Did you know there are more vocations from St. John Cantius Curch than just to Canons Regular?
Sr. Maria Magdalene of Mary, Mother of the Crucified, previously known as Miss Anne Seybert, grew up at St. John Cantius. She participated in choirs, attended and counseled summer camps, and went on countless trips to Lawton. As she was growing up she would often attend the Divine Office with the Canons and she explained that it was here that she first came to encounter the beauty of the Sacred, something that would later influence her in such a life-altering way.
Sr. Maria Magdalene said that there were two things that St. John Cantius led her to that was most helpful, “The first and foremost was by far the Sacraments, especially Mass and silent Adoration… The second was the true, virtuous friendships made.” It was also through the examples of the Religious that Sister came to see “the sacrificial witness of the religious for something higher than the material, something more glorious than can be attained in the world.”
After Sister completed high school, she attended Ave Maria University where she realized Christ might be calling her to Religious Life. She began to seriously discern her call, looking into different communities, praying the Divine Office, and spending more time in silent adoration where “Christ quietly worked and transformed [her] soul.” She completed her education with two B.A. degrees.
In August of 2020 Sister joined the Marian Sisters of Santa Rosa. She said that she “was initially drawn to them by their love of the liturgy and sacred music, but also by their lightheard and joyful community life.” She found many similarities between her community and the spirituality in which she had been formed at St. John Cantius, “including a love for both forms of the Roman Rite.” But ultimately, Sister explained “I entered the community for one and only one reason, to respond in love to the will of God, and that was where He asked me to come.”
Please join the Priests and Brothers of St. John Cantius as they keep Sr. Maria Magdalene of Mary, Mother of the Crucified in their prayers as she prepares to make her first profession of vows in May of 2023.