God's Bride
“Wow God chose me to be his bride. To be his alone and him mine.” - Sister Mary Gretchen Hoffman
Sister Mary Gretchen Hoffman is a sister of The Religious Sisters of Mercy in Alma, Michigan. Her path to faith wasn’t always clear for her but after an alternative break trip her viewpoints changed.
Originally from Wichita Kansas, she went to college at the University of Dallas (UD) to get a degree in biology. She thought for a while she wanted to switch to theology because she loved her faith. After one semester she switched back biology because she just loved science too much.
Sister Mary Gretchen had a lot of great friends at UD that were very devotional and they loved their Catholic faith too. She learned a lot about her faith from my friends at UD. She had a lot of great positive peer support and peer pressure as far as her faith goes. A lot of her time was spent as a student athlete at Dallas because she was a biology major and played volleyball for the university. Between the two, that took up all her time in the fall semester.
She got involved in the Alternative Spring Break programs (ASB). She went on an ASB trip her freshman year to Ecuador. Sister Mary Gretchen believes that has a lot to do with her vocation as a sister.
Going to Ecuador caused her to experience poverty very closely. She spent a week there and worked with a ton of families. Sister Mary Gretchen and her classmates tried to live poorly as well while they were there. She started to see how lucky she really was by living in the USA. “I really realized how much I had been given,” explains Sister Mary Gretchen “Then you come back to the USA. Its kind of funny how I raised all this money to go and I saw how poor everyone is that I was going to help. You are going to get the experience of the world and the poverty that exists in the world.” After the ASB was over she returned to the USA with a changed attitude. “I can come back and I can feel guilty about everything that I have or I can do something with everything I have been given.”
She didn’t yet realize what her calling was yet but she had been given a sense of mission to do something in her life in service for people. This decision ultimately led Sister Mary Gretchen to her vocation.
It came time for graduation and she didn’t know what to do with herself. She had two choices to go on and get a job or really determining her vocation. She decided to take a retreat and she then realized that the Lord was calling her to be a sister.
The last thing she had to do was decide which community was right for her. When deciding this she felt a desire to go back to school. During this time there was a priest who happened to be at the retreat center at the time she was getting advice from another priest. He told her about The Religious Sisters of Mercy and how they study to a higher education and a higher degree in order to give service to the church.
That’s really what she feel like the Lord had been calling her to do all this time without knowing it. So she Sister Mary Gretchen wrote to The Religious Sisters of Mercy and said she felt she was called to their community.
When she went to visit, she felt like she was at home there. She felt like they were her family.
From that moment on Sister Mary Gretchen knew she had found her calling. At the young age of 35, she’s been a sister for thirteen years now. Sisters devote their life to three things when becoming a sister; poverty, obedience and chastity. “You have to have a sense of faith to understand the decision of becoming a sister because you are sacrificing very good things; time with your family, marriage, and children. All these beautiful very good things the Lord wants for us. But you sacrifice them for a greater good which is the Lord himself. Unless you have faith in that it doesn’t make sense.”
Sister Mary Gretchen only sees her family about once a year. “It was hard and there are times were it is still a sacrifice. I think the Lord sort of renews that in you periodically that you’ve given up something to love him more. But you know initially it’s very hard to say goodbye to friends thinking you make never see them again.” This is something that she is starting to struggle with more and more now that some of her friends are having kids. But for Sister Mary Gretchen keeping her eyes on the Lord is the best way to keep away from the struggle. “It’s faith that carries you through and you have to keep bringing it back to prayer.”
Many young women struggle to know if the religious life is for them. For Sister Mary Gretchen trying it out is the best way to know. “You just have to take the plunge at some point. Make a decision and go. Live it and if it’s not for you the Lord will let you know. But if you don’t just give yourself over you’re never going to know.”