A nice article about one woman’s journey to the Catholic faith, and then to religious life:

After they returned from Paris, she and several other women lived at an empty convent connected to her parish school. While the order eventually declined to found a women’s religious group in Chicago, Sister Kathleen Clare didn’t give up on answering God’s call. That’s when the Benedictine Sisters arrived in her life.

They offered to establish a small novitiate at their motherhouse in Clyde for the monks as a training for women interested in religious life.

“In less than a year I was the only woman remaining,” Lahl said, “and since the monks said I couldn’t return to become a community of one, I stayed on at Clyde as a volunteer while discerning where God was leading me.”

As she lived with the Benedictine Sisters, she began to treasure their tremendous sense of hospitality, love and dedication to the Eucharist. She realized she was right at home with them.

“There’s a beautiful balance of monastic life here enabling the inner silence for mindfulness of God’s presence,” she said. “This is where I was meant to be. God was leading me here all along.”