When I first heard a call to religious life, I hoped my story would end up like Abraham and Isaac. I thought maybe the Lord would ask me to consider something extreme: that He would only take me so far and let me prove my love to Him, then send His angel to stop me before actually going through with it. Then I would be able to get on with life as I had always planned it!

As I began my journey hoping to be like Abraham, I walked with a patient God. I attended daily Mass and received the sacraments often, and He led me to good and holy priests who mentored me and encouraged conversations with sisters and visits to various religious communities. And the Lord blessed me with a community of virtuous friends striving to know Him. In daily prayer, I began to encounter the God who made me and knows what He made me for.

I remember the adoration chapel where I first found in my heart—not the fear of being called to religious life but instead —a deep desire for it that surprised me. I recall sitting in my college house kitchen reading a book on Dominican spirituality and becoming overwhelmed with the sense that Dominican life was made for me and I for it. I still see the scene as I sat in a rocking chair on our Motherhouse’s back porch after learning about St. Dominic for the first time. I had a distinct feeling that he was very close to me and that he wanted me to follow in his footsteps to heaven. Little by little, the Lord led me by the hand and revealed my own heart to me. What had previously been hidden from my eyes was made plain as I followed His lead, first with hesitation, and then with enthusiasm.

Jesus Christ knows all of our hearts and wants us to flourish. There is a deep joy and peace unknown to the world when we can (even very slowly!) let go of our fears and follow His lead, because He knows what we were made for. Jesus Himself assures us that anyone who endures trials for the sake of His name will receive eternal life and that this abundance of life begins even now!

In my family, we are blessed to see a variety of vocations. I have witnessed my parents and siblings becoming holy in their vocations, which are as unique as the people themselves. I have seen God give them the grace to be faithful in the midst of trials, and I have seen their love grow for Him and those they are called to serve. Before my eyes, they are being transformed into the people God created them to be. For my part, I see daily the ways the Holy Spirit is moving in my life and the lives of my fellow religious sisters, transforming us as well.

In August, I was blessed to make my first profession of vows alongside eleven other women as we responded to the Father’s call to be brides of Christ, living in imitation of Him and His Blessed Mother. The Church gives religious life as a safe and sure path to holiness for those called to it, and I have witnessed with gratitude its beautiful, joyful, and transformative power in the lives of those who live it faithfully.

I am glad, in the end, that my story did not turn out like Abraham and Isaac’s story. They prefigured the redemption wrought by Christ, but the Lord has called me to fullness and fulfillment in living Christ’s life as a religious sister. In His goodness, He wants to lead and guide each of us. He gives us the grace, if we are willing, to say yes to whatever He asks, and to keep saying yes every day thereafter. I recently read George MacDonald’s poem Obedience, the last stanza of which I think captures the beauty of this yes: “Then into His hand went mine; / And into my heart came He; / And I walk in a light divine, / The path I had feared to see.” ✣

Sister Jordan Caeli Geiger, O.P. from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati recently made her first profession of vows with the Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia.

This article appeared in the November 2025 edition of The Catholic Telegraph Magazine. For your complimentary subscription, click here.