Carmelite nun professes solemn vows

Friday, Oct. 24, 2025

SALT LAKE CITY — Sister Mary Genevieve of Saint John, OCD, took the final step on the path to become a permanent member of the Carmel of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Salt Lake City by professing her solemn vows during a Mass on Oct. 11 at the convent. 

The Very Reverend Matthew Williams, OCD, Provincial of the Discalced Carmelite Order, Western Province, presided at the Mass. Concelebrants were Dominican Father Michael Augustine Amabisco, chaplain at the Skaggs Catholic Center in Draper; Father Sebastian Chacko, in residence at Saint Francis Xavier Parish in Kearns; and Father Adrian Komar, pastor of Saint Thomas More Parish in Cottonwood Heights. Deacon Steve Hillmann, from Sr. Genevieve’s home parish in California, assisted.

Father Williams offered his congratulations to Sr. Genevieve’s family and friends and to the monastery’s community members “on this great occasion,” he said. “It’s a great day for the Carmel and for our province, and we’re very grateful to God for the many blessings that he has bestowed upon us.”

In his homily, Fr. Michael Augustine said that God revealed to Sr. Genevieve his plan for her life, just as the Almighty does for each person, and that she was opening her heart and mind “to the limitless love of God.”

To get to that point, she had undertaken “a journey of many years, many prayers, probably many doubts and many tears,” Fr. Michael Augustine said.

“God calls, God gives, God sends,” he said, adding that he hoped Sr. Genevieve’s example of following God’s call would inspire those present to reflect on “what that means to us – how are we called, what are we being given, and how are we going to be sent? Will we be open to all that?”     

During the Profession of Solemn Vows, which followed the homily, Sr. Genevieve said she desired “to live faithfully with the Blessed Virgin Mary a life of allegiance to Jesus Christ,” which includes chastity, poverty and obedience.

“With my whole heart I give myself to this religious institute restored by Saint Teresa, to seek perfect charity in the service of our Mother the Church by the grace of the Holy Spirit and the help of the Mother of God, through constant prayer and evangelical self-denial, and to give eternal glory to the most Holy Trinity,” she vowed.

 In an interview two days after her solemn vows, Sr. Genevieve said she feels that, rather than having arrived, she has barely started on her path. “I prepared so much for so many years for this moment, and now it’s like God says, ‘I still have something prepared for you.’ I think it’s along the lines of, my confessor said, ‘Now the work really begins.’”

She is excited about the journey ahead, she said, because “since God has prepared me up to this point, now he has really equipped me to go further and to embrace whatever he sends.”

Life in the cloister was not something she envisioned while growing up. She was baptized as an infant and attended religious education classes until she was 9 years old even though her mother was not Catholic and her father was not practicing the faith.

When her parents divorced, she no longer attended CCD classes, but did read her mother’s King James Bible, choosing passages at random, she said. After high school, she attended the University of Redlands in southern California and became active in the Newman Center. One of the students there received the Sacrament of Confirmation, “and when I saw that, I thought, ‘That’s what I want,” she said.

After graduating from college, she was confirmed at age 22 at Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Rowland Heights, Calif., where she became a cantor. A colleague there suggested that Sr. Genevieve consider a religious life, but she dismissed the idea because she wanted to pursue a career and a family.

By the time she was 28 she began to consider a religious vocation more seriously, she said, because “my mind and my heart were in the Church,” she said, “and I really wanted to do something that I could put my whole heart into.”

She broached the subject with her mother, who was “totally against it,” she said. However, when a member of her parish was ordained a priest, she heard the vocation story of one of his classmates and decided she should keep herself open to a call, though she did not feel attracted to any particular religious order.

Then, when she and her mother attended the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, she was “just so enamored by the beauty of the mountains,” and felt God’s presence, she said.

When she returned home, she googled religious orders in Utah and the Carmelite monastery in Salt Lake City was the first that came up, she said. She wrote to ask if she could visit, and was invited to do so. On the first day, when she knelt in front of the Eucharist, “I felt this deep peace, and I knew that this was it,” she said.

When the five-day visit ended, “it felt strange to leave,” but it was another 18 months before she entered the convent. One reason was the opposition of some members of her family, she said. While her father’s younger sister and her husband are devout Catholics who “have really supported me in my faith,” her mother’s family are not Catholics and “I think they really felt that they were being rejected.”

Even after she became a postulant the path was not always smooth, she said, but “It was, I think, the grace of God working because it seemed like whatever happened during the day, or whatever I was struggling with, coming to prayer and sitting before the Blessed Sacrament still felt like home.” 

Among the difficulties she faced was learning to ask permission to do things, she said, because she had been living on her own, and her mother had always encouraged her to be independent, “so I was used to taking the initiative and doing things.” 

Sometimes she doubted whether she had made the right decision, she said. “I think the Devil does try to discourage you, or make you think that you’re not on the right path,” but for her “the grace of God always came through. There was no challenge that it came to the point where it was like there was no more rope. Whenever I got to that point where I felt like I was at the end of the rope, maybe in another moment or another day there seemed to be more rope, so it was always that grace that kind of pushed me on.” 

She had weekly classes that taught her about Carmelite saints and traditions, and there was also day-to-day learning to live in community, she said.

“Deciding to persevere has been a mark of my journey, because in the beginning as a postulant and a novice I felt like I was still discerning, really, whether this was my vocation, whether this is the life that I want for the rest of my life,” she said.

As the years passed, she felt more certain of her vocation, and her family has accepted her decision, she said, “because they do want me to be happy. [But] they still don’t fully understand things like why can’t I come home for Thanksgiving, things like that. But by the grace of God their love for me is something that hasn’t changed.” 

Now fully professed, “I still feel this great peace,” she said. “What the future holds I really can’t say, but … I feel blessed and it’s a grace and a blessing, this vocation, because if it had just been me I wouldn’t have chosen me. God has called me,” and that gives her peace.