Carmelite nun takes temporary vows

Intermountain Catholic

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Sister Peter Marie of Jesus Crucified kneels before Mother Maureen Goodwin in the presence of her Carmelite sisters during the Holy Profession of Temporary Vows on Sept. 28. IC photo/Marie Mischel

HOLLADAY — After three years in the Carmel of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Holladay, Sister Peter Marie of Jesus Crucified took the next step to become fully integrated into the community: On Sept. 28 she professed temporary vows in front of her Carmelite sisters and members of her family.

During the ceremony, Sr. Peter Marie received a book that contains the order’s Rule and Constitutions. She will spend another three years of study and preparation at the Carmel before she professes her permanent vows.

She is looking forward to living a life of fidelity to her vows, always keeping her eyes on Jesus crucified; that desire is one of the reasons she chose her name, she said.

During the ceremony she also promised chastity, poverty and obedience to God, to the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, and to the monastery’s prioress and her successors.

Sr. Peter Marie’s vows exemplify the Gospel reading for that day, John 12:24 ("unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies"), said Fr. Peter Do, associate pastor of Saint Catherine of Siena/Newman Center, during his homiy for the celebratory Mass, because Jesus’ message is that "we must die to ourselves so that we might give life to others. … I’m grateful to Sr. Peter Marie for doing exactly that: giving her life to the Lord and making her profession that we celebrated today."

Sr. Peter Marie came to the Carmel from Texas, where she and her family immigrated from Vietnam about 20 years ago. After high school, she attended community college to begin working on a bachelor’s degree, "but something was missing and I just couldn’t figure it out. I felt lost and confused and I prayed, especially to Saint Therese," she said.

Thinking that she might have a vocation to religious life, she visited several communities, including active, semi-active and cloistered, "but none of them seemed to be the place until I came here. It struck me that it felt like home," she said. "When I first told my friends about entering religious life they told me I’d been saying that forever. I couldn’t remember but they seemed to have a good memory. … I guess I had been putting it on the back burner, not thinking about it."

Her first three years in the monastery were spent learning the cloistered life, she said. "I made a lot of mistakes and was corrected, but through each trial I still felt an inner peace that kept me here. I just couldn’t leave."

All novices go through a period of adjustment, just as anyone would when starting a new walk of life, said Carmelite Mother Maureen Goodwin, the prioress. The feeling of peace that Sr. Peter Marie felt "is always a good sign," she added. "This is our journey in exile, but if we trust in the Lord, and if that peace is there, that is a good sign."

The monastery has 11 nuns in residence, who live a cloistered life very similar to the one established by Saint Theresa of Avila in 1593 for the Discalced Carmelites. They are a contemplative order, dedicated to prayer.

"We are turning our backs on the world so that we can concentrate on serving the Lord," Mother Maureen said, acknowledging that being a nun "seems so strange in today’s society. They can’t take any restraint. It’s all ‘me.’ But we have to die to ourselves if we’re going to live for the Lord."