Something powerful and true

by Jean M. Schildz

A fine arts degree and a pilgrimage to Medjugorje provided the proper perspective, and a conversation with Jesus clinched the deal, leading Donna Jean Kemmetmueller to join the Daughters of St. Paul.

While growing up on a "hobby" farm in Rogers, Minnesota, Kemmetmueller spent more time doing chores, playing with her three siblings, biking to her grandmother’s house, fishing in the land of 10,000 lakes, and enjoying the wide-open sky than thinking about being a nun.

Art drew her toward the Daughters of St. Paul, an international religious order that communicates the Gospel using all forms of media. As a teenager, she obtained information on several congregations, including the Daughters of St. Paul, but the community’s packet "didn’t really strike" her at the time.

She continued to think about a vocation while at college. In the summer of 1990, her mother took her and her two sisters to Medjugorje for about 10 days of prayer, she recalled. "I had never prayed that much, but I just kept asking in all those Hail Marys we were praying, ‘Please help me in my discernment. Make it clear to me what my vocation is.’"

When she returned home, she came across the Pauline Congregation’s material. This time the information seemed to bounce off the page. "It was like, ‘This is it! This order has been created for me!’"

However, she still had lingering doubts. She even asked the Paulines to take her off their mailing list. That’s when God intervened again.

While praying before the Eucharist, she paged through a book on religious communities. She asked God, "‘What do you want me to do?’ I was just looking at the Eucharist, and it became very clear to me, as if someone were speaking to me, but I didn’t hear anything." Jesus told her, "‘I already showed you.’ It was overwhelming." Kemmetmueller added, "That was kind of the peace that I needed to really feel certain enough, within myself, to actually take this step to go."

" I wrote back to [the Pauline] sister and I said, ‘Can I come and visit?’ And it moved from there."

Kemmetmueller is now about midway through the 5-to-7 year process that precedes taking her final vows. The 31-year-old is studying for a Master’s in theology at St. Louis University. Her dream job would be working in the community’s design department in Boston.

With a gift certificate from her fellow Pauline Sisters for a recent birthday, she bought a kite. "I was just noticing how I couldn’t get that kite to go up by my own power" when a gust of wind picked it up and shot it high into the air. "I was just reflecting on that, how we really are dependent on the movement of God to soar, and until that happens, sometimes it’s just waiting. And to be patient in the waiting."

Her advice to others thinking about a vocation involves patiently waiting, too: "I think the most important thing is to pray," she said, "because a vocation is truly a gift from God. Allow God to speak, and be patient and attentive to how you can be most true to who you have been created to be."