Sister Miriam Esther of the Sacred Heart, CP (Theresa Krauskopf)

If there’s one thing you can take away from my vocation story, it’s this: God is in control, and He can somehow pull together all the crazy threads of our lives into a beautiful tapestry. My life has been one long series of seemingly unconnected events that the Lord – often completely without my awareness! – has guided in His mysterious way to bring me here to St. Joseph’s Monastery. One of the biggest blessings He has given me is wonderful parents. My dad, Chris, has been a model of faith and a strong support to me throughout my life. Then there are my mothers – yes, mothers plural! While many women have played a maternal role in my journey, there are three who really deserve the title of “Mom”: my biological mother Sarah, my stepmother Carol, and most especially my spiritual mother Mary.

I was the oldest of three girls in a practicing Catholic family in Louisville, Kentucky. Those who knew me when I was very young assure me that I would walk around our parish on Sundays and declare to people, “Hi, I’m Theresa and I’m going to be a nun!” The total lack of shyness sure sounds like me, but the funny thing is, I don’t remember even entertaining the idea of religious life until I was twelve or thirteen! But God loves to speak “out of the mouths of babes,” I suppose, and even before I was aware of it, He was giving hints about my vocation. My mother Sarah apparently had some inkling of this, too. I was amazed to discover, shortly before I entered the monastery, that she had had a conviction of my religious vocation when I was still very young. My dad, as well as old family friends, still remember her mentioning it in conversation!

My family’s happy life took a tragic turn when my mother became seriously ill with cancer, eventually dying on January 22nd, 2004. I was seven and my sisters Zoe and Ingrid were five and two. My dad, Chris, was truly heroic in being strong for the three of us, raising us in a home full of love. He worked from home as a carpenter and handyman, and he was principal, homeroom teacher, and coach for us as well, since we were homeschooled nearly our entire lives. I developed a great love for reading and drawing, and my sisters and I truly were each other’s best friends. I wasn’t more devout than the average kid my age, but we did go to Mass every week and the Catholic faith was a “given” in our home, with Dad setting the example. I still remember one day when he hung a crucifix in our living room, telling my sisters and I how important it is that we remember what Christ did for us on the Cross. I’m certain Mom was also interceding for her husband and daughters from Heaven!

It was at this time, although I didn’t know it, that my Heavenly Mother began to work more powerfully in my life. Shortly after Mom’s death, Dad had been speaking to a priest, seeking advice and help as he faced the prospect of raising my sisters and me alone. The priest’s reply? “Chris, the girls need a mother. Give them to Mary.” And so he did, consecrating the three of us to our Blessed Mother. From that moment on, I believe that Mary has been watching over my life in a very special way, and her maternal presence has played a key role in my vocation. Dad, too, encouraged the three of us to be open to religious life – he always said that if God wanted all three of us to be nuns, that was fine by him!

When I was about twelve, yet another mother entered the scene. Dad met Carol through a Catholic dating website and they were married in 2009. From the start, “Mom Carol” was a channel of God’s grace in my life. A convert, she introduced us to the brown Scapular, the Rosary, and other traditional Catholic devotions. She was a regular Mass attendee at the Mother of the Redeemer Retreat Center – more commonly known as “the Farm” – in Bloomington, Indiana. This little Marian shrine became a very special place for our family, and it was there that my faith really began to grow under Our Lady’s mantle. While there I also met Morgan, a girl slightly older than myself. I was impressed by her piety and her great love for Mary, and she and I became on-and-off pen pals. As it turns out, Morgan was to play an important role later on in my journey.

As my Confirmation approached, Mom Carol could see that the preparation  I was getting at our parish needed supplementation, so she began teaching extra lessons on the Sacrament at home. For his part, Dad introduced me to the beauty of the Triduum liturgies, as the two of us attended Holy Thursday Mass and the Good Friday service together. I vividly remember the Veneration of the Cross, since a full-size wooden Cross was used for the ceremony. Then, with all my family in attendance, I had the great privilege of being Confirmed by the Archbishop at the Cathedral of the Assumption during the Easter Vigil of 2010. The grace of the Sacrament, however, didn’t really “hit me” until some months later.

I was sitting in my grandma’s spare bedroom, reading some of the books our CCD teacher had given to the Confirmation class. As I read a section on Catholic moral teaching as it applies to the life of a teenager, it dawned on me that I needed to radically change my life. I wasn’t a “bad kid” per se, but I wasn’t living my Catholic faith the way I should. By the grace of God, I decided then and there to make that change. I count that “conversion” moment as one of the greatest graces I have ever received, since God intervened at one of the most critical times of life and set me on a path to serve Him intentionally and wholeheartedly as I headed into my teenage years.

For the first time, I really wanted and asked to go to Confession, and I began reading the Bible my grandparents had bought me. Thanks to Mom Carol, we also began using the Seton Home Study School program, which is absolutely saturated with the Faith. Dad and I had many wonderful afternoon religion classes in his carpenter’s shop, with lively discussions of my catechism course and various moral issues facing the Church today. Eventually, our family began attending the Dominican parish in town, where the solid preaching and strong devotional life had a deep impact on me. I devoured the parish library, and soon my sisters started calling me the “walking Catholic encyclopedia!”

It was around this time of spiritual awakening that I really began (consciously) to think about the religious life. As soon as I learned what nuns were, there wasn’t really even a question in my mind. Of course I would be one! At that point, though, it was still in the “when-I-grow-up” phase, and I was almost equally fascinated by the idea of becoming a dentist. In this state of mind, I wrote a letter asking my friend Morgan what she wanted to do with her life. Her answer? “I want to become a cloistered Carmelite nun.” Her forthrightness, combined with her beautiful description of the contemplative vocation, touched something deep in me. I replied that I, too, wanted to be a nun, and we exchanged many letters on that and similar subjects. She even sent me a book of meditations on the Passion – before I had even heard of the Passionists! When Morgan entered the Carmel in Valparaiso, Nebraska after her graduation, our correspondence stopped, but we remained close to the family and followed her vocational progress through them. To this day I still pray for her and treasure photographs that her family sent us of her Vestition and her First Profession.

As the years went on, the desire to become a religious never really left me, but it waxed and waned. In my more “nunny” phases I developed a prodigious collection of vocation brochures and at least 50 or 100 bookmarks on the computer of different communities’ websites! At various times, I was “sure” I had a vocation to at least three different orders, but I never worked up the nerve to actually contact any of them. There were just so many options! During one conversation on the topic with Mom Carol, we agreed that for various reasons, I could at least rule out contemplative life (isn’t God funny?). But despite this, I never found an active community that quite answered the longing in my heart – I wanted to be a nun, but I wasn’t attracted to a particular work. Mom and Dad were both supportive and loving throughout my discernment, even if it seemed a bit confusing at times!

Then, one fateful day in August 2014, some family friends of ours invited us to join them on a visit to St. Joseph’s Passionist Monastery, where they were friends of the nuns. At the time, my desire for religious life had been in the background for a while, and while the visit sounded interesting, I was also rather annoyed that it would interrupt the school week and I would get behind on my homework! Nevertheless, we went and joined the nuns for Midday Prayer and a visit in the parlor. I remember being so struck by their joy, even though their charism was one of devotion to the Passion. My sister Zoe bluntly introduced me as “the one who wants to be a nun,” and I left with a huge manila envelope of vocation materials.

To be honest, I had kind of just been “playing the part,” since I was leaning more towards the married vocation at the time. However, after the envelope had sat on my shelf for a week or two, something (or Someone!) prompted me to pick it up and contact the vocation directress, Sister John Mary. I sent her a bashful e-mail asking advice on how to pray, and she promptly responded with an invitation to attend their next vocation retreat! As it turns out, I was the only one who was able to attend, but since I was just short of my 18th birthday, Mom Carol went along and made the retreat with me. It was the first retreat I had ever attended where silence was emphasized, and I was surprised by how much I liked it. Those two days were just the beginning of a four-year period of ever-more-frequent visits to and live-ins at the monastery. As time went on, my little green Ford Fiesta became a common sight in the parking lot! To be honest, I had already decided deep down that this was “the place,” and it was feeling more and more like home, but during one visit the Lord made it clear: “Yes, but not yet.” He knew that I had a lot of growing up to do before I was ready to enter the monastery!

One way the Lord helped me to mature more was, interestingly enough, my four years working for McDonald’s. In my positions as crew member, crew trainer, and eventually shift manager, I definitely had to leave my “comfort zone” behind! My life as a homeschooler had been somewhat sheltered, but now I was faced on a daily basis with some of the harsher realities of life: drug addiction, unwed motherhood, homelessness, illegal immigration, and so on. It opened my eyes, for sure, but it also opened my heart to the sufferings of those on the margins of society.

It also became clear to me early on that I should attend some college before applying for aspirancy. I was blessed to receive a full scholarship to the University of Louisville, and my initial plan was to study dental hygiene. By the end of my freshman year, however, I realized that my heart really wasn’t in that major. After a period of agonizing and debating, I made the leap of faith and asked to switch to the Individualized Major, intending to study various subjects that would be useful to me in the monastery – Spanish, writing, music, etc. It wasn’t easy to go from a guaranteed career (just in case things didn’t “work out”) to a degree that would be basically useless outside religious life, but I had a strong conviction that this was what God was asking of me. Going to a secular college was also an eye-opener, as I encountered modern liberalism at its strongest. However, through my time at UofL I also came to see and overcome some of my own prejudices and to learn how to dialogue charitably with those with whom I disagreed.

A final bit of “growing up” the Lord had in mind was my brief experience with the world of dating. I was asked out by a young man from our parish, and I agreed enthusiastically. He was a solid Catholic with whom I shared many interests, but after the initial euphoria wore off, I began to feel more and more uneasy about the whole thing. The final straw came when I was walking into the library to meet him for our first date. As soon as I came in the door, it was as if I had walked into a wall. What am I doing???  I thought. Sometimes God has to hit us over the head with a divine 2X4! Even though I went through with that date (and a few others) out of courtesy, I began to realize clearly that this relationship wasn’t the Lord’s will for me. Though I hadn’t considered the monastery much in recent months, the thought came to me with surprising urgency: If I marry Joe, I can’t be a nun!

Eventually, he and I parted ways, and my discernment took a more serious turn. I decided that I would finish my junior year of college and then apply for aspirancy. But in the middle of my first semester as a junior, something strange happened: I began to lose interest in my studies. For me, that was something of a sign, because I’ve always loved school, and I was studying my favorite subjects! But I thought, There’s no way Mom is going to agree to my leaving for the monastery in the middle of the school year. So I put the idea out of my mind. One day, however, my youngest sister Ingrid and I were talking, and she mentioned offhandedly, “then Mom said, ‘I’d be fine if Theresa wants to enter in January.’” That one little sentence let loose a torrent of grace, and I knew God’s timing had arrived! As I told Dad, I didn’t want to put off the Lord any longer. Our Lady’s call to join her at the foot of the Cross couldn’t wait. So, I withdrew from UofL at the end of that semester, and in January of 2018 I entered the aspirancy, becoming a postulant in October of that year.

I’m still in awe that God has brought me this far – it surely is a miracle of His grace! He has been too good to me, especially in giving me such amazing parents who have guided my path with love. I owe not only my physical life, but especially my spiritual life and my Passionist vocation to my Dad … and my “three mothers!”

To God be all the glory!