“No greater love has man than to lay down one's life for one’s friends.”
By Sister Maris Stella, of the Sisters of Life
I grew up in Ludlow, Massachusetts with one older and two younger brothers. When I was in high school, I learned of the Naval Academy and decided to go there because I wanted to live for something greater than myself and I wanted to serve my country. My years at the Naval Academy were very challenging and enriching. I was given many unique opportunities and learned the meaning and value of sacrifice. I was continuously challenged and spurred on by my classmates who I know will become some of the great leaders of our military and our country.
I also began to go to daily Mass and spend time before Jesus in the Eucharist. For the first time in my life I was surrounded by peers who really lived their faith. During my time at the Naval Academy and in the Navy, I learned of and saw so many inspiring examples of self sacrifice which are part of our nation’s history. I was especially moved by the stories of Prisoners of War who endured tremendous suffering for the sake of our country. As I learned the meaning of sacrifice, I began to see that there is no greater satisfaction in life than making a gift of self. These lessons echoed what our Church teaches about the dignity of man and how he finds himself in the complete gift of self. My heart began to move toward a desire to serve God uniquely and completely.
I began to consider religious life during my sophomore year at the Naval Academy while I was on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land led by Navy Chaplains. Walking in the steps of Our Lord and encountering Him in a very real way filled me with a much deeper love for God and my faith. Although I began to appreciate religious life and knew that a life lived solely for God was a tremendous gift, I would need several years before I could consider it seriously. Over the next several years, I made three trips to Russia as part of the language studies program. I witnessed first hand that the thirst for God was so deeply written on the human heart that no human force, no matter how powerful, could drive it out of man. St. Augustine said that, “Our hearts are restless O God, until they rest in you.” I witnessed this restlessness in my own life and in the lives of so many of the people I met. I was also profoundly moved by my experiences in Russia and was filled with a gratitude for the religious freedom with which our nation is blessed.
The idea of a religious vocation stayed in the back of my mind for the next several years as I finished my time at the Academy and my five-year commitment to serve as a Naval Officer. It was during these years that I learned to seek God in my daily life and live committed to Him. My time at the Academy and in the Navy gave me many opportunities to live the virtues that are fundamental to being a good leader and a good Christian.
Upon graduation from the Naval Academy in 2001, I was stationed onboard the Guided Missile Destroyer, USS McCAMPBELL (DDG 85) then homeported in San Diego, CA. We spent hundreds of days at sea, and much of our time was off the coast of Central and South America engaged in counter-drug operations. While I was at sea, I came to know God in a deeper way through the men and women with whom I served. I was deeply impressed by the dedication, generosity, and sacrifices I saw my sailors make. When we were hundreds of miles from land with few distractions, leaving family and friends behind, people began to really value the most important things in life, namely their faith and families.
I realized that when so many things are stripped away people begin to seriously ask questions and look for answers. I saw how my sailors longed to be with their families and I came to realize that each person had a need for love. I saw that it was Christ who was calling out to each heart and who was reaching out to the lost and the broken. I came to know Christ in his humanity as I watched the movements of grace in the lives of those with whom I served. I also came to know the Lord in His perfect humanity and Divinity in His real presence in the Eucharist.
After I completed my tour on the destroyer, I received orders to Naples, Italy. It was an incredible time for me to be so close to the heart of the Church in living just a couple of hours from Rome. I saw how young, alive, and beautiful our Catholic Church is. I began to consider religious life more seriously as I saw it lived out in the lives of some of the seminarians I met who were studying for the priesthood in Rome. In meeting them, and many men and women whose lives were consecrated to God, I learned how the Church in her richness teaches us the perfect complementarity of masculinity and femininity. I saw how the Church treasures her women religious for the unique gifts they have to offer to the Church and the world.
I spent time in Rome as Pope John Paul II was dying and in the days following his death and the election of Pope Benedict XVI. I saw in a very real way the mercy that God was pouring out on the whole world and knew that the only response to this great love was my love. I think that every vocation is a call to love. It is a call first to love Jesus Christ with all your heart mind and soul and then to love others. Whether it is through marriage or a life consecrated to God, God is asking us to love him with our whole hearts, and in that relationship will be the source of all the love we can give to the world. Through prayer, God revealed to me the deepest desires of my heart. I knew that I could get married and that He would bless me, but He showed me my heart had been made for something else. My Father had created me to love Him with an undivided heart. Through this spousal union with Christ, I would unite myself to him in prayer with the joys and sorrows of the entire world. I am so grateful for this life He has invited me to, a life in complete union with Him. I see more and more how it is the greatest gift God can give to a soul.
As I look back on my years at the Naval Academy and serving in the military, I am grateful for the journey and all the experiences I had. I see more clearly how my desire to serve my country and to do something great with my life was a search for love. It was the deepest desire of my heart to love and be loved, and I knew that the source of all love is found in Jesus Christ.
Pope John Paul II spoke to the youth of the world at World Youth Day in Rome in 2000. His words helped me to see the history of God’s grace in my life. “It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.” He spoke these words to the hearts of the youth of the world in 2000. They spoke to my heart as I began to see that all along it was he who gave me the grace and the strength to serve my country. God, a tremendous lover, pursued me as I thought I was pursuing a Naval career. All along it was Christ who gave meaning and reason to my search.
After I finished my tour in Naples, Italy, and my commitment to the Navy, I spent several months looking at different religious communities in Europe and the US. I was surprised to find so many young women entering religious life and discerning God’s will in their lives; I was blessed to meet so many young and vibrant religious communities in Europe and the US. When I finally met the Sisters of Life, I could not believe our charism existed. We were founded by Cardinal O’Connor in 1991 to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life. He recognized that throughout the course of history the Holy Spirit has raised up religious communities to meet the needs of the day. Cardinal O’Connor saw that the greatest poverty in our day is contempt for human life. The dignity of the human person is lost in a culture that is often so focused on material success. We are a contemplative/active community. All of our works of building the culture of life flow from our prayer life. Cardinal O’Connor served as a Navy Chaplain for twenty-seven years and as Auxiliary Bishop in charge of the Military Ordinariate before being appointed Archbishop of New York. I was instantly attracted to Cardinal O’Connor and sensed his spiritual fatherhood as our founder.
I entered the Sisters of Life in September 2006 and received the habit and religious name of Sister Maris Stella in June of 2007. Maris Stella is Latin for Star of the Sea. I have always had a great devotion to the Blessed Mother; I look to her as a gentle guide to her Son. She is the star who with her healing beauty guides her Son’s bride, the Church. I trust that Our Lady Star of the Sea watched over me during my time at sea and I know she continues to guide me through the seas of this life until I reach my heavenly home.
