yet,” he said. “And we can see our own gaps and our own failures. We define ourselves by, ‘I don't know if I can do or be that.’ Pope Leo says ‘No, that's a virtuous and good thing.’”
The bishop urged the sisters to be revived, remembering that the evangelizing mission “to which we are called demands the witness of a humble and simple joy, the readiness to serve, the sharing of the life of the people to whom we are sent.”
“And I must say, sisters, that's one of the things that if I can say, I'm not your religious superior, but as your bishop, I'm proud of you,” Bishop McClory said. “It's a healthy pride because I see you living that out. When I encounter you, you have that humble and beautiful joy which is so attractive and the world needs.”
“All of you have a good laugh,” he continued. “All of you exude joy. I just know that not theoretically, but personally, as I look out at all of you ... May the Lord inspire you to more fully desire to love the one you will become. And may He bless your communities with others who will hear that same call and say, ‘There's something more the Lord has for me.’”
The women religious then stood to recite a Renewal of Vows. In one voice, they proclaimed, “My God, you call me to be one with you, and you send me to proclaim your love through my life. Consecrated by you, I offer myself totally to you, for the service of your people…”
Those words were followed by all those at the Mass joining in singing the response “Will you come and follow me if I but call your name? Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?”
