August 21, 2025 // Bishop

‘A Gentle Invitation’: Two Profess Final Vows with Franciscan Sisters

Kasia Balsbaugh

“What if this was your life with my Son?”

This question was the “gentle invitation” from the Blessed Virgin Mary that one young woman, now Sister Mary Amata, heard while praying about a religious vocation.

This month, Sister Mary Peter Ruschke and Sister Mary Amata Naville promised their lives to Christ in the community of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration. Their perpetual profession of vows took place on Saturday, August 2, the feast of Our Lady of the Angels, a significant feast day in the Franciscan order. Bishop Rhoades was the celebrant, assisted by priests and seminarians from throughout the diocese who came to support their sisters in Christ.

Sister Mary Peter told Today’s Catholic that during the Mass and profession of vows, “There was just a deep sense of joy and peace, and everything was just so special – the music, the readings – just beautiful. And I just kept looking at the tabernacle – looking at Him.”

In his homily, Bishop Rhoades emphasized the fact that the sisters’ vocations are not only a gift to themselves but also a gift to the whole Church.

“God the Father has drawn these two young women to Himself so that they may be dedicated exclusively to His Kingdom,” Bishop Rhoades said.

The sisters’ life of prayer strengthens the Church and provides witness to the world.

“In today’s culture of widespread individualism, the community life of religious sisters is an important witness to society of the Church’s spirituality of communion or fraternity, a gift of the Holy Spirit,” Bishop Rhoades said.

Bishop Rhoades also reminded the religious community of the priorities of their foundress, Blessed Maria Theresia Bonzel, who had exhorted her sisters to live in love for one another, and she held up prayer and adoration as the most important part of their daily life, everything else flowing from time spent in contemplation of the Lord.

Love ‘with a Maternal Heart’

Sister Mary Amata, who wrote her thesis about the final vow ceremony while studying at Franciscan University of Steubenville during formation, pointed out that the rite has elements of both marriage and funeral liturgies – joining oneself to Christ as the bridegroom and dying to oneself for new life. Some components of the rite include the lighting of a candle, the receiving of rings, lying prostrate before the altar during the Litany of Saints, and promising obedience to the major superior.

Remembering lying prostrate before the altar, Sister Mary Amata said, “My heart was pounding so hard – my whole body was shaking, it felt like!”

Sister Mary Amata, who grew up in southern Indiana, added: “I kind of thought [being a sister] was something people didn’t do anymore.” That changed during her freshman year of college at Ball State University, when she encountered religious sisters at the college’s Newman Center. Before long, Sister Mary Amata was attending a discernment retreat at the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration’s motherhouse in Mishawaka.

On that retreat, Sister Mary Amata remembers asking what a religious sister’s role in the Church was. The sister she was talking to responded that it was spiritual motherhood.

“As women, but specifically as brides of Christ, we’re called to love the Church and the world with a maternal heart,” Sister Mary Amata remembered from the conversation. She said this conversation “lit her heart on fire.”

Another step in her vocation journey came after the retreat while praying with a friend who was struggling. Sister Mary Amata said she had “never felt more fulfilled than in that moment” of acting as a spiritual mother.

While it might have seemed her life in college was perfect, with good friends and a major she loved, Sister Mary Amata said she felt “empty and unfulfilled.” She added, “I felt more like myself at the convent than living as a college student.”

Though it was a scary step at the time, Sister Mary Amata left college after her sophomore year to become a postulant with the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration.

On the significance of her religious name, Sister Mary Amata said “amata” is Latin for “beloved,” which kept coming up in her personal prayer during her name discernment. “That’s our deepest identity, that we’re beloved sons and daughters,” Sister Mary Amata said. “We did nothing to earn that, and there’s nothing we can do to lose that.”

‘It’s a Journey’

Both Sister Mary Amata and Sister Mary Peter mentioned being drawn to the community’s defining charism of perpetual adoration. They also described their visits to the motherhouse in Mishawaka as feeling like coming home.

“This was the community I just kept being drawn back to,” Sister Mary Peter said.

Sister Mary Peter grew up near West Harrison, Indiana, near the Ohio border. While she thought briefly in her teens about becoming a religious sister, she didn’t seriously consider it until after college. Sister Mary Peter first visited the Mishawaka motherhouse for a discernment retreat in 2016, and her experiences in prayer increased her conviction in her calling to the community.

“As I have lived this life, this conviction has deepened and grown over time,” Sister Mary Peter said of her discernment. “It’s a process, it’s a journey, and the Lord walks with us just a step at a time.”

She joined the community as a postulant the year after her first discernment retreat.

Sister Mary Peter spoke of her love for her religious namesake, St. Peter the apostle, because “he is a beautiful example of continuing to follow the Lord even when we fall and make mistakes.” She spoke of admiring the apostle’s faith and feeling comforted in the fact that God gave Peter the grace he needed, just like He does for all of us. “St. Peter gives me a lot of hope,” Sister Mary Peter said.

Sister Mary Peter’s current apostolate is teaching sixth grade at St. Boniface School in Lafayette, while Sister Mary Amata serves as assistant vocations director at the motherhouse in Mishawaka.