Beth Johnson vocation story

If I was to share with you very moment of Gods loving mercy and providence that has brought me here, I’d be going forever! There are just a few key moments, which will give a good idea of how I came to be here today!

I’m 23 years old; I was born and raised in a practicing Catholic family. I grew up in a small town in England, before leaving to study in Liverpool, where I lived and worked shortly before entering petulantly. The first time I clearly remember becoming a sister, was 12 years old and on my way back from a Youth day retreat. I recall hearing a pop song on the bus and just thinking how much better it would be sung to God. As I sang the words trough in my mind, the idea of being a sister kind of flowed in with them and the notion that it wasn’t a bad idea. The idea never really left me after that but it was definitely confined to the back of my mind. Every now and then I would let it resurface for a while, whenever people asked of what I wanted to do when I left school it was always the first thought in my mind, but I would always make up any answer I could think of! At one stage I even wrote up a lot of communities asking for information, (not telling them how old I was!)

Then between the age of 16 and 19 although I regally went to mass I mistakenly believed it to be ok to pick which parts of the church I liked and leave the rest. Needless to say I was living in darkness!

It was only when my sister started inviting me to Youth 2000 events that my eyes were opened. The scales began to fall from my eyes and I began to embrace the faith fully or walk away, and deep down I knew the calter was not an option! My life changed very quickly and over the next year and a half I became more and more involved in the University Campus Chapel and many other activities. Through all of this the thought of being a sister again emerged and remained with me, even though at times I would try as hard as I can to make it leave! This was the beginning of my real discernment time!

As time went on I would fluctuate from being totally convinced to complete denial and utter confusion. Aside all of this confusion, I met this guy and we began dating, we prayed together and I thought maybe it is what the lord wanted after all! To cut a long story short, it was a retreat we went on together at the beginning of the new millennium.

During the retreat we were all encouraged to hand out pamphlets to the people in the city one afternoon to invite people to the all night vigil for the New Year. I went and with others found myself talking to some less then enthusiastic young people. When it was time to leave we promised to pray for them, as we turned to go to another young boy around 10 or 11 who had been giving us a hard time, came up to me, told me his name and asked me to pray for him too! At that moment the Lord spoke to my heart in the most profound way. I looked into his eyes and I could just see pain and emptiness, at that same time it was somehow like looking right at Jesus.  As we promised to pray, tears filled my eyes and words of Jesus came to my mind “weep not for me but for yourselves and your children.” At that same moment the word ‘yes’ was sounding in my heart and I knew the yes was to being a sister. Back at the retreat I had a lot of explaining to do! It was like the Lord was laying my options in front of me, this was so clear to me, and yet the decision was mine. I knew deep down inside the desire was to live for the Lord alone and so the decision was made,-now the discernment continued.

So how did I end up her with the CFR in New York? This too can be a long story but briefly,-from that very day everytime I was at a crucial point in my discernment the CFR brother, sister or priest would be right there, or better would arrive from the sisters. On the retreat one of the CFR brothers, then a postulant on home visit, pulled out gray friar news, pointed to the sister’s address and said, “I think you want to write to them.” From then on step by step the Lord drew me here, the more I found out about the life and work of the community, the more my joy and desire to be part of it grew. So here I am, the next part of the discernment process!