![](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SScAryuQ9wI\/AAAAAAAADW4\/QJSSeFPMCEU\/s320\/sinkhorn_md.jpg\")
<\/a>Certain that she was meant to have a family, Sister Sinkhorn had resisted several invitations to attend the annual vocations dinner and to explore religious life with the sisters in Ferdinand \u2014 located about an hour from Louisville off Interstate 64. But a little cleverness on the part of one Benedictine Sister, a simple prayer and emergency surgery made clear to Sister Sinkhorn: her plans were not God\u2019s plans.<\/p>\nSister Sinkhorn will relay her story to hundreds of young people who have signed up to attend this year\u2019s Dinner with the Archbishop tomorrow, Nov. 21, at Holy Spirit Church. The young people will hear from Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, men and women religious and a priest about the vocational call to discover one\u2019s God-given gifts.<\/p>\n
Sister Sinkhorn will take her listeners back to a time when she was a carefree single person in the mid 1990s, intent on finding a good man to marry and with whom she hoped to have eight children. Eight was a number she had settled on for her imagined brood early-on, she said with a chuckle during an interview last week.<\/p>\n
Her resistance to religious life had nothing to do with her faith, which was strong, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t opposed to religious life,\u201d she said. \u201cI knew nothing about it, so I was ignorant about it. And it had nothing to do with having a husband and eight babies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sister Sinkhorn attended Mass almost daily and spent most of her time working hard. While attending Indiana University Southeast, she worked as a pharmacy technician and on the backside at Churchill Downs \u2014 as a hot-walker and groom. She majored in education in college, but discovered too close to graduation that she had no interest in teaching.<\/p>\n
After graduation, she became a nanny and realized she loved to be with young children. She also started volunteering at Mount St. Francis Retreat Center in Southern Indiana and helped her father and other volunteers build a hermitage there.<\/p>\n
Her first step on the path to religious life came by accident when she was asked to help with a retreat at Mount St. Francis after two of three nuns who were supposed to help canceled. One was sick, and the other was injured. She found herself working alongside Benedictine Sister Theresa Gunter who showed up to the retreat wearing shorts, hiking boots and a T-shirt.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was not the image I had of a nun,\u201d said Sister Sinkhorn. \u201cShe was good with the kids and vivacious. That kind of freaked me out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sister Gunter, whom she calls \u201cT,\u201d kept in touch after the retreat and invited Sister Sinkhorn to visit Ferdinand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI liked the women\u201d at the monastery, she noted. \u201cBut I was not impressed. I thought, \u2018This is so crazy. What\u2019s with all this bowing?\u2019 It\u2019s funny now, because all the things I thought were so strange, I hold dear now.\u201d<\/p>\n
In October of that year, Sister Gunter invited Sister Sinkhorn to dinner. It seemed to be a casual invitation \u2014 a quick dinner between friends. But Sister Gunter was actually taking Sister Sinkhorn to the Dinner with the Archbishop.<\/p>\n
A little annoyed at this revelation, Sister Sinkhorn reluctantly agreed to attend the dinner. And when her friend stood up to talk to the crowd of young people about women religious, she made a simple observation. She said, \u201c \u2018If you want to know what God wants you to do, ask.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, \u2018Oh, what a concept.\u2019 I never thought to ask God because I already knew what I wanted,\u201d said Sister Sinkhorn.<\/p>\n
That weekend, she had reserved the hermitage at Mount St. Francis as a little getaway. When she settled into the little house Friday evening, she said one prayer related to vocations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said \u2018OK, God. Here I am. You know what I want. I want to get married. I want a nice husband, and I want eight kids. A farm house with a white picket fence would be even better. If you want me to do otherwise, let me know. Amen.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t think about it or pray about it the rest of the weekend,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Then Monday morning came. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Continue at the link<\/a> to find — as Paul Harvey would say — “the rest of the story… ”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Time for another great vocation story. This one comes to us from Louisville, where a young woman intent on having a husband and eight children (!) found her plans suddenly changed: Sister Michelle Sinkhorn, a Sister of St. Benedict of Ferdinand, Ind., received the call to religious life a couple of days after attending the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","category-vocations"],"yoast_head":"\n
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