Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
“Two events played a crucial role in helping me to discover and realize my vocation as a Catholic Christian and a religious sister: the music of J.S. Bach and the Eucharist. ”
Sister Andrea Marie Lee, RSM
My vocation story is a story of God’s mercy and providence. For my perpetual profession of vows in 2021, I chose “Jesus, Mary and Joseph” for my ring motto, which is inscribed inside of my profession ring. I entrust to them, the Holy Family of Nazareth, my family, my life and death as a religious sister.
I was born in South Korea in a multi-generational family home in a little town called “Buyeo.” in Growing up, I was surrounded by a lot of my cousins, trees, animals, and rice fields, along with my great grandma until she passed away at the age of 103. Our loving family was originally non-Christian, until one of my uncles became a pastor in a Protestant church and some of my aunts and uncles married Catholic spouses. Since then, many of my cousins grew up as Protestant Christian or Catholic.
Despite searching for God and life’s deeper meaning when I was in a boarding school during my middle and high school years, I first really encountered Christ when I was a college student in Germany. Through the exchange program I had an opportunity to study abroad in the University of Mainz. There, studying linguistically Martin Luther’s historic translation of the bible into German, I read the entire Scriptures for the first time. Around that time, I also read Pope Benedict XVI’s Jesus of Nazareth, which made me become aware of Christ’s living presence and His call to His Kingdom. Inspired by the first Christians in Jerusalem in the Acts of the Apostles, I discovered my desire to follow Christ more radically and to share my whole life with God. This was my first conversion and initial desire for religious life, while not even knowing what religious life was at that time.
By the providence of God, the Diocese of Mainz was where our sisters serve and have their convent. The Lord then led me on some detours. Although I first met our sisters at the cathedral in Mainz, the Catholic world was unknown and foreign to me at that time. I ended up joining the Lutheran Sisters in Marburg, where I was baptized and joined their community for about five years. During those years as a Protestant sister, I continued to search for the truth of the faith in fullness, and ultimately for the presence and essence of God.
Through the invitation of our German Sisters of Mercy, I visited our German Mercy convent, Sankt Marienhaus where I saw the Blessed Sacrament for the first time in my life, in the Tabernacle and on the altar in their chapel. Through the Catechism instructions of the chaplain at that time at Sankt Marienhaus and getting to know our sisters and other religious, priests, and Catholic lay faithful over the years, I discovered – gradually and at the same time whole and entirely – my Catholic heart in me already planted by God long before I knew. Then, I in 2012, I entered the Catholic Church and our community of the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, MI. I came to the U.S. to begin my early formation of postulancy and the novitiate at our Motherhouse.
Two events played a crucial role in helping me to discover and realize my vocation as a Catholic Christian and a religious sister: the music of J.S. Bach and the Eucharist.
Contemplating the divine mysteries of the Incarnation and the Passion of Christ through and with the intense music of Bach and learning to understand the mysteries of the Most Holy Eucharist and the Sacraments of the Church accompanied my journey of faith. My vocation story continues with the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the Korean martyrs, and Venerable Catherine McAuley, the foundress of the Religious Sisters of Mercy in time and eternity.