Sr. Vincent Marie Finnegan, O.C.D.
A Carmelite nun on a mission from God.

If you’re a young woman meeting Sister Vincent Marie Finnegan for the first time, don’t be surprised when she glances at your left hand.

“Whenever I meet a young lady, I think, ‘Hmm, does she have a wedding ring on?’” says Sister with a chuckle. After all, she knows there are unfulfilled vocations to the religious life.

“If you ask young people why they didn’t enter religious life,” Sister Vincent Marie says, “many say that no one asked them.” 

Sister, however, never had that problem. When she was attending Catholic schools in the 1950s, she says it was “very clear to us that there were three states in life.” Her teachers would daily remind the students: “Ask God to know your vocation — whether married, single or religious.” 

During Sister Vincent Marie’s twelve years as the Superior General of her congregation, the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles, one of her responsibilities has been to help women discern their vocations. She acknowledges that over the past few decades, many religious communities have neglected this duty, though that’s beginning to change.

“Active work on vocations went by the wayside as religious communities got sidetracked with all the other issues and the battles being waged in the media,” she says. 

In the early 1990s, Sister Vincent Marie and some forty other women religious superiors concluded that the existing canonical organization representing women religious in this country did not meet all their needs. That’s why they requested canonical approval for a new organization, the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious. The Holy See granted approval in 1992, and Sister was elected the council’s first chairwoman. The group, which has flourished, last year opened a house of studies in Rome for sisters whose major superiors belong to the council. 

The young sisters live there while studying at various universities.

“We want the sisters there at the heart of the Church,” Sister Vincent Marie explains. “The Holy Father has asked that we know Rome, walk the streets the saints walked.” 

These “young, healthy, holy women” in Rome, supporting the Magisterium, are a powerful witness to the vibrancy of the Church and attest to the desire of young people to serve God.

“Young people,” says Sister, “are looking for authenticity.”

When inquiring about the religious life, “they ask about your prayer life and your common life. They observe how you treat your older religious, if you mean what you say and say what you mean. They’re sharp in picking up authenticity.” 

Certainly they would find that quality in Sister Vincent Marie.

This congregation of Carmelite nuns is “very Eucharistically oriented,” she says, adding that prayer time and daily Mass are vital, while time with her religious community also nourishes spiritual growth.

Those in the consecrated life — men and women religious, in other words — “are not generic sisters or brothers or priests,” says Sister Vincent Marie. “We have a particular charism given by the Holy Spirit.”

Teaching or health care, she explains, “is what a religious order does, not who they are.”

The vocation to be a Carmelite is a charism of contemplative prayer, first and foremost, she explains.

“Any activity we do, such as health care, education, or retreat work, flows from that contemplative base we have,” she says. “Our active life flows from that prayer life.” 

Sister knows the importance of union with God in prayer. It has helped whenever doubt about her calling crept in. Perhaps young people struggling to discern their vocation shouldn’t give too much credence to their own doubts, but rather follow Sister’s advice.
She said that if “people are honest, they’ll say they’ve had their trials” no matter what their state in life.

“To overcome those,” she says, “I prayed about it and I really had to look within and understand at a deeper level why I was here, Who called me. There may be a storm at the ocean’s surface, but if you go deeper, there’s peace. At the surface, you can have troubles, but at the core, there’s a peace and an intimacy with God that keeps you there. I consider it a purification of my vocation, because any time I have had difficulty, my vocation is more real and clear.” 

She tells young people considering the religious life to read the Vatican documents Vita Consecrata and Fraternal Life in Community before visiting religious communities they may be considering.

“I tell them,” she says, “if, when you visit a religious community, you don’t see reflected there what the Church is asking for in these documents, don’t move in.” 

As for parents, she tells them not to be afraid to give their children to God.

“Pray over your child while you’re pregnant,” she advises moms. “Intercessory prayer is very powerful. Pray for your children that they will know their vocation, know God’s will.”

And pray that they, like Sister Vincent Marie and her Carmelite sisters, may always be obedient to His will.

[Editor’s note: Just before this issue was printed, Sister Vincent Marie’s second full term as Mother General expired, and her successor, Sister Regina Marie, has stepped into that role.]

e