Mount Sisters Welcome Postulant Kathleen Lee

On August 24, 2024, the Mount sisters welcomed Kathleen (Katie) Lee to the community as a postulant. Katie’s parents and sister were present as Katie stated her desire to seek God at Mount St. Scholastica and received a copy of a prayer book and an apron to symbolize the Benedictine life of prayer and service. 

Katie was attuned early to the idea of being called by God. As a child she was fascinated by the story of how the prophet Samuel, as a youth, heard God’s voice calling him as he slept. She recalls lying awake at night and saying to God, “I’m here!” 

At age 13, as part of a confirmation class in the Methodist Church in which she was raised, Katie visited places of worship from other faith traditions. She thought that the Catholic Mass her class attended was wonderful: “I was waiting to see what would happen next!” 

In her mid-20’s, Katie began to explore Catholicism. She started attending Mass at St. Isidore’s Catholic Student Center in Manhattan, Kansas, with a colleague from the elementary school where she worked as a para educator. In 2018, she entered the Church and later began attending St. Thomas More Catholic Church. 

Katie initially began considering religious life in 2019 but was sidetracked by work demands during the COVID pandemic. In 2022, she went on a two-week pilgrimage to the Holy Land. While meditating in the Church of All Nations near the Garden of Gethsemane, she had a sense of Jesus’ loneliness as he kept vigil in the garden before his arrest, and she felt moved to say, “I will sit with you.” Through that experience, she felt confirmation of her calling to be a religious sister. 

While she was exploring religious communities in Kansas, the Mount caught her eye, and Katie began visiting with Sr. Marcia Ziska, the Mount’s vocation director. She became an affiliate in June 2023 and was ready to enter the community as a postulant in August 2024. 

Katie enjoys going to daily prayers and getting to know the sisters. A lifelong reader and learner, she has delved into her formation classes on the psalms, the history of the Mount, Benedictine values, the liturgical year, desert spirituality, spirituality of the emotions, and lectio divina. She is part of the St. Scholastica living group in the monastery. She has joined the schola (a small monastic choir) and the bell choir and serves as a lector and Midday Prayer leader. 

Katie says that one of the things she appreciates about community life is “how much I’m discovering other ways that God talks to me that I wasn’t previously aware of.” She is well on her way of living out the Benedictine vocation of listening with the ear of her heart!