SW News: The Lord calls believers to the religious life in myriad ways and some of them can be really mysterious and interesting. That is exactly what happened to Sr Mary Martha of the Dominicans Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist of Nashville, a relatively new US-based congregation that is bursting at the seams with young vocations.

Hailing from British Colombia in Canada, Martha grew up in a Catholic family. However, her faith was lukewarm and it was not her faith that made her choose a small Catholic university in Virginia, USA, for higher studies. It was while studying there that she grew closer to the faith. Interstingly, she had a crush on a fellow student, who was a practicing Catholic. In order to impress him, Martha began to attend Mass every day. At one point she was indeed successful.

But gradually, she realized that the daily Mass, Rosary service and the Holy Hours had ignited a desire to absorb everything Catholic deepening her faith. After studies, Martha began teaching in schools and she served in institutions on the East as well as the West coasts. Ultimately, she settled down in Denver where she taught secondary school students. She also made sure that the students were given moral and spiritual guidance.

It was during that time she felt God was calling her to religious life. She took the final decision after reading an article in Sports Illustrated magazine about a young woman who was an international professional basketball player who left everything behind, including her family, friends, boyfriends and money, to join the Poor Clares and take the veil. Five months after reading the article, Martha took a one-way ticket for Nashville to join the Dominican nuns.

In her testimony published on the website of the congregation, Sr Martha says, “I have come to learn that religious life is not about denying or erasing anything, but about developing and discovering who I really am. Now I am in the same place as my former students, but God is the teacher, forming my whole person and removing the fears and faults that hide the person I am.”

Interestingly, the boy on whom Martha had a crush in college is now a priest.

Founded in 1997, the congregation has more than 300 members and most of them are below 40 years. The Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist was founded by Mother Assumpta Long, former superior of the Dominican Sisters of St Cecilia in Nashville, and three other nuns – Sr Joseph Bogdanowicz, Sr Mary Samuel Handwerker and Sr John Rasmussen--on February 9, 1997, with the blessing of Cardinal John O’Connor in the Archdiocese of New York. They were inspired by the Apostolic Exhortation of Pope St John Paul II Vita Consecrata urging a renewal of religious life to aid the New Evangelization.

The nuns get as many as 20 young postulants from around the world every year and more than half of them end up taking the veil.