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Happening ... in the Local Church
 Sister
Margaret Mary Mitchel, a Sister of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration,
smiles as she leaves the Mass at which she made her perpetual vows.
(Photo provided) |
By Kevin Cullen
The
Catholic Moment
CARMEL — Ten years ago, Margaret Mitchel was an industrial engineer who called herself a “ski bum.”
Now she is Sister Margaret Mary Mitchel, OSF, a fully-professed member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration.
In her former life, she stopped going to Mass … but her love of Christ won out.
Sister Margaret Mary, 42, formerly of Carmel, made her perpetual vows in August after eight years of preparation. The Mass was celebrated in Mishawaka by Bishop John M. D’Arcy of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, and concelebrated by 24 priests.
“It was just so beautiful to think that they all came to celebrate with us. I was humbled by that,” she said in a phone interview from the motherhouse in Mishawaka.
She remembered thinking, “I am linking my life to God, and offering myself as his bride.”
“It was a beautiful, humbling experience to know that God had called me,” she said.
Family members knew she would become a nun someday, said her sister-in-law, Cathy Mitchel, a parishioner at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.
“When I met her, she just radiated joy. She has always been a giver, a very generous person with her time and resources,” she said.
Since witnessing the profession ceremony, “I don’t think I’ve stopped smiling,” Cathy Mitchel said. “I am so happy she is where she is supposed to be. When you see that in somebody else, it lifts your heart and spirit.
“That (religious) community is completely welcoming. It is like when you marry into a family that is joyful and fun. They have a spirit about them,” she said.
Sister Margaret Mary’s unusual professional background “brings thinking ‘outside the box’ to the order,” Cathy Mitchel said. “She has a very good, positive, ‘we can do that’ approach to things.”
Tom Mitchel said his daughter’s vocation “came as no surprise. She was always about people. But you just sort of hoped she would find her niche and not be in that ‘maybe, maybe not’ stage.”
Seeing her find that “niche,” he said, “has been such a blessing … providence came through, once again.”
Sister Margaret Mary is in her fourth year at St. Matthew Cathedral School in South Bend, where she teaches about the Old Testament.
Instructing the sixth-graders “was scary at first,” she said, but now, “it’s fun to open their eyes up to God’s providence and how he has his plan.”
Since 2007, she also has served as assistant vocations directress for her religious community. She handles the Web site and produces posters and brochures, speaks to vocations clubs and meets with youth groups.
“I just admire her love for God and her energy,” said Sister M. Lois DeLee, vocations directress. “She just has a way with young people. She has really connected with what God has called her to do.”
The Mitchel family attended Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, and Sister Margaret Mary was influenced by Father W. Michael Kettron, who was pastor there from 1972-87. She is a graduate of the parish school.
Father Kettron emphasized Catholic traditions: Eucharistic adoration, praying the rosary together, the Stations of the Cross, Benediction, devotions. All those things left a mark, Sister Margaret Mary said.
As a girl, she considered becoming a nun. She spent ninth grade with a religious congregation, but decided not to continue. She graduated from Carmel High School in 1985, and Purdue University in 1989. She worked as an engineer in New Hampshire and Colorado. Too shy to attend Mass alone, she headed for the slopes.
“I drifted away from the Church,” Sister Margaret Mary said. “When you are an adult, your life is changing, everything is changing, but my relationship with Christ didn’t grow … faith has to grow.”
Back in Indiana, her sister, Theresa, invited her to a meeting of the Frassati Society of Young Adult Catholics. She went, reluctantly, and was inspired by peers with an active, growing faith. In Colorado, she started attending Mass and RCIA classes and praying the rosary.
“I was learning who Christ really is, and meeting him face to face,” Sister Margaret Mary said. “Instead of just punching the clock and going to Mass, I had a spiritual relationship with him again. I had had that in the eighth grade, but it had faded away.”
A Frassati pilgrimage to Italy was life-changing. There, she saw “the intensity of emotion on the faces of these young adults,” she said. “I felt there was something that they had that I didn’t have. I begged Christ for that closeness, that intensity of relationship. I wanted it so badly.”
Her prayers were answered. At Assisi, she realized that she was called to become a bride of Christ. Filled with peace and joy, she phoned her family to share the happy news. Her late mother, Marie, wasn’t surprised.
“She saw the whole picture,” Sister Margaret Mary said.
Guided by Father Dan Gartland — who had known the Mitchel family since he was associate pastor at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel — she visited several religious communities.
The Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration have served Lafayette hospitals and schools since 1875. Father Gartland is now pastor of two Lafayette parishes: St. Lawrence and the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception.
Sister Margaret Mary was drawn to the Franciscans’ devotion to perpetual adoration, and she liked the fact that she would be close enough for family visits. She entered at age 34, and stayed.
Eight years later and fully professed, she has put her “ski bum” days behind her. But, she said with a laugh, if a Catholic youth group should ever want to go skiing, and it needs a chaperone, “I’m always open.”