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A journey through ‘different doors’

Dave Borowski | Catholic Herald

Sr. Laura Fidelis Nolin at the Pauline Books and Media store in Alexandria.

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“I was always very curious about their lives,” said Daughter
of St. Paul Sister Laura Fidelis Nolin about her early
encounters with religious sisters in Vermont. She grew up in
Newport, a small town on Lake Memphremagog, close to the
Canadian border.

When she was 12, she took piano lessons from the sisters who
served her parish, St. Mary, Star of the Sea. One of the
sisters would sneak her pieces of candy. That simple act of
kindness resonated with the young girl and followed her
through adulthood.

She went to public schools in Newport, eventually enrolling
in the University of Vermont’s nursing program. She was
active in the campus Newman Center serving as a sacristan and
singing in the choir. Her vocation was encouraged by Father
Michael DeForge, then-director of the center and director of
vocations for the Burlington Diocese.

There is a house of discernment at the Newman Center and
seminarians from the diocese would stay, study and pray
there.

“Seeing them in their discernment was helpful to me,” she
said.

She graduated from the University of Vermont in 2002 with a
bachelor’s degree in nursing.

Nursing was important to her and she was always drawn to the
profession. In fact, as a girl she would visit nursing homes
with her grandfather who was an extraordinary minister of
holy Communion. She would push residents in their wheelchairs
from their room to the communion service and back.

After graduation, Sister Laura worked at the University of
Vermont Medical Center, where she did all her clinical
training in nursing school. She worked there for three years
when she had an epiphany.

“I love nursing,” she said. “(But) is this all there is?
There’s got to be more.”

The thought of a religious life was always there, so she made
plans to see if that was the path she would take.

Sister Laura readily admits that she is shy. So instead of
calling religious orders, she mailed response cards that were
in various magazines in the Newman Center.

The cards worked.

“They started to call me, but I never answered the phone,”
she said.

When she was visiting her brother and his family in Boston,
she went to a women’s conference with her sister-in-law. The
pair stopped at various tables of religious sisters.

“She’s discerning,” her sister-in-law told the sisters at the
table.

“Stop, Nancy,” an embarrassed Sister Laura said.

She realized that using the Internet to visit religious
orders was a good way to get information about a vocation
since most religious orders have websites. She said that she
read all that she could and needed to break out of her
shyness that was preventing her from calling and talking to
sisters in depth about religious life.

She left the medical center in Burlington and went to live in
Plymouth, Mass. with her brother’s family. In between jobs,
she planned out a six-month discernment tour of religious
orders from the summer of 2007 until early 2008.

She would call and stay at each order’s residence for a
weekend. She visited The Little Sisters of the Poor,
Disciples of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Franciscan Sisters of the
Eucharist and others.

But she remembered a magazine, Call to Love, from the
Daughters of St. Paul. She remembers the sisters looking
joyful, so she called the Daughters and found out that there
was a “come and see” event in Chicago for women discerning a
vocation.

When it was time to leave for Chicago, she was late getting
to the airport and the gate was closed.

She was put on standby, but told herself “If I don’t get on
the next plane, I’m not going on the retreat.”

She eventually got on the plane to Chicago, but missed the
early part of the weekend.

But the visit was wonderful, she said. She enjoyed the other
discernment visits, but this was different.

“Oh, I have to leave already,” she recalled thinking on
Sunday morning.

She knew that the Daughters of St. Paul was the religious
order that she wanted, and so for the next several years she
continued to visit them whenever possible. Up until 2013, she
had taken no vows. But that changed.

“I needed to go to the next step to learn more,” she said.

She professed her first vows Aug. 10, 2013, becoming a junior
professed sister. She will renew those vows this summer. But
final vows are still several years away. It’s a long, slow
process, but she is looking forward to it.

“(I want to) continue to grow in my relationship with Jesus
and to be open to all that He wants to teach me,” she said.

Sister Laura continues to maintain her nursing license,
because it could come in handy during a medical emergency.
She continues to “walk through different doors” on her
journey to religious life.

Borowski can be reached at [email protected]
or on Twitter @DBorowskiACH.

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