Ours is a lifelong commitment

By Sister Pauline Nugent, CCVI.

It’s been a privilege to spend my life as a vowed member of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word (CCVI) of San Antonio, Texas. Ours is a lifelong commitment to actualize the love of the Incarnate Word in the everyday ordinariness of daily life.  Sustained by a life of contemplative prayer and Community support, we learn to create a safe and sacred space in our relationship with others so that we may affirm the dignity and differences of those whom we serve. I learned by experience the reality of God’s love in the heart of my Irish Catholic family where my religious vocation was nurtured and supported through daily prayer and Christian living.  At age 15 years, I left all to follow Christ as a missionary, in a life-impacting decision that I never regretted.  This personal call, coupled with the dynamic and personal experience of God’s beneficent love for all His people, has filled me with inner joy and peace even in the midst of the challenges and vicissitudes of life.

My active ministry has been teaching—a profession I cherish and value deeply.   Regardless of the level of instruction or subject matter, I hold this noble profession as the ideal standpoint from which to exert the most far-reaching impact for good in the lives of people.  As a teenager I began with 1st graders— truly a joy beyond compare.  Later I taught Latin, French and German at Incarnate Word High School in San Antonio. Still later, I taught six levels of French to co-eds at Incarnate Word College in Galway, Ireland.  This fall (2014) is my 23rd year as a professor of Biblical Languages, teaching Latin, Greek and Hebrew at Missouri State University in Springfield, MO.  In a very real sense, my life has providentially come full circle, allowing me to fulfill the dream of being a missionary—the reason I left home, family and country so many decades ago.  Each day offers anew the privileged opportunity of interacting on a personal level with young adults—affirming, challenging and supporting them— as their life dreams unfold.  

It is my sincere hope and prayer that the parents of today will nurture in their families a deep and personal experience of the love of God and thus foster religious vocations who will witness to the faithful love of God in the 21st century and beyond.