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BURTON, Ohio — The newest nun to enter Christ the Bridegroom Monastery has entrusted her monastic vocation to the disciple whom Jesus renamed and commissioned as “this rock” on whom he would build his church.
“There are so many reasons that I desired to bear the name of St. Peter,” said Sister Petra Gafford in an interview with Horizons. “But the foundational reason is that he has come alongside me in prayer these past several months and led me deeper into the Paschal Mystery.”
Sister Petra, formerly known by her baptismal name, Sara Lynn, was tonsured a rasophore nun at St. Stephen Byzantine Catholic church in Euclid, Ohio, Feb. 1.
The rite includes the symbolic cutting of bits of hair, taking on the monastic robe and receiving a new monastic name. A monastic name is usually of a saint. It is submitted, along with other names of saints, by the candidate for tonsure and discerned by the hegoumena, or abbess, of a monastery.
“At first, I was anxious that the name I was given wouldn’t feel like it ‘fit’ me,” she said. “But on my pre-tonsure retreat, Jesus assured me that he knows me better than I know myself, and he was the one naming me through Mother (Theodora Strohmeyer, the hegoumena) and the bishop.
“(Jesus) asked me to allow him to speak over me the identity he has given me from all eternity, to reveal through this new name the woman he created me to be,” she said. “Then, I was very eager and excited. It was so hard to wait.”
Bishop Milan Lach, SJ, apostolic administrator of the Eparchy of Parma, presided at the rite of tonsure, attended by about 200 people, including family and friends.
“The moment when Bishop Milan first spoke my name, ‘Sister Petra,’ as he prayed over me, I felt deeply known, claimed by Love, as though I’ve always been Petra but didn’t know it until Jesus gave me the gift of myself,” she said.
Reflecting on Jesus’ call of St. Peter in his homily, Bishop Lach, asked those present to consider how far they would go to follow Jesus.
“Jesus, again today, through this liturgical celebration, invites you also, and again repeats, ‘Follow me. Follow me in your life! Are you prepared to follow me with all? With all sacrifice? Again, with all renouncement of this world? Or no?’ Each of us needs to give the answer to Jesus Christ, as today Sister Petra gave this answer here,” he said.
Sister Petra, 31, entered the monastery as a postulant, or dokimos, Feb. 1, 2017. She converted to Catholicism from Protestantism in 2009, and first met the nuns of Christ the Bridegroom Monastery in February 2016.
Sister Petra said the word that best describes her dokimos year is “stripping.”
“Religious life immediately began stripping away my illusions about myself, revealing the reality of my own poverty,” she said. “Though this is painful, it is also a supreme grace, because only the poor shall inherit the Kingdom — and nobody is more poor, more dependent, than a child. As my masks — that had fooled even myself — were stripped away, I came to know that Jesus loves me, this poor woman, just as I am.”
Sister Petra also shared her reflections on her spiritual struggles in light of the Gospel stories of her patron, St. Peter.
“On a natural level, I respond to suffering the way St. Peter did when Jesus first told his disciples that he would suffer and die in Jerusalem: ‘Lord, may this never be!’ I want to escape the cross, to find a way around it. But there isn’t another way. The only way to life leads through Golgotha,” she said.
“But, having witnessed the resurrection, Peter learned to embrace the cross, eventually giving his life as a martyr in Rome, crucified upside down,” she continued.
“The resurrection filled Peter with a hope that enabled him to joyfully, trustingly, take up his cross and follow after his friend and master. He could suffer and die because he knew that Love won: Christ’s death has trampled death,” she said.
“I need the prayers of St. Peter, that I, too, may grow in this hope and joyfully embrace the crosses inherent in my vocation,” she added.
A native of Ashville, Ohio, Sister Petra will continue her vocational journey with the monastic community and discern her call to a life profession. This period is expected to last from three to four years.
With Sister Petra, Christ the Bridegroom Monastery in Burton, Ohio, now has six members; three of them are rasophore nuns. The monastery was founded in 2009 in the Byzantine Catholic Ruthenian rite.
To view a video of the tonsure ceremony, visit the Feb. 6 post at www.christthebridegroom.org.
Caption : The nuns of Christ the Bridegroom Monastery pose with the two bishops in attendance at the tonsure ceremony, held Feb. 1, for Sister Petra Gafford. From left to right: Mother Cecilia Hritz, Mother Theodora Strohmeyer, the hegoumena, Bishop Milan Lach, SJ, apostolic administrator of Parma, Sister Petra, Bishop John Kudrick, retired bishop of Parma, Mother Gabriella Houck, Sister Iliana Lonchyna and Sister Natalia Olsen. (Photo: Tara Marcic/Christ the Bridegroom Monastery)
As published in Horizons, March 4, 2018.
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