The Nuns Up the Road
Sr. Bethany Marie of the Glorious Wounds of Christ, CP (Hannah Bland)
Newborn Hannah in the arms of her dad, Joe
“You should be a nun - you know, just up the road.”
“No way, Grandma! They’re cloistered! I don’t want to live in Whitesville forever!”
This was a frequent conversation I would have with my Grandma. I am not totally sure if it was because she was elderly and forgot she already suggested it to me, or if she was just really convinced that I should join the local Passionist Nuns, or maybe a little bit of both. The nuns really were “just up the road” from her house - within a half-mile.
I was born and raised in Whitesville, Kentucky and grew up about five minutes from St. Joseph Passionist Monastery. We would come to the monastery to ride bikes on the trails, sit by the lake, and take walks. Occasionally my family would attend Mass here, or we would do a service project as part of the parish youth group. The Passionists were always familiar to me, and I can admit now there was always a fascination with what was on the other side of the cloister, but when I was growing up I was adamantly against the idea.
Hannah with her parents, Joe and Cathy, at her First Communion
I am the youngest of three children, and I grew up in a Catholic family. My dad, who was fully received into the Church before he married my mom, had an even deeper conversion when I was about five or six. He rarely does anything in half measures, and so he went full in for his Catholic faith. He became the youth minister and then the religion teacher at our parish and school, and he even went and got his master’s degree in theology. As a young child and a bit of a “daddy’s girl,” I was infected by his new fascination with his faith and therefore also wanted to learn more, always. This desire for truth and for the faith continued my whole life, and I was often known as “the religion teacher’s daughter” - but I didn’t mind this, since religion was the only subject I was truly good at.
So, as you can imagine, my heart was opened to the Lord and His calling from a very young age. It was my freshman year of high school that I first felt the call to religious life. I was sitting in religion class - with my dad as the teacher - and we were watching a video about something, I really don’t remember what. But in the background of this video a religious sister in full habit walked by. She wasn’t part of the video, she wasn’t a Passionist, I don’t know anything about her … she just walked by in the background as they were filming for the video. But I saw her and my heart just dropped, as did my jaw, I suspect. I knew in that moment that this is what I had to do. I went home that night and very frankly asked my parents, “So, how do you think I would look in a habit?” “Oh, so this is a thing now,” was their first response.
From there I began a long journey of discernment, and I had and on-again-off-again relationship with discerning religious life, though the longing to be a bride of Christ was always in my heart. This was the main aspect of consecrated life that attracted me, to be wedded to the Lord Jesus. That sounded, and still sounds, wonderful to me.
The “nun run” group standing under Niagra Falls (Hannah is second from right)
The summer before my senior year of high school, I planned with my three best friends and my parents a trip which is popularly called a '“nun run,” in which a group of people visits as many convents as possible in a set amount of time. We had about a week and we visited 5 different communities, ranging from Ohio, to New York, to Boston. On the way back we stopped at Niagara Falls just for the fun of it. It was a real eye-opening experience for me. Out of the group I am the only one who pursued religious life - my friends were really just coming for moral support!
I went to Brescia University for college and studied Theology - again, religion class was all I ever cared about. Throughout college I worked at Gasper River Catholic Youth Camp, which is run by the Diocese of Owensboro. There I grew in my faith and met some friends who were very instrumental in helping me strive for holiness. Sometimes that meant they were dragging me along! During this time I had almost indefinitely put religious life out of my mind, until my senior year of college, when I went to a SEEK conference put on by FOCUS (a college Catholic missionary group).
There I had a truly life-changing experience. I received a profound healing during Eucharistic adoration that I believe opened me up to the talk I would hear the next day, given by one of the Sisters of Life. She spoke eloquently about spiritual motherhood in religious life, and my heart once more dropped, as did my jaw. I quickly ran to a priest friend who was at the conference, and he helped me process my emotions. I ran up to him and said, “I need to talk,” and he responded, “Just join a religious community already!” My discernment was back on the table and was more alive than ever. Father’s main advice to me was to pick three communities and go visit them.
Hannah (top right) with her roommates
Through my connections with friends from Gasper River camp, I met some young adult women who were all moving to Owensboro around the same time I was graduating college and was in need of roommates. I ended up moving in with some of them within walking distance from St. Stephen Cathedral, where I worked for two and a half years. I was blessed with these women who helped me to grow in my faith and to live it with a firmer resolve. This time of living on my own and working was incredibly important and has now been dubbed my “pre-novitiate,” for it really did prepare me for community life.
During this time I visited two communities but found that neither was for me. There was some heartbreak along the way and some frustration, but also incredible joy as I journeyed with Jesus. I continued to grow in my prayer, and at some point within my discernment with these other communities (both of which were active religious, for I never wanted to be a cloistered nun), I felt the Lord nudging me to contemplative life. At first I would propose it as a joke to my friends … but soon it became not a joke.
I figured I would reach out to the local contemplative community so that I could prove to myself and to the Lord that I was not called to contemplative life. I figured it would be easier to drive 30 minutes to Whitesville rather than to go all the way to New Jersey or anywhere else to find out what I thought I already knew. So, I signed up for a vocation retreat (to most of the Sisters’ surprise, as I learned later), and there I fell in love with the liturgy and with the community. (Note that this was the third community that I visited, following my priest friend’s advice!)
The Lord kept drawing me back, and I became a frequent guest in the monastery, sometimes coming at the drop of a hat when an extra hand was needed for work, or when a major feast day was coming up. On May 31st, 2022, I entered as a postulant, and since then I have fallen more deeply in love with the Lord, both in my community and in the liturgy (and in so many other ways).
And what about my Grandma, you may be wondering? She passed away in January of 2021; I started discerning here in March of 2021. Though she never saw me as “a nun from up the road,” I am fully convinced she had a huge part to play in this from Heaven.
Grandma Ellen holding infant Hannah
The Bland family, fall of 2021 (L-R: Seth, Cathy, Joe, Hannah, Chelsea)
Before it becomes “old news”, we wanted to share with you the lovely reflection that Sister wrote for her Profession program …