Sister Michele Curtin inspired by St. Therese of Lisieux

Intermountain Catholic

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Sister of Charity of the Incarnate Word Michele Curtin points to developing countries where new vocations are cropping up. In the U.S. and Ireland, she said, ?affluence drowns out the voice of God.? IC photo by Barbara S. Lee

SALT LAKE CITY — The people of St. Ann Parish are used to the lilting Irish brogue of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate word. Members of the Houston-based religious order have served in the Diocese of Salt Lake City since they established what is now CHRISTUS St. Joseph Villa at the request of Bishop Duane G. Hunt in 1945. They have taught and led Kearns-St. Ann School and worked in pastoral ministry in the parish.

Sister of Charity of the Incarnate Word Michele Curtin has her own Irish brogue. It comes from a spirit and a mouth that is almost always smiling. When she talks about her vocation to the religious life, she lights up.

"I was graced at my confirmation at the age of 12," she said in a November 21 interview with the Intermountain Catholic. "From the time I was a small child I’d done a lot of reading, and I read everything by and about Saint Therese of Lisieux."

St. Therese of Lisieux was an 19th-century saint, a member of the Carmelite order who devoted her cloistered life of prayer to the intention of priests throughout the world. She died of tuberculosis at age 24 in her native France, and in 1997 was named a doctor of the church, an honor given to only two other women in the church, St. Teresa of Avila and St.Catherine of Siena.

"St. Therese had a special love for missionaries," Sr. Michele said. "I always wanted to be a missionary and serve in Africa."

When Sr. Michele first applied to a missionary order, her application was denied. She was only 14 years old. That’s something else she has in common with St. Therese. The saint was only 14 when she decided she would join her older sister into the Carmelites. St. Therese never lived to see the missions, but Sr. Michele got to Africa at the age of 52.

"When my application was declined, I was very disillusioned. Then, I decided I would be a nurse because they help people who are sick. But my vocation, my call, returned when I was 15," she said. "I saw an advertisement in a newspaper from County Cork for nursing nuns, the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. That was the first time I had ever heard of nuns who were nurses. ‘That’s the thing,’ I said to myself. I got all geared up."

In the meantime, a neighbor of Sr. Michele’s entered the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word – the daughter of her mother’s dearest friend.

When the Order sent a sister to visit Sr. Michele, the youngest of seven children, it was the same neighbor who came to the Curtin door to support her decision.

"I knew leaving my mother to join the Sisters would be hard," Sr. Michele said. "We’d already lost one of my brothers. He died of polio when I was 8, and my father died when I was 9. But that sister, whose mother loved my mother encouraged me to find out about the Incarnate Word Order. She was right. Today, all but one of my sisters and I have gone to God."

Sr. Michele’s mother had told her youngest child she would die happy if one of her children became a priest or a sister.

"When she died of a stroke, she had a smile on her face. A sister had just come into her room, and she thought it was me. I couldn’t get home in time, but she was happy."

Sr. Michele paused a moment when asked why so few women are committing themselves to religious life today. "I think it’s a lack of faith, really," she said. "They don’t have the faith to commit, and we don’t have the faith to recruit them. Also, the idea of religious vocations is drowned out by so many other things these days – movies, television, drugs, commercialism, and the rush of the world we live in. The lure of affluence is stronger than a life of faith. God is speaking to men and women today, but they just can’t hear him."

She said women and men might respond better if they were offered the opportunity to volunteer for a year or two of religious service.

"We aren’t seeing a lack of vocations in the developing countries," Sr. Michele said. "There are plenty of religious vocations in Guatemala, Kenya, and El Salvador, but few in the United States and Ireland.

"People need to be able to quiet themselves," she continued. "We know forced vocations don’t work. But Irish doctors and nurses spend two years in the African missions. We must pray for vocations, encourage people, and give them every opportunity to hear God’s voice and respond to him."