This week, Thur. July 25 a good friend of mine from Loras College, Sister Lydia Marie Edwards, will be taking her Final Vows as a religious sister with the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, in Nashville, TN. You can learn more about their community and what they do here: https://www.
I share this with you for a few reasons. First of all, to ask you to pray for her as she prepares for this very important day. For a nun, this day is equivalent to her wedding day, where she fully vows her life to this for the rest of her life.
Second, I share this with you for practical reasons. As I will be attending her Final Vows in Nashville, TN. 1) We will NOT be having Book of Revelation Bible Study on Wed. July 24 (though we will continue with it on July 31). 2) There will NOT be morning Mass on Thursday July 25 in Hampton. (However, Eucharistic Adoration will, however, still be offered).
Third I also want to share with you why I decided to attend her vows. She had decided that she would enter the convent with the Dominican Sisters in the year leading up to my ordination to priesthood. Thus we were able to have some inspiring conversations about God’s call in each of our lives, and the beauty and joys of responding to the His Call. She gave me the thoughtful gift of a special Crucifix specifically to have on the altar at my First Mass as a priest. After my First Mass as a priest, I re-gifted her the Crucifix to take with her to the convent, so that she would remember to pray for me. She also gifted me a priest stole that she made, a small one that I travel with and use anytime I visit people for Anointing of the Sick or Communion to the Sick and homebound. Thus, I use it frequently and so I often think of and pray for her as well.
As she has been praying for my priesthood, these past seven years, I felt it important to attend her Final Vows as a nun.
I am grateful that over the years the Lord has sent people into my life (such as Sr. Lydia Marie) to inspire me to listen and respond more fully to His call, and to more faithfully live my priestly vocation.
Lastly, I share all this with you to be inspired in knowing that there are still young people who are choosing to radically give their life to and live for the Lord and His mission. And so perhaps also, this might inspire you to encourage some of the young people in your life to prayerfully consider how the Lord may be calling them to give their own lives to Him, and within it that, to be open to the possibility that it might be to become a nun, a religious sister or a priest!
Peace,
-Fr. Kevin
