Here’s a vocations story with a twist…and a few turns as well. Laura Schramm is a young Catholic woman from Grand Ledge and a graduate of Michigan State University. While there she lived at Emmaus House, the Diocese of Lansing’s residence for young women discerning a call to religious life. That prayerful journey has led Laura to discern … a vocation to marriage! What’s more her path towards that conclusion has taken her via the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Here’s Laura's story:
“Ever since I first heard it, I’ve had a great attachment to this quote attributed to St. Augustine: “To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement”.”
“Truly, my pursuit of Christ in love and vocational discernment has been a journey that I never planned, with joys and experiences I couldn’t have foreseen, and is one I wouldn’t want to change a second of despite its confusion and difficulties.”
“I was raised a cradle Catholic, the youngest of two, K-12 public-schooled, and instructed in the faith in after-school religious education classes at my home parish of St. Michael Church in Grand Ledge. We prayed before meals and bedtime together as a family, but like many, I didn’t take the faith as seriously my own until I reached high school and was faced with the choice to receive the sacrament of Confirmation. It was during this time of deeply studying the faith and claiming it as my own that I fell in love again with adoring the Blessed Sacrament and first learned in-depth about consecrated life. Hearing that consecrated women were referred to as “Brides of Christ” particularly captured my heart and became a constant, unprovoked thought in my mind, which I (out of fear) referred to as a “nun phase” and as time passed, just wouldn’t go away.”
“One night, during adoration after a Tuesday evening mass at my parish, I was completely overcome with love for our God. I kept repeating to Him “I love you, I love you, I love you, and I would do anything for you.” At that moment I heard a voice say, “Would you be my bride?” It felt as if I stepped out of time while I pondered my answer, eventually gathering enough courage to say “Yes!”.”
“I kept my discernment quiet while in high school - only telling a few friends and the boy that tried to ask me to prom, and didn’t do much more than quiet research of communities on the family computer. When I began my degree at MSU, I heard about the Diocese’s Emmaus House, applied, and lived there in a community of similarly-discerning women for two years; praying together daily, going on retreats and convent visits, laughing together and crying together, enthusiastically and openly loving Christ as a normal part of daily life. I found kinship with these women and the consecrated women we spoke to and visited, thinking “Finally, I’ve found people who are just like me!” During this time, it was a constant ache in my heart that while I was falling head over heels in love with our Lord, His question of “Would you” hadn’t been asked again as “Will you”. I had it in my mind that I would know I had found the right community of sisters when He would ask me again, and that time ask me in a way I could truly answer, rather than just in a hypothetical.”
“Right after leaving Emmaus House, one of my “Emmaus sisters” told me about a mission program she had signed up for that summer in the Diocese of Marquette called Totus Tuus. She encouraged me to apply, and both of us went off for the summer, teaching catechism and running summer programs in various parishes across the U.P. It was a challenging summer in many ways, but so abundant in blessings. My team of missionaries became a family to me and I realized just how strongly I am called to love and instruct children of all ages in the faith. I also began to feel the Lord prompting me to be more seriously open to marriage.”
“I spent five months after that summer in a relationship but broke it off as I was still feeling a pull to discern a consecrated vocation, and made a retreat with the Apostolic Sisters of St. John, a beautiful community I loved as soon as I visited and that, at first, seemed to tick off every “box” of my checklist. Nearly a month later the world was thrown into a pandemic, cutting off my ability to discern in-person with the sisters, but leaving me with an unexpected abundance of time for prayer. I discerned to take a job for this school year in the U.P. instead of entering with the Sisters, teaching PreK-12 music at the school directly next to the very first church I taught in for Totus Tuus, loving and instructing the same children I had a little over a year ago as a missionary. I was also led to start discerning marriage with someone our Lord had placed in my life during Totus Tuus and had remained a close friend afterwards.”
“Our role in life is to become saints - to love Him more than anything else and to seek Him in all things at all times, in whatever way of life we are called to live. I’m continuing to listen intently, and will go wherever He leads. Please pray for me as I continue to discern, and know of my prayers for you!”