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The InterVIEW

‘Let God love you’ into knowing what’s right for you

Springfield Dominican Sister Elyse Ramirez smiles in the Office for Religious.Catholic New World/ Karen Callaway

A regular feature of The Catholic New World, The InterVIEW is an in-depth conversation with a person whose words, actions or ideas affect today's Catholic. It may be affirming of faith or confrontational. But it will always be stimulating.

Springfield Dominican Sister Elyse Marie Ramirez has served as the Office for Religious’ coordinator of religious vocations ministries since Sept. 1, managing the Chicago Archdiocesan Vocations Association (CAVA) and working to support the Office for Religious.

She accepted the position following the Aug. 14 death of Sister of St. Joseph Peter Mary Hettling, who was co-vicar for religious in charge of religious vocations ministry. Ramirez, who worked part-time in the office before Hettling died, also spent six years as vocation director for her congregation.

CAVA, she explained, includes about 80 members who represent various men’s and women’s religious congregations. It organizes vocation fairs, retreats on college campuses and events such as the annual “Nun Run,” in which single women can visit a variety of convents over a weekend.

Ramirez entered the Springfield Dominicans in 1982 at age 26 and professed vows in 1985. She talked with assistant editor Michelle Martin about her own vocation story as well as her work promoting vocations.

Catholic New World: Tell me how you knew you had a vocation to religious life.

Sister Elyse Marie Ramirez: To be honest, I discerned because I fell in love. I was going with someone very steady, and we were talking about marriage. Great, great guy. We were both very involved in a retreat movement called Koinonia and TEC (Teens Encounter Christ).

He said to me one day, “Lisie, you know when we start our family, we’re going to have to pull away from this” — it was in the context of a conversation about our retreat work. I agreed. I wanted a family, I wanted kids, I wanted a husband, but the more I thought about that, I thought, “I’m going to miss it.” I guess that’s what happens. You have to give things up, and that’s what I’m going to have to give up.

Eventually, I went to my friend, Sister Mary Jean (a Springfield Dominican). I said to her, “Mary Jean, you know that I love — let’s say his name was Pete — that I love Pete, and we’re going to get married and we’re going to have a family. And she said, “Oh, yes, Elyse, I know that.” And I said, “But I don’t know what to do. I think I want to be a sister.” It was the first time I let the words come out of my mouth. And I said, “But I can’t do both. What am I going to do?”

Do you know what she said? She said, “Elyse, you just let God love you. You’ll be loved into knowing what’s right.”

I felt like the weight of the world was off my shoulders. She didn’t give me an answer as to which one. So I kept going to the charismatic group, kept dating, having a great time. I had the best of both worlds.

Several weeks later, she called, and said, “You know, Elyse, we have a sister that actually helps young girls like yourself” — 26 in my mind wasn’t a young girl, but that’s what she said — “helps them answer the questions you’re asking about marriage and being a sister. We call her the vocation director.”

I said, “For heaven’s sake, you’ve had this kind of person all along. People don’t know. You’ve got to tell them.”

CNW: What attracted you to the Dominicans?

Ramirez: One of the things the Dominicans told me about was their love for Scripture. It kind of sealed the deal for me.

The other thing Sister Margaret Rose (the Dominican vocation director) told me was that you had three years before you took vows. That made all the sense in the world to me, and you couldn’t do that if you got married. I thought, well, I really think I want to do this with my life, but they’re saying come and pray some more about it. So that freed me up, too. It was all so freeing.

When I talk with women, that’s one thing I say to them: When you let God love you, you’re free. I don’t mean no-holds-barred freedom. I mean you’re not caught. The possibilities of grace are endless. Opportunities for grace surround you.

CNW: What makes people consider religious vocations?

Ramirez: I was in our congregation’s vocations ministry for about six years, and when I first started, I really didn’t know what it was. Even though the vocation director before me in our congregation constantly told us we were the vocation people, constantly told us we were the ones who had to invite.

Then, when I started vocation ministry, I thought, “Oh, my gosh, our sisters have to do this.” Our members are the ones that have to invite.

There’s interest. There are religious vocations. In my experience, young women and men want to see if there is a life that is distinct? What does it uniquely offer? Not, what do you do? Like those guys in the Gospel story (Jn 1:38-39). Jesus asks what they are looking for. They don’t say, “Well, I’ve got this problem,” or “Heal me,” because they’d seen all his miracles. They say, “Where do you live?”

So young people want to know what is that life like? Where do you live? How do you live? How is that going to bring me into the heart of God in such a way that the world will be transfigured? We all have the same goal. It isn’t so much what do you do? It’s the flip of the same coin. In Dominican life we say we preach from the pulpit of our lives.

CNW: What’s the good news in religious vocations? Often, people say the outlook is gloomy.

Ramirez: Doesn’t that drive you up the wall? God hasn’t stopped and religious life belongs to God. Religious life doesn’t belong to me. It doesn’t belong to any one order, any one congregation, it belongs to God. And God gives it to the church. There are religious vocations and we have a generation that is hungry for evangelization. They ask, teach us about our faith. We want to know about our faith, and mentor us. When you do that, then a next step is to invite.

Our religious lives are a public witness, and we do that through our vows. Young people want to know that who they are is going to make a difference.

For information on religious vocations, call (312) 751-5240 or e-mail [email protected].