Sr. Dorothy Guadalupe, SV Community: Sisters of Life Current Residence: Heart of Jesus Convent, the convent at our local parish and a temporary expansion to our Motherhouse at 38 Montebello Rd, Suffern, NY 10901 Current work: Generalate (finance) Offices, House Maintenance Hometown: St. Louis, MO Engineering Discipline: Mechanical Where did you go to school and what did you study? RPI (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), Troy, NY B.S. Mechanical Engineering, 1986 When did you decide you wanted to be an engineer? When I was growing up I wanted to be a teacher – or my “wild dream” was to be an astronaut. I went into engineering by the back door. I enjoyed science, history, and French in High School. Engineering is the practical application of science, and my dad was an engineer, so I was torn between pursuing History or Engineering (with French as a minor). I decided to start in Engineering since it was the “tougher” degree, thinking I could switch more easily into history than into Engineering. What drew you to become an engineer? I enjoyed the challenge of the engineering, and learning how to solve very difficult problems. How did you choose your discipline? Process of elimination. My dad’s a Civil Engineer and I didn’t want to do what he did (he ran a construction company). Electricity, chemicals, or industry didn’t interest me, so that pretty much left mechanical to try. And I liked it. Can you give us a history of your career as an engineer (if you worked before entering religious life)? Another God story! I had no interest in co-op work during college – “get in, get out in 4 years, and onto real life” was my plan. One day my freshman year, I went into the co-op office with a friend, and while she was planning, I started paging through the book with a list of opportunities. My eye alighted on the word: “NASA”. I thought, well, if I were ever to Co-op, NASA would be the place. (One of my childhood dreams was to be an astronaut!) So I filled out the application, with only my 1st semester grades, and forgot about it. Spring of my sophomore year – in fact just 4 weeks before the end of school year, I get a call from the co-op office asking if I would accept a co-op job with NASA, beginning in 4 weeks. Without thinking, I said, “Yes”. (Here’s the God Story: When I asked the co-op coordinator at NASA how it was that I was chosen, he said he had 12 applications from my college, and wanted one of us. So he fanned the applications, closed his eyes, and picked me.) My first assignment was in the Heating/cooling section. I created a graphics movie from scratch (this was 1984) of the heating/cooling data from the re-entry of the first shuttle flight. There were 104 thermocouples on the bottom, and they were sampled every second. The team had looked at the individual temps, but were truly delighted to see the time-lapse image of the bottom. After graduation, in full-time employment at NASA, I worked in the Robotic’s section, whose primary responsibility was for the Robotic Arm on the Shuttle. I also helped to re-certify the robotic arm and its “handle” on the satellite after the 1986 Challenger disaster. I was on a team doing preliminary work (hardware and software) for what is now the robotic arm on the space station. Since entering the convent I have continued to be an engineer – but more Civil than Mechanical (God has a sense of humor!). I have been involved in the “fix-up” of old convents, and most recently I was the Community Bursar (finance) – because, I guess, numbers are my friends! Can you tell us about your faith journey/vocation story? I grew up in a Catholic family, the oldest of 5 children. We moved when I was 11, a very awkward age, into a “better” neighborhood. I didn’t fit in and withdrew into myself. When I turned 13, Mom and Dad gave me a bible for my birthday I’ve always been an avid reader, and immediately began to read the bible from front to back. When I read the psalms, I read “You have searched me, Lord, and you KNOW me … Where can I run from your Love? If I climb the heavens you are there”. I was suddenly consumed with an incredible sense of being known and still being loved – incredible! Me, in my Junior High loneliness, my adolescent lack of self-worth, I was infinitely loved!! My second close encounter with Jesus came after I had finished my degree and headed off for a 2-month break in Europe. I was travelling on my own to meet a friend in Geneva later in the day and passed through a little town in the French Alps called Annecy. I saw the lake from the train, and, knowing I had a couple hours to kill, jumped off the train, rented a bike, and set off around the lake. I stopped to rest ½ way around the lake and was enjoying feeling completely free – no one in the world knew exactly where I was! Oh, they knew I was travelling to Geneva that day, but there’s a lot of country to get lost in Southern France. My family was 3000 miles away. But then, I felt the Lord speak in my heart “… But I know where you are. I know you. I am with you – at all times and anywhere you go. I will never leave you alone.” How did you transition from engineering to the religious life? While I wouldn’t have described myself as having a lively prayer life, I had a good connection with him. I took my confirmation seriously and was offended by the lightheartedness of my peers. When I graduated from high school, run by the Apostles of the Sacred Heart, I prayed seriously about the possibility of a religious vocation. Teaching was something I thought I would want to do. However, the response I got in prayer was “No, go to RPI.” I opened myself to the question again after college, but NASA’s pull was stronger. Only 4 years after graduating from college, I was living the “perfect” life. I loved my job, I had an astronaut application on my desk, had a wonderful group of friends, and I was spending the rest of my time in a variety of pro-life activities. I was happy but I was working very hard, sometimes 16 hours a day juggling my 2 different dreams, until I finally got to the point where something had to go! It was a Junior High thought about: “I want to be like that when I grow up” that haunted me until it came true. In Junior High, we learned about the tragedies of slavery. It was 8th grade that I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and I knew that if I had been there, I would have been part of the Underground Railroad helping people escape to freedom. We learned about the Holocaust, how people were killed because they were Jewish. I’m mostly German … one branch of my family tree begins in the Sudetenland in the mid 1800’s. How could this have happened? My concept of myself, of right and wrong and responsibilities, led me to believe that if I had been there, I would have been one of the people helping the Jews escape to freedom. I took the question about NASA vs full-time Pro-Life work to prayer, fervently and repeatedly. What did God want me to do with my life? Why did He give me such conflicting desires: love of the human person in its most weakest and vulnerable state, and the ability to help put people into space – and the desire to go myself? Why couldn’t I just back off a little from my pro-life work and find a better balance? And this astronaut application on my desk … Eventually, I was obliged to take a 5 week sabbatical, and I dedicated the time to discerning the answer to this question, “Why should I relinquish my secular hopes and dreams – which you have enabled me to embrace?” One day, while praying, I received an interior grace to “see” the human soul. It was indescribably beautiful, powerful, and so very God-like. That was almost 25 years ago, but I remember the answer to my prayer like it was yesterday. The Lord allowed me to know how he views each person. I don’t have an adequate adjective to describe what I knew in my heart. I saw how God pours Himself into each of us, in His gift of creation at the moment of conception in our mother’s womb. I knew in my heart, that He, Himself, His own glorious image, is in each soul. It was a hard choice – but once made I was very peaceful. When I left NASA, the Sisters of Life didn’t exist, and I simply went into radical full-time pro-life work. Several years later, when the Sisters of Life were founded, I was delighted to have the support of their prayers in our work. Are there any particular projects you’ve been a part of or stories you have to share? 1) As a co-op engineer at NASA, we were able to work double shifts during flights of the Space Shuttle (to provide 24 hr support) – with the 2nd shift in Mission Control. Behind every person sitting in the Mission Control Room (which you see often on TV) there is a team of engineers/scientists in a back room of the same building. These are the folks that diagnose and solve the problems. Remember the scene in Apollo 13 where, when they are trying to get the crew back safely, someone walks into a room with an armful of space stuff. He says something like, "We need to figure out how to fit this (holds up a round thing) into this (a square thing), using only this stuff (indicates space equipment thrown on the table)." That's what they did in the back rooms in Building 30. 2) The first week I worked at NASA as a coop, there was a shuttle launch. We all gathered into the auditorium of our building to watch it live. The countdown continued (we could hear all the chatter and checks and the good-to-go’s …), until the countdown stopped at T-4 (launchTime minus 4 seconds). There was utter silence in the room for about 2 heart beats. Then two guys behind me said, "it has to be XYZ – that’s what they test at T-4 sec". Still discussing XYZ, they headed off to their offices to assist in fixing XYZ. That’s truly teamwork. 3) When I made my first vows, three of us (who made vows) were missioned to find and start up our first “Holy Respite” for women who are pregnant. We located a convent by Thanksgiving, entrusting the project to St. Joseph. In addition to the cleaning, we had a few renovations to make to create a convent and separate wing for the women. On the feast of St. Katherine Drexel, I prayed through her intercession, “You know the challenges of convent foundations. Please help us!” That day I got a call which ended up providing not only the renovations we needed, but also replaced the kitchen and all the windows in the house. The couple who funded the project has remained anonymous to us, and we refer to them as Kathy and Joe. Has your work as an engineer played a part in your life as a religious sister? Yes, being an engineer has played a large part of my religious life. Our founder, John Cardinal O’Connor, when looking at a room of interested women, would ask, "Are you ready to get up in the middle of the night to fix the boiler?" Then I entered in a group of 9, and 3 of us were engineers! (Comp Sys, Geological, and Mechanical) Guess who gets called when the boiler breaks? And I love it! Up until 2012, I have been very involved in most of our convent foundations. I am typically the sister in charge of House Maintenance (fixing problems when I can and calling the right person when I can’t.) I also can evaluate if the contractor’s solution makes sense. The funny thing is, … it is more like what my Dad did (which I rejected in selecting a college major) than Mechanical Engineering. In 2009, I was appointed the community bursar, which didn’t make any sense – until I realized that as an engineer, numbers are my friends. Engineering is essentially the science of examining a problem, taking it apart, fixing what is broken, and putting it back together in a functional way. This applies not only to Space Shuttles and robotic arms, but also to convent boilers, expansion plans, and “how in the world do I program the phone???” The way engineers think, the way I attack a problem usually provides a different answer to a problem, and when combined with the viewpoints of the other sisters, makes the group much healthier. If you would like to learn more about the Sisters of Life, you can do so at their website, www.sistersoflife.org Want to get in touch with Sister Dorothy Guadalupe? Click the button above to email the Sisters of Life. Below is Sister Dorothy Guadalupe’s vocation story from a talk she gave at Chaminade High School. I am so excited to be here. All the Sisters of Life are so grateful to Fr. Garrett and the students and brothers at Chaminade for their assistance building shelves, painting windows, and many other tasks at our Annunciation Motherhouse in Suffern. Some of your sons have been there – and some of you perhaps have come also. Thank you.
This morning, Fr. Garrett asked me to share my own story. It is a tale of love – It is a tale of God’s love for each of us. It is a tale of God’s love for me. It is often called a vocation story, but love describes it better. As I’ve reflected on my journey to today, I have come to believe that my destiny was sealed in Junior High School. How many of our dreams and goals are formed by our early school years? Certainly not all. We can change direction several times in our growing years. I know I did. In my case, when I was growing up, I wanted to be a teacher, or an astronaut – but since I didn’t know any astronauts, I thought that I was as likely to become the president of the United States! So I planned to be a teacher. But it was a Junior High thought about: “I want to be like that when I grow up” that haunted me until it came true. In Junior High, we learned about the tragedies of slavery. It was 8th grade that I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and I knew that if I had been there, I would have been part of the Underground Railroad helping people escape to freedom. We learned about the Holocaust, how people were killed because they were Jewish. I’m mostly German … one branch of my family tree begins in the Sudetenland in the mid 1800’s. How could this have happened? My concept of myself, of right and wrong and responsibilities, led me to believe that if I had been there, I would have been one of the people helping the Jews escape to freedom. This is also a story of grace. It is a story of how God reached and touched my heart, planted His love there, and drew me to Him. I grew up the oldest of 5 children in a Catholic home in the Midwest in the 1970’s. Our family was relatively faithful – Mass every Sunday, kids in Catholic schools. We received all our sacraments. However, my first close encounter with God happened soon after my 13th birthday. I remember the time because I received my very own bible on that birthday. I’ve always been an avid reader, and therefore began to read the bible from front to back. When I read the psalms, I read “You have searched me, Lord, and you KNOW me … Where can I run from your Love? If I climb the heavens you are there”. I was suddenly consumed with an incredible love, an incredible sense of being known and still being loved. Me, in my Junior High loneliness, my adolescent lack of self-worth, I was infinitely loved!! God says this to all of us. That’s why He made sure David wrote it down in Psalm 139. He loves each of us – good students, horrible students, Football stars, and those with two left feet. He puts His love in the midst of our families – in the good times, but especially in the trying times. The love that we share with each other is, as the song says, “Just a shadow of His love for us.” My second close encounter with Jesus came after I had finished a Mechanical Engineering degree and headed off on a much needed break in Europe. I was travelling on my own to meet a friend in Geneva later in the day and passed through a little town in the French Alps called Annecy. I saw the lake from the train, and, knowing I had a couple hours to kill, jumped off the train, rented a bike, and set off around the lake. I stopped to rest ½ way around the lake and was enjoying feeling completely free – no one in the world knew exactly where I was! Oh, they knew I was travelling to Geneva that day, but there’s a lot of space to get lost in Southern France. My family was 4000 miles away. But then, I felt the Lord speak in my heart “… But I know where you are. I know you. I am with you – at all times and anywhere you go. I will never leave you alone.” This is a great thing for each of us to remember. My brother struggled with lots of self-esteem problems in High School. He ran into drugs and out of town and after the Grateful Dead. Then he met a woman, who was able to offer him unconditional love. If you meet my brother and sister-in law, they don’t appear to be a “match made in heaven”. But the match was made in heaven because in sharing their love, they came to know God’s love, and share it freely with each other and with their two boys – the oldest will be entering High School next year. After my trip to Europe, I went to work at my dream job at NASA, in Houston, where the astronauts train. I was on a team developing solutions for the robotic needs of the then future Space Station. I travelled to Toronto to supervise work on the Canadian Arm on the space Shuttle. Do you remember the movie “Apollo 13”? Remember the scene where they go into a room and dump a bunch of space gear on the counter? They said “we have to figure out how to get this (square thing) to fit into this (round hole). That was the NASA I knew. Dedicated people focused on creative problems with one goal – to put mankind safely into space. I was on my way to living my early dream. At the same time, I was also living those rescue-dreams from Junior High as I was drawn into the Pro-Life movement. I became a counselor at a Pregnancy Help center providing practical and supportive assistance to those who felt they had no choice but abortion, and I helped found another Pregnancy Center closer to where I lived. I joined my parish pro-life group and the Archdiocesan Pro-Life Committee. Only 4 years after graduating from College I was living the perfect life. I loved my job, I had an astronaut application on my desk, and I was spending all my free time in pro-life activities. I was happy to work double shifts at NASA Mission Control during shuttle missions, but I was working too hard, sometimes 16 hours a day juggling my 2 different dreams, and they were about to collide. I took the question to prayer, fervently and repeatedly. What did God want me to do with my life? Why did He give me such conflicting desires? Why couldn’t I just back off a little from my pro-life work and find a better balance? This is now almost 25 years ago, and I remember the answer to my prayer it like it was yesterday. The Lord allowed me to know how he views each person. I saw the inestimable worth, the value, the gift, of each human soul. I don’t have an adequate adjective to describe what I knew in my heart. I saw how God pours Himself into each of us, in His gift of creation at the moment of conception in our mother’s womb. I “saw” Himself, His own glorious image, in each soul. The Catholic Catechism does a better job describing as it speaks of the human person as not just the summit of creation but that all of creation is summed up in the human person (#364). It’s only in the human person that the spiritual world (think angels, grace) and the material world (material creation) are united (CCC #355). Only the human person is created in the image of God, for his or her own sake (#1703). The Creator of the cosmos – whom I studied and loved so much, this same Creator – wills and loves each person into existence at the moment of their conception. And there is no abstract human person – this means you, me, the person sitting next to you. That means you were loved and willed into existence by God, a completely unique, totally unrepeatable, living icon of His love. God wants us, … He wants to know us and be known by us. And I knew that this was my pearl of great price. That if I were to get involved full time in pro-life work, and to “give up” all my dreams, hopes, security, and the excitement of putting man into space, (or even the possibility of being in space myself) and, if in exchange, One human life would be saved, then the exchange would be worth it. I would have the better part of the deal! Carried on His grace, it was almost too easy to walk on the path of love. I retired from NASA, sold my house, and volunteered full time in various pro-life movements. The Sisters of Life were founded a year later, but I needed 4 more years of service, lived in simplicity, before I was ready to be called to religious life. I entered in 1995. The Sisters of Life are a religious community founded in 1991 by Cardinal O’Connor in New York. From just 8 women that first day, we are now 90 women in 7 homes in New York, Connecticut, Washington DC, and Toronto, Canada. Ours is a charism which brings God’s love to a world which badly needs it. We try to love with His love, at all times, and especially in our main works: -Helping women who are pregnant and in need, -Assisting women who have suffered abortions toward healing, -And welcoming all people into new life in Christ through our retreats and evangelization work. In our work with pregnant women, we love them, and help them find the resources (physical and emotional) to love their child, in the womb and after birth. We serve about 1000 women a year at our Visitation Mission in Manhattan and in Toronto – with the assistance of lay volunteers called co-workers. Some of the pregnant women we serve come live with us at our Sacred Heart convent in Midtown Manhattan. One of a sister’s desires when she lives in a house with a lot of cute babies (speaking from personal experience), is to pick up and hold the babies – so that the mother’s can get a break. However, we have come to learn that our best way to serve the babies is to focus on supporting and loving their mothers, so that they can, in turn, love their children. We help the mothers find the love they need. One woman, Maria, came to live with us at SHJ. She was pregnant and coming out of an abusive relationship. She had lots of “attitude” – it was not easy for her to live in a convent (I’m sure you understand). Finally, she told Sr. Veronica – “I’m leaving. This isn’t for me.” She returned to the Father of her Baby, who within days was abusing her again. Late one night she called Sr. Veronica in tears and desperate, expecting to be rejected, thinking that she had burned her bridges. Sr. Veronica shocked her with kindness by saying, “Maria you come right back – we’ll pick you up.” This gesture of love changed everything for Maria, who moved back in and quickly became the star guest of the house. Her attitude changed: she had experienced unconditional love, knew she was loved, and knew that she didn’t need to prove anything. As her defenses came down, she began to experience joy and peace. She began to ask the hard questions about God and life … she would sneak into the chapel and, later on, … she would just go into the Chapel without sneaking. She gave birth to a sweet baby girl and wanted her baptized right away even though Maria herself had never been baptized. She entered RCIA and about a year later, followed her daughter in baptism, and entered the Church. Her whole life turned around so much that when she came back to visit a couple of years later, with her Grandmother in tow, her Grandmother gave a hug and wouldn’t let go – she kept saying, “you gave me back my baby.” But, not only the pregnant woman is in need of God’s love. I have served in our Hope and Healing Mission, a work of retreats and accompaniment to those suffering after abortion. The women who come to us are heroic witnesses of God’s love and mercy. They have allowed God’s love and mercy to restore and heal their weakest and most vulnerable parts and they become the most eloquent witnesses of the Gospel of life. One of these women, I’ll call her Jennifer, had an abortion as a teen and a 2nd one in her early 20s. After her abortion, she was filled with shame and sorrow. She later married civilly, but the abortion haunted her and she decided not to tell her husband, out of fear that his response would confirm her fear of being “unlovable” because of that choice. Many whom we've served in our Hope and Healing Mission describe a sense of loss and grief, anger and confusion, with no validation from society at large that this event has inflicted a deep wound to their identity as a woman, whose gift is to nurture new life with a special sensitivity to the vulnerable and weak, and also to the identity of the men involved, who are called to protect and provide for those entrusted to them. After ten years of marriage, Jennifer’s husband began a journey of conversion back to the Catholic faith. He approached Jennifer and asked if she would have their marriage blessed by the Catholic Church. Believing herself to be unforgivable, she thought it would be best to divorce him, so that he could freely return to the Church. Then she told him her reasoning…her abortion so many years prior. He, full of tenderness and compassion asked, “Is that what has been holding you back?” It was the perfect response. For the first time she had hope that God could forgive her. Her husband assured her that there is no sin too great for God’s Mercy. With new hope and confidence she went to confession for the first time in years and she experienced the infinite love of God in the Sacrament of Confession. She began a new life filled with Joy and Peace even in the midst of struggle. Lastly, but not least, the Sisters of Life have a retreat center in Stamford, CT, where we host retreats proclaiming God’s love, mercy, and joy. We are all in need of a fresh outpouring of God’s love. Villa Maria Guadalupe is packed every weekend. We have silent prayer retreats. We have retreats for High School girls in the summer; we have retreats for young women, and others for women of all ages. We have a spring break retreat for college men and women. We are increasingly able to bring the message of God’s love on the road around the country. It is almost impossible for young women and men to make it to age 22 without having been somehow damaged by what JPII calls the “culture of death” – the treatment of other human beings as objects to be used to satisfy another’s desires. We travel around the country and internationally preaching the Good News that God Loves you unconditionally, and that your life has meaning. In the midst of all these activities, one thing never changes – called by whispers by the loving Jesus as I was growing up, I now live in that love, and every day is an interior spiritual adventure where I realize I am now on the frontlines not of space exploration but in a mission to live the fullness and the amazing mystery of the human person. It is a tremendous gift that never gets old. May each of you know God’s love in a special way today. Thank you for letting us join you and share with you a little piece of our life. We will pray for you, and for your sons, and ask you to pray for us. We have given you a copy of our magazine, which comes out 3 times a year. Please call us, or sign up online at sistersoflife.org if you would like to receive more copies. Comments are closed.
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