At 12, I Wanted to be a Carmelite Nun — But Life Got in the Way

Step Into the Place of Christ

We are all expected to follow Jesus and build up His Kingdom in our hearts and in this world, praying, "thy kingdom come." But does this journey towards union with God differ based on our state in life? Do those in religious life possess a special path or ability to grow in holiness?

As pilgrims "homesick" for our eternal home, a question lingers: Are lay people relegated to being second-class citizens in God’s kingdom? While religious life offers the freedom to focus entirely on prayer, spiritual reading, and the apostolate for active orders, the layperson's path demands that virtue be put to the test—living in the world, surrounded by non-believers and the world's many trials.

Regardless of our vocation, we are all called to step into the place of Christ, shining His light to the world. Our "candle" may burn for different purposes, but we must never "bind our souls" or, as Jesus cautions, hide our light under a bushel basket.

In this session, chatters discuss their own spiritual journeys — including one woman who felt called to be a Carmelite nun in the sixth grade.

We are grateful for the rich sharing in our past Living Jesus Chat Room of the Visitation Sisters, where we met each Sunday to read a passage of St. Francis de Sales and gather great insights.

Please note that this chat is no longer continuing after Nov. 30, 2025.

Do You Know the Purpose of Religious Life?

Question: How is it, according to Saint Francis, that most daughters who enter religious life are unaware of the object, or purpose of religious life?

Sherry: What does the letter say about this?

Kieley: It happens because the women come in for different reasons and aren’t necessarily read up on what the convent is about.

Sherry: Yes, Kieley.

Sydney: They have a rose-colored glasses of the life.

Sherry: What can be a tempting motive to enter a monastery?

Caroline: I found very little info about that when I was searching. For me it was to live more closely to Jesus.

Sherry: What do you mean, Caroline? Do you mean when you were discerning yourself years ago?

Caroline: Yes, that's what I mean. I don't remember any of the vocation mistresses covering that.

Sydney: Mine was from God’s command.

Sherry: I understand, and that is often the reason at least for us here on the chat; I think it was for several.

Kieley: Mine was over a lifetime.

Sherry: Can you explain a bit Kieley? What do you mean by that? Did your calling grow over a lifetime? Is that what you mean?

Sixth-Grade Inspiration

Kieley: Since I was in sixth grade, I wanted to be a Carmelite and then life got in the way. I’d love to return, but I think I’m too old and I’m OK with that. I wanna do what Papa / God tells me to do. Not return to the convent because I’ve never lived in a convent. I mean, returning to the thoughts of entertaining and thinking possibly may begin in a convent.

Sherry: For me it was just this extreme joy I felt always when I prayed and I saw so often myself in a habit praying with others.

Sydney: I see all of us in a habit praying with each other right now!

Caroline: I did too, when I was young. But I had a job to do first.

Sherry: I was wondering that too as I wrote it down.

Kieley: Caroline, what was your job, if I can ask?

Caroline: My father sacrificed much for us when I was a child. I needed to repay that sacrifice and care for him at the least.

Sherry: Honour your father and mother.

Kieley: God bless you.

Caroline: I hope so!

Kieley: Amen.

A Representation of the Kingdom of God

Sherry: I want to add something that I read just recently in an article. So this article was about the Visitation order and it's very core meaning. Interestingly this article said that the main reason was not like in other monasteries to have a very disciplined prayer life, although prayer was of course crucial too but rather that the community of women in their living together would establish such love for each other that it was a representation of the kingdom of God. When I read this in the article all of a sudden it was an epiphany for me. If we are drawn to the Visitation order we are invited to live the love of God in a deep way. And again that can be done outside of the cloister walls maybe too if God does not open the cloister doors for whatever reasons for a woman.

Caroline: It reminds me of Therese of Lisieux, and St Faustina.

Sydney: It is sad that St. Francis de Sales was so visionary, but the other bishops put a stop to it, and made the order cloistered like the others.

Sherry: I always thought so too Sydney but I think that every expression of the Holy Spirit is tucked into time and space on earth and at that time it might have been dangerous to go around alone in the streets as a woman.

Sydney: Maybe this is our outside of the cloistered walls cloister.

Sherry: Sydney, I have similar thoughts like you.

Caroline: That's why our community includes domestics in our own homes.

Kieley: What do you mean, Caroline?

Caroline: Our community has monastic members at Little Portion, but most of us live in our own homes.

Kieley: And you’re a “full nun”?

Caroline: Sister, actually, but yes we are full members even though we don't live in the monastery.

Kieley: Wow. Very interesting.

Sherry: it is more and more happening that a monastic lifestyle outside of a cloister can be lived.

Caroline: littleportion.org, The Lord is scattering the salt of the earth far and wide.

Kieley: Sydney sent me your information.

Sherry: That said there is still of course the call INTO the actual monastery, but in our age I think it is rare that the doors really open for it anymore. Sorry, but true I guess.

Caroline: That was my experience too, Sherry.

Sydney: It is. I am finding even the ones that are for older women don’t actually want older women.

Sherry: LOL Sydney actually true. I think it is as much as important to discern a kind of Spirituality as it is the actual call to religious life.

Kieley: I just wanna say something if it’s OK… when I think about joining in order, I do think of a monastery and I do think of that monastery in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where is truly needed for many reasons and because of a vision I had about seven or eight years ago.

Sherry: So the Lord has given you a vision for a possible place for you, Kieley?

Kieley: Yes. My Spiritual Director knows about it.

Caroline: Kieley, I found that to be true also. They need women to pass the torch to.

Sherry: And the Visitation order was actually known to take in sickly and elderly women, I guess that has changed now.

Sherry: Kieley is that a Carmelite monastery that you are thinking of?

Kieley: Yes.

Sherry: Well, it will be interesting to see how God will unfold your vision.

Sydney: Even though I am younger and can be a bridge to a younger, generation, I am still considered old. Old. At 50.

Kieley: As we chat here, my goosebumps are back. They tell me a lot.

Sherry: I think that God has a reason why he allows our desire with a monastic life dwell in us so deeply Sometimes we need quite some while to interpret God's deeper calling. At least in my life it was often like this.

Sharing a Vision

Kieley: Are you waiting to hear my vision? Is that what the silence is?

Sherry: oh Kieley please feel free to to share.

Caroline: Please do! We are all reminiscing on visions.

Kieley: About seven or eight years ago, I saw the risen Jesus with his back to our river, downtown Cedar Rapids and I was about three blocks away from him, but I knew he was looking right at me so I took a couple steps towards him. And then, while he was standing there, his arms were out like he was on a cross.

And then I took the steps and then he started walking towards me and by him doing that I immediately knew I was supposed to trade places with him and do what he did. So I did. And I reached my arms out, and I wondered what this is all about. And he said, “the next holy city”. He didn’t mean Rome. He meant like Fatima.

So with me aging, I’m feeling more positive pressure to start something in Cedar Rapids. And I really believe that the reason this would be the holy city would be because of our pastor, Father Aaron.

Sherry: Hmm, very interesting, thank you for sharing, Kieley.

Kieley: My pleasure. You’re welcome.

Sherry: I like the "trading places" it truly does sound like an invitation to sacrifice.

Caroline: It could be. He is raising communities in the Spirit all over.

Kieley: Amen. I’m gonna start praying about it strongly starting tonight.

Sydney: Kieley, I know administrators of a cemetery—they know how to bury bodies. If you give Caroline Fr. A’s address, I’m going to contact them about you.

Caroline: Hey! No fair!

Kieley: Sydney, what do you mean about burying a body?

Sydney: Nothing.

Sherry: I am not sure though what you mean with "like Fatima."

Kieley: Fatima, a holy city, not like Rome being the holy city.

Sherry: OK so a city known for having been touched by God or Mary?

Sydney: Like an apparition city?

Sherry: Yes, that's what I meant.

Kieley: Yes, Sydney.

Sherry: Kieley, do you sense a " founder's Spirit " in you?

Kieley: Sydney knows this very well about me that I’m not real articulate… sometimes it takes a while before the word falls out of my mouth.

Sherry: That's what I sense a lot in me and a woman once has attested that to me, I actually took her wording.

Kieley: YES!!!!!!! O my gosh!!!! I would’ve never been able to say that.

Sherry: Hmm. Well that is definitely another puzzle piece then in your discernment, regarding the founder’s spirit.

Sherry: Yes.

Sherry: I want to honour the work of the Newsletter. and will add the next question now.

Sydney: Very nice transition, Sherry!

Is Religious Life “Better” Than Lay Life?

Question: St. Francis talks about the resolution for entering religious life, but, in general, shouldn't this be our resolution for the Christian life?

Caroline: Monasticism is the Christian life lived with full intensity.

Sherry: But St. Francis did not live in a monastery and I had the feeling he lived the Christian life with full intensity.

Caroline: Hmm.

Sydney: God does give the familial vocation to many to continue the human race, and others of us, he calls to be devoted to the religious life.

Sherry: So, Sydney, you see the main difference is the decision of having no children or having children? I see the main difference - in the way more how I interact with the world.

Sydney: There is a priest in our diocese who has adult children.

Sherry: LOL Sydney you do know that my husband is a Catholic priest and we have an adult daughter, right?

Sydney: I did not know that about your husband!

Sherry: oh you didn't? Well you know now. Long story of course not for today maybe another time.

Caroline: That is just neat.

Sydney: Is he a Marionite?

Sherry: My husband is a "normal" Catholic priest - who has a dispensation from the Pope to be married.

Kieley: My children are all adults with children of their own. I feel the last three or four years I lived what is in the Bible with my children: mother and daughter, daughter against mother mother-in-law against his daughter. Things are better for now and they keep getting better, but I feel God was teaching me that it’s only him that matters.

Sherry: Anyways, I recently read about the different birds in the king's palace. So there are these beautiful little birds in the cage and all they are supposed to do is sing sing and be beautiful so that the king can enjoy them. And then there are other birds, bigger birds, that actually hunt, and birds that are eaten themselves. Anyways somehow, if I remember correctly, the beautiful little birds were the monastic ones whose prayers just delighted God. But I am not that kind of bird, I think I love to give back into the world. I just do not want to receive anymore from the world. Oh gosh, does anything make sense to you ladies?

Caroline: Yes! I think I evangelize or serve. One day I will tell you about the red tail hawks.

Sherry: Thank you, Caroline. You do not have to answer to this ladies, it was just a thought.

Sherry: Let's look rather at our next question.

Are Religious in Deeper Union with God?

Question: Do religious have a special union with God beyond a lay person or any person in virtue of their baptism? Are there stages or degrees of this union?

Sydney: It reminds me of talking with my new spiritual director, who is a priest that Caroline can’t have, and saying that I am not of this world. Some of us are homesick.

Sherry: Yes, Sydney, that is exactly how I feel.

Caroline: I know I'm homesick.

Sherry: So homesick. I bet Jesus was homesick.

Kieley: Meee TOOOOOO!

Sydney: That might be the difference from your previous question.

Sherry: Yes, we found it.

Caroline: The first time I saw Heaven is For Real, and Jesus comes to the little boy in the church, the homesickness was a physical pain.

Sherry: Oh wow, I actually never saw that movie.

Caroline: You can't have my director either, lol. It's worth it, Sherry.

Rebecca: Sherry, Heaven Is for Real is a book, too. In fact, first, I suspect.

Sherry: Yes, I did read the book many years ago. I just never saw the movie.

Rebecca: I think I was about 15 when I first saw it on the church book stand.

Sydney: We’ll see…but like in Kieley's vision, we are now invited maybe to trade places. It is a love language to care here on earth for others and be the body of Christ.

Caroline: And one foot is already there.

Don't Ask God This Question

Kieley: I used to ask God quite often, when do I get to come home? I should’ve never told my spiritual Director that cause he said not to ask that, but to ask, how can I fulfill the plan you have for me.

Caroline: Even David asked that question in one of the Psalms.

Kieley: Hmm.

Sherry: I think the true invitation of THE VISITATION is to simply become LOVE.

Kieley: Aaaaawesome.

Sherry: Now we have to lay everything down and ask the LORD "mold me into LOVE," into your very being itself, GOD.

Cindy: Amen, Sherry!

Sherry: I do not ask GOD when I can get home to him but every day I tell him that I am not attached to my life here on Earth but as long as I have the privilege to have an earthly body and a soul together as long I want to serve with them here.

Caroline: I think we all must go through the stages.

Rebecca: I’d say, some do and some don’t.

Sherry: I think there are special invitations from GOD, where you just know that God invites you deeper and to follow this invitation, it often means to turn your back more on the joys of the world.

Cindy:  I think degrees of union with Our Lord are not contingent on our state in life (i.e. vowed religious or not). For example, look at St Catherine of Siena.

Sherry: Good example, Cindy.

Rebecca: I agree, Cindy.

Sherry: I find that the spiritual development makes its own way like natural physical development if we do not hinder it with rebellion to God's will.

Rebecca: And I am not even sure about “stages” of union.

Cindy: Yes, and if we respond to prompts from the Holy Spirit.

Caroline: Each one of us has something no one else can do.

Rebecca: The ways to holiness tend to be very diverse. And that is why it is great to know of so many different saints.

Sherry: I agree, Rebecca, but the more I listen to stories of people on the road to holiness the more similarities I find too.

"Binding" Our Souls

I once saw a documentary on the "feet binding" in China, I think it was China. Anyways, their small feet are very admirable. So they "bind" the feet of young girls and hinder their natural growth. I think sometimes we bind our souls.

Cindy: interesting analogy, Sherry.

Sydney: Pretty much every time I start typing, one of you says what I am going to say. I’m going to stay quiet now.

Sherry: Wonderful! We have unity in Spirit here!

Cindy: Please, no, Sydney. I learn so much from you!

Sydney: The Spirit is telling you all what I am going to say? I knew it!

Caroline: We are part of a different type of community, so of course we say a lot of the same things.

Sherry: Ok, ladies, we are getting to the end of our chat for today.

Cindy: Thank you all, again, for your fidelity to this hour!

Sherry: I have learned again from you all. The word "homesick" will stay with me I think for a couple of more days.

Kieley: Thank you everyone! You all are dearly loved ??

Cindy: Have a blessed week everyone!

Sydney: He said it was from a Saint or someone else, it couldn’t remember who.

Sherry: Blessed week Hope to see you all next Sunday again!

Cindy: Goodnight.

Sherry: Good night, ladies.

Caroline: God bless us every one.

Sydney: Good night! I just had a It’s a Wonderful Life moment from Caroline!

Sydney: Isn’t that a quote from the movie?

Caroline: Not that I'm aware.

Caroline: It's Tiny Tim.

Sydney: Maybe it’s Tiny Tim. Wrong movie! Lol

Caroline: Close, very close.

Sydney: They’re both Christmas stories.

Caroline: True.

Rebecca: I have an image of all of you as in a Garden of flowers, turning toward the Son.

Caroline: You did? if we have best friends in heaven, I bet we are.

Rebecca: Yes, Caroline. Just now.

Sydney: Okay, have a great week! Love to you all!

Caroline: Don't work too hard!

Rebecca: Good night, and have a blessed week. Please continue to pray for me to find a spiritual director. And to be fully alive while I am alive. They did not break His legs when he died upon the cross. He was clearly already dead.

If you enjoyed this article, why not check out our previous chats on Living Jesus Chat Room Blog of the Visitation Sisters. (Blog will be available until Dec. 31, 2025.)