Mother John Mary Read, CP, (left) and Sr. Anna Maria Haycraft, DCJ, (right) each discerned with the other’s religious community before entering their present communities. ELIZABETH WONG BARNSTEAD | WKC

Religious sisters share how their discernment paths converged before finding their true ‘homes’

BY ELIZABETH WONG BARNSTEAD, THE WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC

After considering the other’s religious community in the early days of their discernment journeys, two religious sisters are happy to maintain a friendship between communities – but know they are each where God meant them to be.

Sr. Anna Maria Haycraft, DCJ, today the provincial superior of the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus (South Central Province), grew up knowing many women religious, including the Passionist Nuns of St. Joseph Monastery in Whitesville.

And Mother John Mary Read, CP, today the mother superior of those same Passionist nuns, discerned Sr. Anna Maria’s Carmelite community before fully realizing her call to cloistered contemplative life.

“The call is to who you are,” said Sr. Anna Maria in a Jan. 14, 2022 interview with The Western Kentucky Catholic, during which she and Mother John Mary shared their vocation stories.

‘I loved the sisters’

Mother John Mary, who grew up in Elberfeld, Ind., was influenced early on by the example of women religious.

“I was taught by the Sisters of St. Benedict in Ferdinand,” she said of her grade school, St. James Catholic School in Haubstadt, Ind. “I just loved to be with the sisters. I pretty much wanted to be a sister since sixth grade.”

Mother John Mary, (or Teresa Read as she was known at the time), grew up in a Catholic family. But “my peers were not raised that way and I did not have any Catholic influences in my life,” she said.

As she got older, “I put God on the back burner, but I knew every breath was from him – though I fell away from him seriously for a number of years,” said Mother John Mary.

Following a conversion experience in the early 1990s, Teresa started attending daily Mass and connecting with other faith-filled young adults.

“That whole desire to be a religious sister came flowing into me,” said Mother John Mary. At the same time, she wondered if she was called to marriage. 

For two years Teresa served on NET Ministries, which stands for National Evangelization Teams, and involves traveling around the country to lead Catholic youth retreats.

One of her friends on NET was discerning with the Passionist nuns, and though Teresa was not interested in entering that community, she asked her friend if one of the nuns might be willing to give her spiritual direction.

A Passionist nun was indeed available and provided some spiritual direction for her life. During this time, Teresa also learned about the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus and visited their convent in 1995.

“I loved it, but this wasn’t where I was called,” she said.

Supernatural joy

Sr. Anna Maria (or Maria Germaine Haycraft, as she was known at the time) was five years old when she first experienced the call to religious life. Her kindergarten teacher at Mary Carrico Catholic School in Knottsville was Sr. Audrey Gold, AD, who belonged to the Sisters of the Lamb of God.

Sr. Audrey was legally blind and deaf, and Sr. Anna Maria remembers how the sister “lived that supernatural joy.”

“As a little five year old, I thought, ‘I don’t know what she has but I want it,’” said Sr. Anna Maria. “She was living that supernatural call that God had already planted in my soul.” 

Sr. Anna Maria said that throughout her childhood, her faith was nurtured by the Sisters of the Lamb of God, the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph, the Passionists, and many priests – all of whom lived out “the rich faith of the Church.”

She said every Easter, Lent, or any time “anything was going on liturgically,” the Haycrafts would go to the Passionist monastery to attend Mass, and the Haycraft boys would assist as altar servers.

“I genuinely knew there was this call within myself,” said Sr. Anna Maria, recalling that at vocations awareness events she would often go up at the “vocations call” – like an altar call, except it was an invitation for young men and women who were open to the priesthood or consecrated life to stand up and be prayed over.

After high school, however, she came to a crossroads: “I had a desire to be a mom and have many children like my own mother,” she said.

One day, when Maria was a young adult, the Haycrafts attended a vocations event was in McQuady on Divine Mercy Sunday.

One of the speakers was Sr. Francis Teresa Scully, DCJ, the director of the Carmel Home in Owensboro, which is a residential care facility operated by the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus. The Carmel Home has a perpetual adoration chapel open to the public, and Maria’s mother prayed in adoration there every Monday – and had gotten to know Sr. Francis Teresa.

Maria’s dad encouraged her to go up at the vocations call. So she did.

And later, Sr. Francis Teresa told Maria’s mother “I’d like to talk to your daughter.”

Maria was not entirely opposed to the idea, but was more inclined to focus on her own ideas for her life at the time.

“It’s your vocation, but I can’t force your decision,” her mother told her. Sr. Anna Maria realizes today how grateful she is that “my mom respected my choice.”

Prior to meeting with Sr. Francis Teresa a few days later, the young woman went into adoration, knelt, and prayed, “God, I’m scared to death, but whatever your will, so be it.’”

Then “this automatic peace came upon me,” she said.

A proposal

As Teresa discerned entrance into the Passionist monastery, she found herself drawn to the liturgy of the hours and “the monastic life of recollection.”

She was struck by “remaining in the presence of God for the world” as a cloistered nun.

“Consecrated to God, we become a prayer for the world,” she said. “The desire kept growing.”

Though Teresa knew she was not called to the Carmelites, her spiritual director gave her a biography of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity – ironically who happened to be a Carmelite.

“Her gift to the Church was insight into the indwelling of the Trinity and how we are all temples of God,” said Mother John Mary, explaining how this helped her understand the depth of contemplative life.

Teresa stayed with the Passionists for a live-in visit on March 19-25, 1995. On the last day, the feast of the Annunciation, Teresa took some extra prayer time as the nuns went into a chapter meeting.

“I was praying over the scriptures,” she said; specifically, the Annunciation when Gabriel came to Mary. Then she received the words “I want you to be my bride.”

 “It was like he proposed to me,” said Mother John Mary.

She entered on August 27, 1995, so that she could wake up and do the office of readings at 1 a.m. at the start of the feast of St. Augustine, whom she relates to through her own conversion.

“My heart was on fire,” she said, explaining that she felt the Paschal mystery had not yet “fully opened up to me, but the Lord was drawing me to enter even more and more into the Passion of Jesus. Not just for me – but for the whole Church, and diocese, and nation.”

Overwhelming joy

Maria visited the Carmelite Sisters’ provincial house in St. Louis on Feb. 22, 1998.

“God takes us where we’re at in life,” she said. “He drew me by our apostolates, by our care for seniors, and care for little children.”

She prayed and ate with the postulants, and noted that part of the sisters’ charism was “a family spirit.”

“God was pointing at multiple things that reminded me of home,” said Sr. Anna Maria, who identifies herself as someone who is very devoted to her family and the idea of home.

She entered on July 16, 1998 – the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Sr. Anna Maria still remembers the night before she left, sitting at the picnic table in her family’s backyard and eating watermelon with her father. He said to her, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

She replied “Daddy, I can’t even tell you the overwhelming joy of my heart.”

In sharing their stories with The Western Kentucky Catholic, Sr. Anna Maria and Mother John Mary emphasized that for those called to religious life, God speaks to who they are and draws them to a community that best fits them.

For instance, “I have a deep love for the Passionists, but it is not the call God has placed within me,” said Sr. Anna Maria.

Mother John Mary’s community is also close with their local Carmelite sisters, and she maintains a strong devotion to St. Elizabeth of the Trinity.

Mother John Mary recalled meeting Mother Angelica on a visit to EWTN during her discernment process. Mother Angelica had told her a person was called to “wherever you feel at home with them, and they with you.”

Sr. Anna Maria agreed. It is “the call God has ordered you to, and that manifests itself in the religious community you are called to,” she said.

Originally printed in the March 2022 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.