Search
Vocation Stories from Newest Religious Sisters
-
"I Couldn't Imagine My Life Without God in It"
by Chez Filippini
Sister Solana Wegienka, TOR
Taking her religious name after Blessed Solanus Casey, Sister Solana is over three years into her journey with the Franciscan Sisters of the Third Order Regular (TOR), who have been serving in the Tallahassee area for over a decade. Sister Solana grew up Catholic near Ann Arbor, Michigan, and remembers the first moment she sensed Jesus calling. “I felt the Lord ask me to be his bride at the age of 16. I was a junior and went to a prayer meeting at my high school on a weekday. It was a very simple gathering with some praise and worship and a brief talk about having a fulfilled life in Christ. We were invited to spend five minutes in silence. I remember taking time to thank Jesus for giving me such clarity about my vocation which, at that point, I was certain was to be a wife, mother and veterinarian. And then I immediately heard a phrase, ‘more beautiful than a bride on her wedding day,’ which had been used by my pastor to describe his sister taking her first vows in consecrated life. And I just knew God was asking me to be his bride which caused me to freak out as it was not my plan!”
Following this experience, Sister Solana committed herself to daily prayer and attending Mass as much as possible. Later, while still wrestling with the prospect of religious life, she attended a retreat with Dominican sisters over the course of Divine Mercy Sunday in 2014. It was there that she noticed her heart turning toward a true desire for the consecrated state of life. She went on to study zoology at Michigan State University while continuing her discernment. The Catholic Campus Ministry was an essential element of her time there and she spent two years in missionary work in Detroit before entering the novitiate. Eventually, she connected with the TOR sisters through Sister Rita Clare, who was the “beautiful bride” referenced by her pastor all those years ago, entering the community in 2021.
Sister Lisa Marie Shatynski, TOR
Sister Lisa Marie will profess her final vows on June 7, 2025, having been in the TOR community for eight years. She remembers a Catholic upbringing where she was always enamored with the presence of God in Creation and knew his desire to be close to her. During middle school, she experienced a deepening of her prayer life thanks to the guidance of a Baptist youth pastor. She went on to study at Rutgers University, where missionaries from the Catholic Student Center reached out and helped her find roots in that Campus Ministry. Sister Lisa soon realized the full power of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and continued to explore greater intimacy with the Lord in prayer. “I remember telling my spiritual director, ‘Yeah, you know Jesus is so close to me, he’s like my best friend,’ having powerful dreams about religious life and, finally, a singular moment where I heard the Lord calling my name. … I just stopped and said, ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.’ He replied, ‘I want you. I asked, ‘How do you want me?’ He said, ‘Completely.’”
Soon, she was looking for the religious community and made a pilgrimage to Lourdes, where she consecrated this search to Our Lady with the prayer, “Blessed Mother, lead me to the living waters of Christ.” She then connected with the TOR sister at a ministry training conference and felt a real affinity for the community’s charisms. An undeniably confirming moment arrived months after, when she went to the TOR home chapel just north of Steubenville, Ohio. There, she saw her petition from Lourdes answered in an instant as behind the altar was a wood relief of Mary kneeling at the foot of the cross as Jesus’ pierced side pours forth living water to the earth below.
Commenting on their campus ministry work at Florida State, Sister Solana and Sister Lisa Marie recognize the unique power of consecrated religious life on the campus of a major public university. “People trust you, it’s such a privileged place to be. I think, ‘You don’t know me, yet you trust me and I’ve done nothing to earn your trust yet,’” says Sister Solana on her work with students. They are witnessing the Holy Spirit constantly stir up hearts and minds to seek him out through subtle movements of their souls. Sister Lisa Marie acknowledges their special role in receiving these young souls: “People know that you are a safe place to go. So, when people have their questions, they think, ‘Oh, I can trust her!’”
As spiritual daughters of St. Francis of Assisi, they feel a special bond with the Martyrs of La Florida, many of whom were Franciscan priests or religious themselves evangelizing in the same place, more than 300 years earlier. Sister Lisa Marie reflects, “Since being here I’ve taken on a new heritage … knowing that there were Franicscans here from the beginning, carrying on their story … on the same ground years later, it’s really special.”
Sister Susan Francis Graham, ASCJ
Sister Susan Francis grew up in Dallas, the second of eight children. The family was deeply committed to their Catholic faith and her uncle was a priest of the Opus Dei prelature. Being raised in the South, she does not recall ever seeing religious brothers or sisters in her youth and always felt a strong call to both married life, as well as missionary work in the medical sphere. She attended Creighton University in Omaha, a Catholic university run by the Jesuit Order, who provided many spaces for prayer and discernment to students.
“I studied abroad my sophomore year with Pharmacists without Borders, whose headquarters are in southern France … While I was there, I was so struck by the lack of faith in the area where I was staying. Over and over, I was encountering people who had no reference to God in their lives. It was the first time in my life I had met people without any kind of religious faith who had never considered God as part of their life.” She remembers how strange the locals would find it when she expressed simple elements of the faith, such as observing Lent and not eating meat on Friday.
“I think God used the experience to show me how important faith was in my life … that I had taken for granted. For the first time, I considered what my life would be without him and I could not imagine that reality at all.”
Returning to the United States, she recognized the seeds of a deeper vocation, experiencing a restless heart until she asked God in prayer, “What do you want for me?” Quite quickly, she realized that he desired the consecrated life for her. Surprised by this, Sister Susan started down the path of formal discernment. She turned to the internet, researching various congregations and visiting communities in person. She found the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and was very attracted to their commitment to sharing Christ’s love wherever they were called to. Visiting the motherhouse in Connecticut convinced her to drop out of her pharmacy program and join the sisters in 2006. She made final vows in 2014 and during her formation was able to obtain a master’s degree in nursing in response to her natural affinity to missionary work through health care. She recounts the Lord pruning her desires during formation as she parted with the idea of being a mother to her own children one day. “Even though I felt very strongly God’s invitation to religious life, that was a big letting go, the idea of being a mother. … Eventually, I realized that I had to trust that God knew my heart best and that he is able to share the gifts that I would have shared with a family with a wider world, a wider Church. The call of celibacy I found was closely aligned to the call of availability.”
Prior to coming to Pensacola, she put her French skills to use ministering in the West African nation of Benin, where the Catholic faith, although a minority, is growing rapidly despite many obstacles. Arriving in our diocese in the summer 2024, she is actively engaged in the Campus Ministry at the University of West Florida and serves part-time as a nurse with a local health care provider. Sister Susan has seen a real desire for faith in this area. She observes, “There is a real attraction among the students and the community at large to be part of a faith community and to build up their spiritual lives which is honestly something I don’t remember seeing too much of among my peers during college. The Spirit is moving in Escambia County in a unique way.”