Reporting the Call

All thanks to one of our sterling sources who reminded me that today is the feast of St. Francis deSales, patron of journalists -- but not of St. Blog's....

The latter distinction, of course, belongs to the Scribes and Pharisees.

Speaking of holy journalism, though, a friend down in Fief Burke was intuitive enough to send my way a recent piece by Sr. Eva-Maria Ackerman, director of the Office of Consecrated Life in the archdiocese of St. Louis.

Now a member of the Franciscan Sisters of the Martyr St. George (Justin Rigali's tres favorite community), Sr. Eva-Maria was once a journalist in both the secular and Catholic presses, which she talks about in her column, published in the latest edition of the St. Louis Review (subscribers only):

If I could pinpoint the moment that my vocation discernment seemed to take off the ground, it was the day Pope Paul VI died.

I had just returned from my first assignment as a lay reporter at the Catholic diocesan newspaper in Corpus Christi, Texas, when I heard the sad news of the Holy Father's death. It was Aug. 6, 1978, the Feast of the Transfiguration.

As amazing events began to unfold at the highestr levels of the Church, I learned the ropes of my new position in the diocese....

Very sooon the church was readying itself for another papal conclave, and we were getting our stories together, wondering what the Holy Spirit was up to....

When I made the transition from secular to Catholic journalism in 1977, I had no idea how the graces of those amazing days would influence my spiritual life and set me on a pathway to my vocation to the consecrated life....

Now at the beginning of the new millennium and less than a year since the death of the remarkable Pope John Paul II, I am convinced that there are other young people whose lives have been touched by the torrent of grace unleashed at the time of the most recent papal transition....

On this feast of Catholic journalists, Sr. Eva-Maria's piece may be subscribers-only, but her journalistic flair is there for all to see at her blog. Check it out.

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