Woman leaves Utah to join a contemplative order

Intermountain Catholic

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Anna Marie Renteria will leave May 24 to become a Poor Clare Sister in South Carolina. She will possess nothing so she can discover the joy of belonging wholly to God. IC photo by Christine Young

SALT LAKE CITY — "God is calling me to be a religious, and his will has become my desire," said Anna Marie Renteria.

Renteria has chosen to join the Poor Clare Sisters in Travelers Rest, S.C., a contemplative or cloistered order. She will leave May 24.

Renteria is a member of Saints Peter and Paul Parish, West Valley City. Her journey began the day Pope John Paul II died.

Renteria has always been Catholic, but not always a practicing Catholic. She was raised in a Catholic home in Kearns, baptized as a baby, received her First Communion as a child. But she was not confirmed until she was an adult. In fact, she quit going to church when she was 16 years old.

"As long as Pope John Paul II was our pope, I did not go to church except now and then with my mother," said Renteria. "Then the day Pope John Paul died my life changed. It started, three years ago April 2, 2005. Maybe you have heard of all the miracles of people coming back to the church as a result of Pope John Paul’s death. I was basically one of those people. I was a good person, but I did not go to church.

"When my mother died six years ago, I could not take the Eucharist," said Renteria.

"If we listen, God has a plan for every one of us. It may not be as a religious or a priest, it could be anything, but God has a plan for each of us from the day we are born," said Renteria. "My personality is to hold on and not change too fast, so this is a complete turn about in my own behavior.

"I was away from the church for 27 years. At first I thought God was leading me back to church, and that was a miracle," said Renteria. "But at the time of the pope’s death, I was working at ARUP at the University Medical Center. I could not get away from news of the pope. I was near the Cathedral of the Madeleine, so I decided to go pray for Pope John Paul. I sat in the back pew and said a quick prayer for God to be merciful and take him. That night he died so I felt God heard my prayers. I went to Pope John Paul’s memorial Mass. That drew me to prayer, so I got some books on Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

It was so strange how many significant things were happening.

"The next time I went to the Cathedral, I sat in the front pew," said Renteria. "I was just sitting there learning to say the rosary. It was May 1, the month of Mary, and also the day my mother had died. I knew my mother had been praying for me. On this day in the Cathedral it was very quiet when I heard an internal voice say, ‘You are my child, you are special, I have chosen you.’ I am a very emotional person, and I started crying and was enveloped with a love and peace that I had never experienced before. I knew it was God, but I could not figure out why God was talking to me.

"God led me to the right people, the right priests and religious who helped me discern. By June of 2005, I realized God was asking me to enter religious life," said Renteria. "From the beginning, two things stood out in my mind: prayer and confirmation. I was never confirmed. So I started doing research, and I realized it was the contemplative orders to which God was calling me."

Renteria visited the Discalced Carmelite Nuns in Holladay and was told she must first be confirmed. She began the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) classes at Saints Peter and Paul Parish in West Valley City, and was confirmed the following year. She then realized the Carmelite Order in Utah was not where she was called. She went to visit a Carmelite Order in Reno, but that was not a fit for her either. Then she realized God wanted her to join a traditional contemplative order.

"I started talking to the late Benedictine Sister Jeremia Januschka, who at the time was working in the Diocesan Diaconate Formation Office. She gave me a book on orders for men and women in America," said Renteria. "I went to a traditional Carmelite Order in New Mexico, and checked them out for a while, but that was not a fit either. When Sr. Jeremia died, Holy Cross Sister Patricia Riley became my spiritual director, and I am grateful for her spiritual guidance."

Then Renteria decided to get all the books out she had gathered and start reading them again. One book called "For the Love of God" about all different women religious orders in America caught her interest. This time the Poor Clares in South Carolina stood out. She did not want to choose a place so far away from her brother, Stephen, who is the only one left in her immediate family, but she felt God wanted her to go there.

During her second year of discernment, she visited the Poor Clares in South Carolina, and from that day on she knew that was the place for her.

"I have been in touch with them for about a year and a half now and visited them three times," said Renteria. "Last October through January, I went for my candidacy, or three-month live-in, and I was accepted into the community. When I came home I knew what I needed to do.

"Six years ago when my mother died, I bought the house we grew up in and had it remodeled," said Renteria. "I sold my house two weeks ago, which the thought of two years ago put a tightness in my stomach. Now, three years later, I have given up my home, I am ready to leave my life in Utah, leave my friends, and leave my family. Discernment is a process which you go through and it truly is God giving me all the grace and courage to go through each step. Each step has been a little step toward the next step. God slowly transforms a person.

"I feel the gift of my house was from God and my mother because it helped me heal," said Renteria. "It helped me realize I could do a lot, and it prepared me for this step.

"Sister Carol from Reno told me, God will only give the grace for now. He will not give you the grace for tomorrow or next year. God gives us what we need now.

"God has helped me reach where I am right now. So I may feel a little unsure about what is going to happen, but I trust that God will give me whatever I need," said Renteria. "Deep down I feel I will live out my life as a Poor Clare nun in South Carolina."

Today, the Poor Clares form a worldwide order of more than 17,000 nuns in a 1,000 monasteries, some 30 of which are located in the United States. They all follow the same Rule and share the same basic Constitutions.

From the oldest house in Assisi, Italy, to the latest foundation, the central elements of the Poor Clare charism remain the same. Material poverty gives expression to a total reliance on the care of a loving God, for it is the individual who possesses nothing of her own who can discover the joy of belonging wholly to God. Poor Clare poverty is integral, then, to a life given wholly to prayer, adoration, and intercession for the whole Body of Christ.

For more information on the Poor Clare Nuns in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, visit www.poorclaresc.com.