This article is the second installment in a series that will interview various individuals and couples about vocation, discernment, and the celebration of diverse forms of holiness. Here, Sr. Ann Astell, Theology Professor, author, editor and a board member for the society for the Study of Christian Spirituality, speaks about these topics. This is the full transcript of her interview.

Kyle Sladek: How would you describe “vocation” in a general sense?

Sister Ann Astell: A vocation is a personal calling from God, a calling to fulfill one’s destined mission in life, to become more fully and deeply the person God has created you to be.

How would you describe your vocation?

“God is love” (1 John 4:8). Each person exists to be His image and likeness (Gen. 1:26).  My deepest and most fundamental vocation is to love God and to become an instrument of His love for others.

What does your general vocation entail?  What does your specific vocation entail?

I have answered the question of general vocation above. My specific vocation is to be a Schoenstatt Sister of Mary, to follow Christ as Mary did, and to do so as a member of a modern, international, community inspired by a Marian ideal.

How did you come to discover your vocation?  What were some intermediate steps in this process?

From my childhood, I had the desire to become a Sister. I attended a Catholic grade school and was taught by wonderful Franciscan Sisters who radiated the love of Christ. Several relatives had entered religious life. My own parents and grandparents were devoutly Catholic.  During my freshman year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I also came to know an Ursuline Sister from Canada, who was an inspiration to me.

Did you ever consider a vocation other than the one you now are living?

Yes, during my undergraduate studies.  At that time, during the 1970s, shortly after Vatican Council II, there was great turmoil and experimentation in women’s religious communities. The missionary communities in which I was especially interested did not accept young women without college degrees. Several doors closed. I had to postpone my entrance, and I began to be unsure whether God wanted me to become a Sister. I dated and considered marriage. By my senior year, however, the earlier sense of my vocation had returned to me with new certainty and joy. The challenge, then, was to find the right religious community!

What did you want to be when you were young?

I wanted to be a Sister. I also wanted to be a teacher.

At what point in your life did you become aware of the concept of vocation?  How did this concept affect you?

In grade school we were taught that each life was precious to God, and that God had created each one with a special plan, a purpose. We learned that we should be open to God’s will and that the Holy Spirit would help us to discern our vocation.

What is the most rewarding or fulfilling aspect of your vocation?

The unfolding of love—bridal love for Christ, childlike love for God the Father, sisterly love with my Sisters, motherly love for my students and for all those I’m privileged to serve, friendship with colleagues.

What is the most challenging aspect of your vocation?

At different points in my life, I would answer this question differently. At present I would say: the challenge of being utterly simple and single-hearted while doing a great variety of things! Love makes all things possible.

How do you serve the Lord and his Church through your vocation?

A mysterious fruitfulness is connected with a virginal life given in love to Christ. I teach theology here at Notre Dame, and I write scholarly books and articles, mainly concerning historical Christianity. I serve on committees. I do what other professors do. I contribute to the life of the Schoenstatt Family. Behind all the exteriorly visible activity, however, the real and most important service is simply to let Christ live and act in and through me.

What role does prayer play in your vocation?

Prayer is absolutely essential, like the air one breathes, the food one eats, the sleep one requires, the exercise one needs. As a Schoenstatt Sister, I have daily exercises of prayer: morning prayer, meditation, Holy Mass, a Visit to the Blessed Sacrament, spiritual reading, rosary, night prayer. In my office, I keep a picture of our Lady of Schoenstatt, so I can make little prayers out of glances, in between correcting papers or reading essays. The best prayer is: “Father, Thy will be done.” In the end, everything is offered up to God as a gift of love.

Do you have any advice for young people discerning their vocation?

Believe that God will show you the path He wants you to pursue and that He has prepared you for what He wants you to be and to do. Trust in His plan and in your own dreams and longings.  If you want to fulfill His will for your life, if you want to be God’s instrument, then God has planted that desire in your heart. It is already a guarantee that God will reveal His wish and will to you. God wants for you that vocation, that state in life, that will bring you the greatest joy.

Follow up questions, from a second interview:

Could you speak about the religious community of which you are a part?

The Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary were founded in 1926 in Schoenstatt, Germany, to serve the growing Schoenstatt Movement, which now has members on every continent.  The community of the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary is one of the very first secular institutes to be recognized in 1948 by the Church as a new form of consecrated life.  The Sisters work in a variety of professions, but our common work as an Institute is to serve the Schoenstatt Movement, which is one of the largest ecclesial movements of renewal in the Church today.

Had you always known that your academic vocation would be realized in your religious community, or have you had other roles/assignments within your community?

Before I became a Sister, I did think that I had an academic calling to be a scholar, teacher, and writer.  I understood, however, that that calling could be realized in more than one state of life, as a “calling within a calling.”  The state of life question, therefore, came first in priority. When I joined the Sisters, I placed myself under obedience.  I was sent to teach grade school children, and I did so for three years before my superiors sent me to Marquette University, to begin my graduate studies.  Being sent by my superiors gave me a great confidence that God indeed wanted me to serve him as an academic and helped me to master the various challenges that were entailed in earning the doctorate, finding a job at a university, pursuing research, etc..

Speaking about both your religious vocation and your academic vocation, how did you know that you had ‘found’ your vocation?

There was a mysterious peace, a sense of being “at home,” in the community and in the work.  At a certain turning point in 1974, God did give me an extraordinary grace in an hour of prayer.  There were other providential signs, too. In the end, though, the surest indication that one has found one’s vocation is the sense of being in one’s proper place. It’s having the sure and joyful consciousness that “I was born for this” (no matter what “this” might be).

Kyle Sladek is a senior studying philosophy & theology. Contact him at ksladek@nd.edu.