Carroll native candidate to join Marian Sisters of Lincoln
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March 28, 2024
Carroll native candidate to join Marian Sisters of Lincoln
Foundation helps rescue vocations from student debt
By LORI BERGLUND
Special to The Lumen
It is a call that has long whispered to Lizzie Kenkel. The desire to become a religious sister is nothing new to this 2018 Kuemper High School graduate.
“When I think about the future, I really hope that I will be in the convent, living out my days with my fellow sisters, and with Christ as the focus of my life,” she said.
Kenkel is currently serving as youth ministry coordinator at Ascension Parish in Boone County and is a candidate for admission to the Marian Sisters of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska.
“I have been discerning religious life for a really long time, but I never found a community that felt like home,” Kenkel said.
That changed when she got to know the women who belong to the Marian Sisters of the Diocese of Lincoln. A friend from the Catholic Youth Camp at Panora first introduced Kenkel to the order.
“I had been involved in Catholic Youth Camp since I was a kid,” Kenkel explained. “I volunteered there in high school and began working at the camp after college.”
Kenkel studied business and finance at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan., but chose a career route centered on service to the church through her work at the camp.
“My friend eventually entered the Marian Sisters and came back to the camp with some of the sisters to visit,” Kenkel recalled. “Meeting them — and seeing their joy — was a huge tug for me. I was able to have some very open and human conversations with them.”
The Marian Sisters in this order work in many apostolates outside of the convent. Each day begins and ends with prayer, but during the day many of the sisters work full-time in the outside world. They are active primarily in education, health care and social work, including prison ministry.
Postulants begin with nearly a year of learning about the order and religious life before starting a two-year novitiate, at which time the candidate receives the habit and a new name as a sister. Where they will work is determined farther down the road in the long process of discernment before final vows.
“Most of the sisters are teachers, so there’s a solid chance I will be working in education,” Kenkel said. But she is open to wherever the vocation may lead. “I’m not sure where I’ll land, but I’m sure it will be good.”
Mother was great influence
Kenkel gave credit to her parents, Terry and Kristi Kenkel, for setting a strong family example. It was her mother, who though not a Catholic for most of her life, was instrumental in encouraging her daughter in the faith.
“My mom was not raised Catholic, but she was the one who always encouraged me in my faith,” Kenkel said. “She was huge in pushing us to go to retreats. She was the one who decided that my brother and I should go to Kuemper and then to a Catholic college.”
Kenkel’s mother passed away on June 3, 2023, at the age of 54 after a two-year battle with cancer.
In many ways, her mother’s life is a tribute to the fact that one can come to the faith at any time, she pointed out. And that even as a non-Catholic, one can have a great impact for good upon the church.
“My mom and dad were married in the church, but she did not formally join the church until two days before she passed,” Kenkel said.
Her mother may not have been a member of the church all those years, but with the encouragement and support of the faith to her family, it was certainly her home long before she made it official.
“She was really an incredible woman,” Kenkel said. “I learned everything from my mom.”
Help rescue vocations
As Kenkel continues her path toward the religious life, she first needs to take care of something common to her generation: student loan debt. She is being assisted in that effort by the Laboure Foundation, named for St. Catherine Laboure.
As the foundation notes on its website, rescuevocations.org, many dioceses and religious communities require all candidates to be free of college debt before they enter. The foundation estimates that student debt is a major roadblock for more than 40 percent of the 10,000 candidates discerning a religious vocation in any given year.
This year, the Laboure Foundation is seeking to garner enough funds to help 16 men and women pay off their student loans in order to continue their vocation path. Kenkel’s goal is to raise $60,000 by June.
Laboure provides training to its candidates to assist in the fund-raising effort. Kenkel recently talked with Kuemper students during Catholic Schools Week and has an upcoming talk at the Vocation Club with the Carroll Knights of Columbus.
She is happy to come and visit with any parish groups throughout the diocese to share her vocation story. Kenkel can be contacted through Ascension Catholic Parish in Boone.
Those who wish to support and learn more about Kenkel and others in search of a vocation can make a donation at rescuevocations.org.
Berglund is a freelance writer from Dayton. She is a member of Holy Trinity Parish in Webster County.
