Heart to Heart

What captures my heart as I reflect on the joy of vocation is a moment in my history when I was feeling desperately unsatisfied with my life as a Sister of Saint Joseph. I shared this feeling with our President Sister Dorothea “Dottie” Newell who suggested that I make a month long renewal with the U.S. Federation of Sisters of Saint Joseph. It was the last thing I would have thought for myself at the time. However, during that month of retreat, I was challenged to dream about how I saw myself in 25 years. I dreamt I would be living a life of ministry in social justice. The world around me was filled with horror such as the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the women and priests in El Salvador, the racist laws in South Africa and the poverty in our own country.

During that month, a team of elders and a team of peers gave us input on our first Sisters in France and how the only thing they had in common was the “sharing of the heart.” The early sisters didn’t dress alike, eat together nor pray together as a rule. What they had in common was the practice we now refer to as “sharing the state of the heart.” We practiced sharing the state of our hearts twice a day for that month. The joy of having that experience has carried me beyond that period of dissatisfaction to the present time of deep and meaningful appreciation for my life as a Sister of Saint Joseph. For the last 35 years, I have been ministering full time in Social Justice Ministry. My dream came true! God revealed to me at the core of my being what I needed to learn that sharing the state of my heart was the only thing that as a Sister of Saint Joseph I held in common with all other Sisters of Saint Joseph. Heart-to-heart with God and heart-to-heart with others turns out to be the joy of vocation for me.

Mary Elizabeth Clark, SSJ

Sister Mary Elizabeth currently serves as the Director for The SSJ Earth Center, a sponsored work of the Sisters of Saint Joseph.