My Daughter Is Already Discerning Religious Life

Karen Estep explains how she and her husband encourage their daughter, age 9, who is considering a vocation as a religious sister.  

One Beautiful Conversation 

One day my daughter told my husband and I that she was thinking about becoming a religious sister. My husband and I were overjoyed at this discernment already happening at such a young age. We’re both high school teachers and have always said as long as our children love what they do and continue to work towards great goals, we’ll support what they do.  

But while my husband and I were excited to see our daughter discern this process, neither one of us grew up Catholic. Neither one of us has a lot of priests or religious sisters/nuns in our friend group either. So this is definitely a learning curve for us. We started branching out and asking questions to learn more as a family about different religious orders.  

Eventually, due to needing a religious sister to come talk to my religious education class at my parish, I was introduced to a lovely religious sister from SOLT (the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity). She not only agreed to come talk to my class, but she took my own children on as well that day. She sat by us at Mass — and my son has never been so well-behaved! My daughter also became enamored with “our Sister,” as she is called now.  

This one meeting turned into us talking a bit more, my daughter asking all sorts of questions, and eventually as a family we invited this sister and her other sisters out to dinner. This was no ordinary dinner, we even got to play pickle ball with them! Now as a family we are discerning becoming lay members of SOLT. We plan on meeting with them more this fall and my kiddos cannot be more excited to go to Mass with our favorite sisters.  

We also plan on attending a baseball game that the priests from our local diocese and a neighboring diocese play against each other. We’re hoping to see more religious orders and continue to introduce our children to different possibilities. We also make sure to stop any religious men and women out and about to just ask for a quick prayer or even let our kids say hi. On a recent trip, we saw a religious sister in the airport. We asked her if we could all pray together before hopping on our different planes. She prayed with us without hesitation, and I know she brought a bit of joy to my daughter too.  

Five Ideas for Parents in this Situation:  

Pray

We pray as a family and I pray that if it is God’s will for my daughter to be a religious sister that He will help guide her way. Pray for vocations as well. The men and women in religious orders are in constant prayer for us, so let’s make sure to pray for them as well.  

Validate the desire

Once again, we’ve never shied away from my daughter saying this is what she wants with her life. She also wants to be a scientist, an author, and love Jesus. We reiterate that she can do all of these things and become a religious sister!  

Attend vocation days

I know there are many dioceses that have these, including mine. Once my daughter gets a bit older, we plan to go and explore these functions.  

Reach out

Various religious orders have different days when you can go and visit where they live. The Little Sisters of the Lamb do this about once a month in my area. We plan on doing this as well one of these days. 

Keep your heart and eyes open

We often see members of various religious orders while just wandering around our city. We respectfully approach religious we see to learn more or even pray for them.  

What I Pray for my Kids 

While I don’t know if this desire to become a religious sister will stay with my daughter, I just pray that she continues to have faith in Christ. I learned a while ago that I needed to surrender my children back over to God and have faith in entrusting their lives to Him. It isn’t easy by any means, but I know that He has given me the tools to help guide their faith and He will continue to open doors for their lives as well.  

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Copyright 2025 Karen Estep
Images: Canva