  Sister Roma
De Robertis
I literally met God in a garden, playing in the yard of our suburban
Toronto home as a child. Jesus soon became a close friend. Often, my
father took me to a nearby park where we looked up into the trees and
sky. "Look," he told me, "God is in the church, and
God is also much bigger than the church."
In my adolescence, my mother gave me a fictional book titled, Sally
Baxter: Girl Reporter on Location. Captured, I decided to become
a journalist.
In journalism school in Ottawa, I struggled to integrate faith and
learning. Broke and unemployed after graduation, I felt all washed
up at age 23.
Imagine arriving in Edmonton in January! As a reporter
for the weekly Western Catholic Reporter, I was drawn to committed
Christians from
many walks of life. I joined a parish choir and young adults' group,
while helping with adult Christian initiation and volunteering
with Development and Peace.
Lay women helped me pray with Scripture and encouraged me to explore
religious life. There were problems in my family, some related to
religious differences. Opposition was strong.
But so was God's call. In 1984, I joined the Sisters of Charity
of the Immaculate Conception in Edmonton. I was attracted to the
SCIC spirit of simplicity, prayer and commitment to and with the
poor in Canada and Peru.
I also cherished the community's ongoing commitment to renewal and
open co-operation with (other) lay church leaders. Opportunities
for spiritual growth, personal development, community living and
ministry experience were sources of both struggle and freedom.
As a graduate theology student in Milwaukee, Wis., I often gathered
with undergraduates and campus ministers. Later in Saskatoon, I was
asked to join the campus ministry team at St Thomas More College,
where I continue to serve. I learn a lot from the students!
I write for Catholic publications and participate in work for peace
and justice. I am also part of a circle of sisters and associates
fostering vocation awareness with a view to both religious life,
and other forms of Christian commitment.
Aware that church and religious life are in flux, and also that
the future belongs to God, I experience more excitement than fear.
Born just before the second Vatican Council, I feel like a bridge
between what was, and what will be. Happily, God's Spirit cannot
be chained or contained.
I love Catholicism deeply. Through word and sacrament, and the gathered
community, I know who I am. I draw life especially from the Catholic
social justice tradition, the prophets, Christian mystics and relationship
between spirituality and the "new science." United with
other Christians and people of diverse traditions, I find God revealed
especially in the poor and the broken-hearted.
But in the church, ways in which women and married people are blocked
from official decision-making and sacramental leadership cut disturbingly
to the core of my conscience. Reluctantly, I sometimes find myself
in trouble for cherishing a different version of church!
My fidelity is to God's reign in the world, which intersects with,
and also transcends, the church. Dispite periods of doubt and fear,
I'm grateful for all I have received. And I remain powerfully attracted
to the person of Jesus Christ, who spoke to me in the garden and
lit a fire in my heart.
The Prairie Messenger
used with permission
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