Sister Jacqueline Spaniola doesn’t shy away from the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity’s call to serve and minister the Church through education. The Fort Crick, Mich., native actively engages Catholics young and old through organizing faith formation and adult education classes, and leading retreats in the Diocese of Marquette and Wisconsin. The second youngest in a family of 11 children, Sister Jacqueline recalls feeling drawn to religious life at a very young age. “I was in 8th grade, and one day I went past the convent and heard the sisters singing,” she explained. “And the thought came into my mind, ‘why don’t you become a sister?’ That thought had never entered my mind like that before.” After “getting brave enough” to ask her parents if she could go to a boarding school in New York that the local religious order ran, the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph, her parents initially denied her request, saying she was too young to move that far away as a high school freshman. “I thought, well God, you talk to us through our parents!” Instead, Sister Jacqueline attended the public high school where she found unique ways to evangelize her peers when their curiosity was piqued at her being Catholic. As students learned of her desire to go to the convent, she remembers engaging in interesting conversations with her classmates. “One girl came up to me, she said, ‘well, is it only Catholics that can say the rosary?’” After explaining to her classmate that praying the rosary wasn’t exclusively for Catholics, Sister Jacqueline went out and bought her a rosary. During these types of interactions, the thought of entering the convent never went away. Eventually, Sister Jacqueline wrote seven different letters to seven different orders to aid in her discernment search for the community she was meant to join. Keeping her search relatively close to home out of respect for her parents, she sent letters to convents in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. “I figured my parents couldn’t tell me it was too far away from home!” she joked. After mailing her letters, however, Sister Jacqueline realized the first six she applied to were cloistered communities. “And I thought, ‘oh no, not me, God, I really don’t think I’m called to that!’” But God had different plans for Sister Jacqueline – the seventh order she applied to was the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity in Manitowoc, Wis. “Something just told me, this is it,” attests Sister Jacqueline. “I was attracted to the sisters, the way they were,” she explained. In 1966, at the age of 15, Sister Jacqueline entered the convent as a postulant with 27 other girls in the sophomore class. Many were at the convent to attend the boarding school, but 15 other women were postulants as well. But by the time of Final Vows, the class Sister Jacqueline entered the convent with had dwindled. “I was the only one from my class who took final vows,” she said. “Those were the years of the ‘great decline,’ after Vatican II – and yet something told me to just stick it out because this is what I wanted to do.” Now, fifty years into her vocation, Sister Jacqueline serves in the Upper Peninsula for the Diocese of Marquette, currently as a pastoral associate for both St. Albert the Great University Parish in Houghton and St. Anne Parish in Chassell. At St. Albert Parish, Sister Jacqueline is active in Campus Ministry and is present with the students, she helps with retreats, day-to-day events, and other parish activities. She organizes Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) alongside parish pastor, Father Ben Hasse, as well as marriage preparation for engaged couples. Sister Jacqueline also organizes adult education classes and oversees faith formation for both parishes. “Father keeps me busy!” she said, laughing. For both the sisters at the motherhouse in Manitowoc and for the parishioners she serves in Houghton and Chassell, Sister Jacqueline organizes retreats that vary from helping young women discern religious life, to the discernment of spirits. Later this summer, Sister Jacqueline will lead a retreat that focuses on the discernment of spirits, utilizing the 22 Rules of St. Ignatius. COVID-19 didn’t get in the way of Sister Jacqueline’s ability to lead retreats in 2020, after Father Hasse encouraged her to lead them via Zoom, which seemed daunting at first. During the pandemic, however, Sister Jacqueline gave a three-day retreat, which “was very fruitful,” she attested. “We thought a retreat at home wouldn’t work, but it did. We began getting interested people from out of state as well, and people have been very thankful to be able to join from far away.” Sister Jacqueline finds one of the most rewarding aspects of her vocation to be the moments where those she is teaching discover new depths in their faith and uncover truths of the Church they had never known previously – particularly when children learn something new about their faith, or an adult education participant shares stories of their own faith journey and the impact of the class upon their spiritual life. “One time, a woman came to me and told me that taking the class that I was teaching had really changed her life,” she said. “She told me, ‘you don’t understand, Sister, even my children say that there is a difference in me because I’m taking these classes.’” A parishioner at one of the parishes she serves shared with her that although he was raised Catholic, it was only after taking classes with her that he truly became excited about his faith. “It’s really something to hear that,” said Sister Jacqueline. “And I’ve really learned a lot from others by sharing the faith and others sharing their faith with me.” Leading RCIA has been another rewarding opportunity for Sister Jacqueline, after witnessing the faith and fortitude of some of the “newest” Catholics and the unique situations some faced during and after their conversion to the faith, particularly foreign exchange students at Michigan Technological University, whose cultural and ethnic backgrounds made approaching the topic of Catholicism with their families difficult or impossible. “It’s truly amazing, to see these young people so excited for their faith,” she said. Even as a woman religious, Sister Jacqueline admits she is not immune to times of self-doubt. “As a sister, you get stretched,” she shared. “Sometimes when you get your assignment you think, ‘I don’t know if I’m really qualified to do this.’” And yet, she attests, God has provided the opportunities for growth and support for her in her own formation, as she has gone on to earn two master’s degrees in theology, one in Christian Spirituality and the other in Scripture — both of which help her better lead those she serves in her assignments, retreats, and classes. When it comes to discerning a vocation, Sister Jacqueline offers a message of encouragement and practical prayer advice: “If you really want to know God’s will when you’re praying, really be open to it. Pray on the Life of Christ and have some quiet time where God can really speak to you. As you realize your vocation, whether it’s figuring out the right guy to marry or the right community to join, you find a peace. There’s something about it, where you know it’s right.” Reflecting on the past fifty years of her vocation, Sister Jacqueline is grateful for the times she’s been challenged and looks forward to where God will lead her in the future. “God helps you get through those situations where you think, ‘are you sure you really want me to do this?’ He gives you the strength to do it,” she said. “And the challenges I’ve faced have really enriched my life. God gives the grace – it’s a path to grow closer to the Lord and it truly has been a beautiful journey.”