Sister Mary Jude Lazarus
Sister of Charity of Our Lady Mother of the Church
Age Entered Novitiate: 18
Age of Final Profession: 24
How did you first experience or hear "the call" to the Religious Life?
I was a resident student at the Academy of the holy Family in Baltic, Connecticut. In my senior year, as I was preparing to go home for the Christmas vacation, Mother Marie Alma stopped me in the hall and asked: "Will you be back with us next year?" I said no, as I was graduating. She said: "Come back. The Lord wants you here." I was stunned. The invitation kept haunting me until I finally entered Religious Life a year and a half later.
What was your work before entering the Religious Life?
I was a college student.
What were your thoughts and feelings when you first thought about becoming a Religious sister?
"No, not me. Can't be! I could never get up that early every day. 5:20 a.m.! Unreasonable! I could never live a whole life without boys, parties, make-up, fine clothes! No. I can't do it! My mother will kill me! She will think I let her down. She wants me to make something of myself . What if I enter and don't make it? Oh, God, I'd hate to be an ex-nun. Give up my independence? No, i cannot do it! But what if God is calling me! I could never live my life happily knowing that I had let HIM down."
What are your thoughts now after your years of ministry?
There have been ups and downs these past 38 years but the firm conviction that I am where God wants me to be has never wavered. Once I got the courage to take the step-and believe me, it took a lot of courage-there was a sense of relief and knowing in my inner most being that I am where God wants me to be.
Do you have any further thoughts about your vocation?
I am grateful to God to be sure, for the grace of my vocation but the important thing for me is not so much in being a Religious is in doing God's will-being where He wants me to be and doing what he wants me to do. The will of God should be one's goal in life-not this vocation or that.