When I felt within me the call to the total gift of self to God I rejected it with all the vigor of my18-year-old self. I wanted to marry and have children. I had in my hands a booklet presenting the oblate vocation.

My first reaction was, this is a sisterhood for the zealous. But the Spirit leads where the Spirit wills; no one knows from where the Spirit comes or where the Spirit goes. Six months later I picked up the booklet again and decided that that was what I wanted.

It was some Father Parent’s words that convinced me: “Your cloister is the world,” he said, and, “[an oblate is] a gift that gives, that gives herself, that forgives” and “the mission is charity.”

Annick F.