I cherish my Catholic Faith with my entire heart. At home with my family, we were reading Bible every night and every night we were praying Holy Rosary. In my heart, I had an extreme desire to know God better. I was so eager to go to church every Sunday and with my family attend Holy Mass. That experience brought me closer to God. I could feel how God gently was touching my heart causing me fall in love with Him. And at age of seventeen, for the first time in my life, I felt that God was inviting me to follow Him in a radical way. Day by day, the inner calling to give my life to God was getting stronger. At that point, I already knew that God was calling me to follow Him in religious vocation. At first, I felt a little nervous because I knew that to follow God is to leave everything that I knew behind; that is my loving family, my dreams, and all my material possessions. I understood that to follow God is to become like Him, poor, chaste, and obedient. I was aware that the life which God was calling me to would not be easy; however, I was so in love with God that nothing else mattered. Nonetheless, right before joining my Religious Order, I had some doubts. But, God took care of that by sending me a love letter, a passage from Isaiah 62, 4-5. I opened the Bible and read:
4 No longer will they call you Forsaken, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called My Delight in her, and your land Married; for the LORD will take delight in you, and your land will be married.
5 As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.
Tears of joy were flowing spontaneously from my eyes. In that moment, in my heart, I knew that God is choosing me entirely for Himself. So, in 1993, August 8th, as soon as I turned eighteen, I answered on God’s calling and joined my Religious Order, which is the Order of the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Family. On that day, I said my “Fiat - Yes” to God. After that decision, an enormous peace and joy embraced my soul. To me that was the proof that God was really calling me to follow Him, and that, I did not make mistake by saying “Yes”. Now, I am already a Catholic Nun for 23 years, and, not even once, I regretted my decision to give my life entirely to God.
Sr. Katarzyna Andrychowska, MSF