Welcome to Let Love, a podcast with the Sisters of Life. We invite you to join us for conversation, looking at life through the lens of love. You are loved, you are made in God's image, and your life matters. Let's talk about it. Welcome back to the Let Love podcast, everyone.

My name is Sister Anna Maculay. I'm Sister Catherine Joy Marie. Sister Mary Grace and Sister Veritas.

And it is Week 5 of Lent. Can you believe it? No. It's amazing. It's really sped along.

Home stretch, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The first week. That's great. It's amazing. It's really sped along. Home stretch, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

First week.

That's great. It's such a joy to be with you all. And, you know, we were kind of... Everyone's having a laugh attack in the room right now. I'm going to get it out. Get it out now. That's great. You're like entering into our... Yeah, yeah. You're going to laugh through land. This is what happens.

It's true.

Yeah, what a gift to be with you.

And, um, It's great. You're like entering into our... Yeah, yeah. You're gonna laugh through land on Christ.

It's true.

Yeah, what a gift to be with you.

And, yeah, week five.

And we had a great gospel yesterday, but it was making me think of, you know, funny experiences of learning that the cross is the part of the Christian life.

And, you know, there's this great part in the gospel that says, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat. And I remember being probably 20, 21, 22 years old when, when a spiritual director told me for the first time, like, using this passage to refer to kind of the gift of self or called to in the Christian life. And I was like, that's a part of my life. Like, I had no idea the cross was involved in the Christian mission. But, but it's true. You know, sometimes we can be surprised in this. We were laughing at just funny experiences in the convent of when the cross comes in you're not expecting it in silly ways. You know, one of the traditions we have as sisters of life, which I don't even know where it came from. Actually, I think Cardinal O'Connor, our founder, he loved, like, theater and

plays and was involved in seminary. And so a tradition early on in our community was a Thanksgiving

skit that was put on by our postulence, which is the first year of religious life. So I don't know if anyone wants to help me paint a picture here, but what was your experience like, Sister Mary Grace, when you were asked to do this as a postulant? Yeah, funny that. It's probably going to be different from which sister responds at this point, but for me, it was definitely the first death. I mean, I love going to shows. I love theatre, but being on

the stage is just not my thing. And I kind of thought, you know, maybe I walked away from that when you enter the conference. But it was excruciating. When I, okay, picture this, right. I mean, you do have like the most accommodating crowd ever, you know, 100 sisters. I mean, they're going to laugh and cry at anything that you give them. But you know, you've just entered the community.

You've put on a ridiculous skirt and vest. You already are humiliated in many ways every day. And then you're told, you're going to do a 30-minute performance in front of all these brand new sisters that you're just getting to know. You can't remember all their names at the same time. Yeah, I experienced death. To me, it was excruciating. I was like, are you kidding me? And then I realized, I've walked away from everything. But the thought of walking in front of all these sisters and coming up with a theater display in half an hour, it was torturous to say the least. It was excruciating. That's great. But some people have different experiences. I'm just going to say it's so funny because I loved it. It was excruciating. But some people have different experiences. I was just

going to say it's so funny because I loved it. It was so much fun. It was like my dream. I was like,

wow, we get to do theater in the convent. It's like a confirmation of my vocation.

It was a crisis of mine. Isn't it how funny how different we are? Oh my goodness. It all worked out well. We survived in the end. What was the experience for you, such a country? Did you love and hate it in the middle? Probably in the middle, but I was just so amazed at it. It's something that we did as sisters. And, like, it was something so playful that I was like, oh my gosh, like, we still have fun like this and we still, yeah, these little simple joys.

I'm not super into like acting, but I discovered that I loved it.

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