Priests, sisters share how God has graced their lives

By Kenny Keane, Globe staff reporter
Posted January 9, 2003

Those who choose a religious vocation experience God in a unique way. They don't necessarily experience God in a better way than all lay persons, but it's just a different way.

Dissecting this even further, one can take a look at the individual experiences of those who have chosen a religious vocation and how God has graced them in their own unique ways. Just because they share a common way of life does not mean that they all experience God in the same fashion.

A few priests and sisters, who each have ties to the Sioux City Diocese, illustrate the way in which God has graced their lives particularly within the past year.

Father Nickolas Becker

Something that came to mind immediately for Father Nickolas Becker, parochial vicar at Blessed Sacrament Church in Sioux City, was being ordained a deacon and priest in the past year.

"I would say for me that has been an enormous blessing," he said. "It's kind of the confluence of so many years of prayer, study and work and so much of my life coming together. The actual events of the ordination itself, when people from all different stages of my life came together to celebrate with me, were such great events."

Father Becker went on to say that beginning priestly life and being able to take on that role for people has been an enormous privilege.

"Getting to preside at Eucharist, getting to preach, visit the sick and preside at funerals are all sources of enormous blessing for me," he said. "Particularly, very early on, I can remember the first times that I would go to the hospital to anoint someone, and when I would finish the prayer of anointing I would notice the person that I had anointed was in tears. It was such a profound experience for them of God's care and God working through me, unworthy as I am, to bring real healing, comfort and peace to people.

"I found funeral ministry to be very rewarding just in the sense that families are so grateful to have a good funeral for their loved ones. I notice the appreciation, in their faces and in their voices, when they give thanks for that."

Still in the early stages of his priesthood, Father Becker said he continues to do so many things for the first time, and he is preparing for growth in all aspects of his vocation in the coming year.

"I'm still a very new priest," he said. "So I just look forward to continuing to cooperate with grace and grow into my priesthood."

Sister Arnold Staudt

As the Associate Professor of Music at Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, Sister Arnold Staudt said God is present within the music classes she teaches, especially when it deals with religious music, which she said has always been a part of her life.

"I think that music is a very important part of our worship," she said. "I love the liturgy, and the music enhances the liturgy. So that's important to me."

Sister Arnold said she also feels God's presence at the university within the people she works with and the students she teaches. Although she teaches music in general, she gets a big thrill out of her students saying that they enjoy listening to Gregorian chant.

"I like to push Gregorian chant. The sacred music I think is important," she said. "I'm amazed at how the students do learn to like it, although they thought they weren't going to like it. That's a big thing for me.

"The music that I teach is classical music mostly. I like to see them really enjoy it and find that there's a lot of beauty in it. It's something that they've never tried before, and so it's brought a change into their lives."

Along with her religious vocation, Sister Arnold admitted that music is her greatest gift from God.

"When I try to teach all this to somebody, and they're having a very hard time learning, I do realize that I have been given gifts to do music," she said. "It's easy for me all the time. I can just sit down and play anything without notes. People are amazed at that, and I've never even thought about it.

"To be able to read music and to be able to play without even using notes is a gift. Playing the organ has been a very great gift to me, too."

Father Denis Dougherty

It was the profound influence of Msgr. Newman Flanagan, as well as other priests from Blessed Sacrament Church and other parishes in Sioux City that directed Father Denis Dougherty to where he is today as the pastor of St. Joseph Church in Springfield, Mo. and a monk at Conception Abbey.

"I went to Blessed Sacrament, and I went to Trinity. My folks always lived there, and my brother, Dr. John, still lives there. That's how I'm tied to Sioux City," he said. "Father Joe Tolan, who was at the Cathedral when I was out at Trinity, he really helped me think about my vocation.

"We had some young priests at Blessed Sacrament who were always around, and that was kind of an inspiration. Then Father Tolan was a big inspiration. When I went to Creighton, there was a priest there who I could really talk to, and those were real clarifying points for me. Those priests were really great."

Father Dougherty joined the monastery in 1951 with the thought that he'd probably spend his whole life there, but then he spent several years in school including: theology school at Conception, the Indian missions for a year, a year and a half at St. Louis University where he received a master's in sociology and the University of Missouri where he got a doctorate in educational psychology.

He then taught at Rockhurst College, which is a Jesuit college in Kansas City, for six years before the abbot finally said, "You better get back into our system."

"He made me the local pastor at Conception Junction," Father Dougherty said. "I was there for eight years. Then they needed a new pastor at a new parish we were taking over in Kansas City. I went there, to St. Gabriel's in Kansas City, Mo., and I was there for 13 years. Then I was transferred to Springfield."

Wherever he's been, Father Dougherty said the Catholic people have been wonderful. Particularly within the past year, though, he said he's noticed a change in his life.

"I think I'm a little bit more prayerful," he said. "Jesus is more real to me than he has been in the past. He always has been very real, but my prayer life to him has become more familiar. I think God is pretty present.

"I've got a great parish down here. It's a little, older, inner-city parish, but the people are wonderful. I've been very fortunate. I've always had good parishes. I'm just kind of fortunate to be where I'm at."

Sister Joellen Price

In her work as a pastoral minister at Immaculate Conception Church in Sioux City is where Sister Joellen Price said she finds God.

"When I work with them in liturgy, it's the time when they come and praise God, and it's a time when we all join together," she said. "So it's a dynamic of working together that's a way that God speaks to me and God comes to me."

Within the past year, Sister Joellen said there were two particular times that were really graced moments for her.

"Sister Julie Tebbe, one of our apostolic novices, moved in with me this year," she said. "This is her year to prepare for vows, and the community asked if she could come and live with me. I had lived alone for 10 years so this is kind of a new adventure for me, too.

"The times that we set aside to pray and share have been very graced moments for me. We're able to challenge each other to look into our daily lives and see how God's working through us. To share that on a daily basis has been a really graced time for me."

Sister Joellen's community also asked her this past year to be a facilitator of a retreat where they set aside time to look at the gifts of what their foundress, Nano Nagle, gave to them as a community. So her house was chosen to be the place where people would gather.

"We spent five days together, and we took hospitality and joyful solidarity with the poor," she said. "We got to do things like working with the women at the Bargain Center. We helped serve supper at the Soup Kitchen.

"We also made use of the Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center and used the Loess Hills and the history of this part of the country to help us connect with our own history. That was really a neat time for me."

Father James Bruch

One of the most wonderful things that Father James Bruch, pastor of St. Joseph Church in Milford, said he has ever been involved in is the on-going spiritual direction training he has been attending in Omaha.

"It's reaffirmed the nearness and the real presence of God in my life, which I've always believed but never felt," he said. "Now I have a real sense of his nearness and a clearer insight into myself and my ministry. That's enriched everything I do now."

Father Bruch said that from the training he also received a clearer understanding of himself as a minister and learned about taking the time to really look into his own life. He said it also helped him understand the spirituality of a diocesan priest.

"The first thing that strikes me is present in the people in the parish by their acceptance, forgiveness, understanding and encouragement," he said. "They make my ministry much easier and understandable.

"It's just been a wonderful time in my life to come to really appreciate what I'm called to do and be. It has made the Lord much more real to me and much more present."