National Catholic Reporter’s Global Sisters Report has posted a reflection by Sr. Annie Killian, OP, a member of the leadership team of the Pax Christi Young Adult Caucus, on her first profession:
Consider the caterpillar, suspended in midair by a single silken thread. It is tethered to the leaf on which it was feeding before it fell off. Now, it slowly pulls itself back up toward the source of nourishment. I imagine how the caterpillar feels, floating through space, holding on to its line of silk for dear life, like a bungee jumper.
That’s rather what it feels like to enter a religious congregation.
I made my first profession of vows as a Dominican Sister of Peace on July 3, 2022, three years after entering the community. A few weeks before the momentous day, I went on retreat in upstate New York. It was late spring, and gardens around the retreat house had burst into bloom. One morning, I walked out the door of my hermitage to find a monarch butterfly fluttering among the irises. Around the neighborhood, I noticed one caterpillar after another dangling from tree branches. A voice within prompted me to attend.
For me, entering religious life was less like falling and more like leaping out of the normal life I had known. I wasn’t in free fall; the formation program, with its stages of candidacy and novitiate, provided a safety net. Yet I felt like I had launched myself into a new element, tethered only by a single thread: the desire for transformation.
Use this link to read the entire piece at the Global Sisters Report website.