An inescapable pull toward religious life

Together with her fellow Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, Sister Angela Cresswell, C.S.F.N. celebrates at a 50th Jubilee Mass. (Photos courtesy of Sister Angela Cresswell, C.S.F.N.)

OCTOBER 1, 1949, began as a brisk fall day in Chicago. I arrived into the world at 5 a.m.—a tad early for my mother, I suspect. While memory can be a delicate faculty that softens or rearranges the past, I can now see how gently and persistently God pursued me from the start. My vocation did not arrive in a single revelation but unfolded through people, places, and unexpected graces.

Our African-American Protestant family was introduced to the Catholic Church by a family friend, and I was baptized at St. Anselm’s at age 6. My early years in parochial school were a series of vivid impressions: the mysterious silhouette of my first-grade teacher, the smell of mimeograph paper, and a growing awe of the sisters who moved through the world with such quiet purpose.

Pierced to the core

During a visit to New Jersey in the summer of 1959, my sister and I fell in love with the open spaces and leafy trees of the East Coast; we refused to leave. One of my summer counselors taught me my first Spanish word, muchacho. It was a significant moment; I promised myself then that, one day, I would master the language. My family eventually settled in Englewood, where I attended St. Cecilia School.

Our Lord’s personal invitation to me was about to unfold. The unpredictability of the weather made steady work difficult for my stepfather, a bricklayer, and we soon moved again—this time to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I was 12 years old and in the seventh grade at St. Francis of Assisi when Sister Hyacinth pierced me to the core. Dropping a Josephite Father’s periodical on my desk, she stated simply: “You should be a nun!” I was indignant and embarrassed, yet secretly shaken. She had named something I had not yet dared to name myself.

The color question

Life, however, didn’t lead straight to the convent. After another move, our family settled in Philadelphia. In the early 1960s, as an eighth grader at St. Gregory’s, I asked my teacher if her order accepted “colored” girls. Doubtful, she introduced me to Sister Vincentia, an Oblate Sister of Providence—a religious community founded by and for women of African descent. Though I visited the sisters’ home in Baltimore and stayed close with Sister Vincentia, I spent my time at West Philadelphia Catholic Girls’ High School happily exploring seven different congregations.

Alas, the Lord’s plan did not align with my own. The community I applied to during my senior year rejected me that April. Disheartened and ready to abandon my vocation, I pivoted: I planned to use a diocesan scholarship to major in Spanish, move to Spain, find my matador, and start a family of my own. But once again, the good Lord had other plans.

An unmistakable whisper

The door I thought was closed was merely ajar. While attending summer school at St. Joseph’s University, I met Sister Robert, an African-American member of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth. She asked the second startling question of my life: “When are you entering?”

“Never!” was my bold response.

That was before she took me on a tour of the motherhouse. As I walked down the wide middle aisle of the chapel, sunlight filtering through the mosaic windows, my heart heard an unmistakable whisper: “This is where I want you.” It was useless to resist any longer.

Commitment renewed daily

That was 56 years ago. The vows I pronounced at first profession require daily renewal. My priority remains the pursuit of an authentic, personal relationship with Our Lord, living the charism of my congregation by imitating the Holy Family despite my own imperfections. I not only live in a fallen world, I too, am fallen. In our daily petition to the Holy Family, we pray: “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, inspire us to live our community life, that we may be a sign to others that Christ has come, that our hope is centered in him.”

My sponsor’s words still echo with me today: “Remember for Whom you came, and for Whom you will stay.” Faithfulness is a choice I make many times a day, aware that I need the strength and courage God is ever ready to give me.

Memory may be imperfect, but grace is not. God’s call is always present—sometimes whispered, sometimes shouted—and always patient. In time, I found the place where that call could finally take root and flourish.

Related: VocationNetwork.org, “A zigzagging road to the convent” and “Unravel the mystery of your call.”