What We Do
Sisters' Stories
Sr Marie Bourke fmdm
I grew up on a farm, in the small country town of Victoria; Nathalia, which is about 250 kms north of Melbourne, not far from the Murray River and the red gum forest of Barmah. We were seven children, though my youngest sister, Kerry died when I was five. My mother was a convert when she married my father, and it is probably true to say that much of our religious experience was drawn from her enthusiastic if at times strict understanding of Catholic life. I doubt I'd have chosen a religious vocation if the FMDM Sisters had not come to our bush town and opened a school there. The religious community of Sisters brought a breadth of understanding which gave light and humour to the narrowness of religious practice in my parents' generation but I was particularly attracted to the welcome and joyfulness I met amongst the Sisters. Also I don't think I'd have thought of becoming a Sister, had not my teacher Sr Maureen asked me one day out of the blue, had I ever considered such a calling. I loved Saturday tennis and netball, going to the football and even boys were offering possibilities for the huge, lonely spaces of my teenage heart.
That was 35 years ago. Imagine that! And yet I've never regretted my decision to "give it a go," as I termed it in my own mind, ever surprised in those early years that I still found myself there in religious life! I'm not a great devotee to the rosary, but in the two years before "entering" it was in the formal prayer of the rosary that I found that I could talk to God. My heart used to light up, I knew not from where or how, but it gave me the hope and inner sense that this was the only right way for me at the time. This inner sense has never left me even in difficult and painful periods of my life, especially in my thirties when forced by insomnia and inability to concentrate on classroom teaching I felt obligated to look into the painful baggage of my life and seek counselling. This inner sense remained with me in my turbulent forties when sorting out what it meant for me to be a sexual woman, a religious and a person in touch with myself physically and spiritually. Even in my years in Africa, thrown into different cultural worlds, making mistakes and learning even more what I'd prefer not to know about myself! And today in these days, in my fifties of more gentle pace and hopefully more grounded sense of myself; I'm ever grateful for this particular way of life, in relationship with Jesus; and as a member of our FMDM Congregation.