Vocations are certainly en vogue in Denver! From new priests to new deacons, from new cloistered nuns to new religious sisters, many men and women are heeding the call of the Lord.
Recently, another daughter of Denver made her first vows as a Dominican Sister of St. Cecilia in Nashville. The Nashville Dominicans, as they’re known colloquially, dedicate themselves to teaching in schools across the country. Locally, they’re a fixture at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School in Denver.
“I just love our life,” Sr. Mary Simon told the Denver Catholic. “Just getting to live the life is a huge gift, because every day I’m just grateful to be here. Vocation is one of the biggest blessings that the Lord gives each of us. The chance to live that out, it’s a huge growth and a huge gift.”
Growing up in the southeast Denver metro area, Sr. Mary Simon didn’t take faith seriously until high school. Her mind was changed, she said, when a teacher at Regis Jesuit High School shared her vocation story with her class and said she had spent time with a religious community.
“I remember being so struck that a young person could do something like this,” Sr. Mary Simon said. “I kind of thought that all religious were 70 years old or older.”
The witness of her teacher became a grace for her, Sr. Mary Simon said, and ultimately led to a greater openness to religious life.
While the idea of a religious vocation was sparked in a chance encounter at school, it was stoked into a flame at Our Lady of Loreto Parish in Foxfield, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary.
“I think one thing that was especially important for me was the adoration chapel at Our Lady of Loreto,” Sr. Mary Simon said. “We have a 24-hour adoration chapel, and I think that was really where my vocation was born, or at least where it started to bear fruit.”
In the quiet tranquility of the adoration chapel, Sr. Mary Simon began to hear the still small voice of the Lord calling her to a deeper relationship with him.
As her prayer life grew, she continued to discern God’s call throughout high school, and she eventually met the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia at a Steubenville conference.
“It was a beautiful experience,” Sr. Mary Simon said of her first encounter with her sisters and the draw she felt toward the community. “I think that there was a really strong attraction to the Dominican charism in particular, just that we’re the Order of Preachers but that our community lives that out by teaching. So I was just very drawn to speaking the Word of God.”
Sr. Mary Simon, second from right, with some of her fellow Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia.
Now a novice in that community after making her first vows, Sr. Mary Simon rejoices in her vocation and her sisters.
“The community life has been a really wonderful experience,” she told the Denver Catholic. “Our sisters here are just so wonderful! It’s very edifying to be with so many young people who are striving so closely after the Lord. There are over 30 of us right now who are in the novitiate, so to be in such a place that’s so open to the working of the Holy Spirit and striving to love Jesus as much as we can… It’s just great to be a part of that.”
To anyone considering God’s will for their lives, Sr. Mary Simon had simple yet time-tested advice: “Do not be afraid.” The Scriptural refrain plays a massive part in vocational discernment, she noted, despite the challenges that can arise when discerning God’s call.
“I think that there can be a lot of mixed emotions depending on where people are at, especially when we’re starting to discern what the Lord wants. I think in our culture there’s a lot of perfectionism, so there’s this pressure to feel like I have to choose the right thing, and it has to be perfect and it has to work exactly how I want it the first time. It’s very human of us, but it’s also very worldly to expect that I can totally control my life.”
What is the solution to the inner tug-of-war for control?
“There’s a little bit of letting go of the control that can be really helpful, and that mostly happens in prayer, just getting to know the Lord,” Sr. Mary Simon said. “The more that we understand how much he loves us, the easier it is to let him drive and take control. Prayer is the first and most important step. Just be open to what the Lord wants because his desires for us are just much better than what we have in mind for ourselves.”