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Sister Wendy Olin
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SLIDESHOW ~ Sister Wendy Olin |
Her sorority little sister, Denise, asked for
a ride to the hospital to visit her grandmother who was in critical health. On
the way home, she asked Wendy to drop her off at the cathedral so she could
attend Mass. When they got there, her friend asked her to come in with her.
Never having set foot in a Catholic church, Wendy was reluctant. She agreed,
however, feeling it would help comfort her friend.
Inside the cathedral, Wendy remembers feeling the overwhelming presence of
something bigger than her. She returned to attend Mass every week afterward and
joined the Catholic Church in 1975.
Two years later, Wendy took her first elementary teaching job in Grandview,
Idaho. While attending a teacher’s workshop in Sun Valley, she met Sr. Mary Anne
Glodowski, a Benedictine nun from St. Gertrude’s. They became friends and Sr.
Mary Anne invited her to visit the Monastery of St. Gertrude in 1986.
“From the moment I walked into the chapel, I felt I belonged here,” recalled
Wendy. “I felt I’d prayed those prayers and sung those songs before.” She then
began to visit more frequently, hearing an ever-growing call to the monastic
life.
She says that life after her First Monastic Profession is both the same and
completely different. “I laid myself on the altar as Christ did…..My life is no
longer my own.”
With her four years of Formation over, she is now free for full-time ministry.
She has accepted the position of Curator of the Historical Museum at St.
Gertrude and is excited about reigniting the museum’s educational programs.
While schools may not have the funds to send students to the museum, she
believes the museum can visit the schools.
She is also renewing her teaching certificate so that she may more readily “meet
the needs of the time,” reflecting a Benedictine ministerial orientation that
values a heightened responsiveness to the realities of the world.
