INDIANAPOLIS – At the start of June, Jennifer Prickel was still wondering when God might allow her to follow her call into religious life.
More than $50,000 in student loan debt stood in the way of the 23-year-old Indiana teacher fulfilling her desire to serve God and the church as a member of the Sisters of Reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, based in Steubenville, Ohio.
But 10 days after her story appeared in May 28 issue of The Criterion, Indianapolis archdiocesan newspaper, Prickel’s prayers were answered in a dramatic way.
On June 7, a woman called Prickel, a member of St. Anthony Parish in Morris, and told her she felt that she was supposed to pay off her debt. The woman wanted to know the exact amount needed to do that, and asked to meet Prickel later that day.
When Prickel met the woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, she gave the aspiring religious a cashier’s check for approximately $52,000.
Prickel, who was teaching at St. Nicholas School in Ripley County, now expects to enter the Sisters of Reparation as a postulant Aug. 5 – and she couldn’t be happier.
“The overwhelming feeling has just been joy and peace,” she said. “I’ve just been so joyful and just so excited about being able to finally fulfill this desire that I’ve had to live in a religious community, and dedicate my time to God in prayer. I just can’t stop smiling, especially when I tell people.”
The story continues with reactions and information on Mater Ecclesiae Fund for Vocations.
10 comments
That is awesome!
I donate regularly to the Mater Ecclesiae Fund for Vocations; they’re a favorite charity of mine.
Call me a cynic, but I hope that these applicants aren’t thinking of taking advantage of the donors. This happened many times in the 1960s when 18 year olds joined orders then “lost” their vocation once they had their degree.
It would be a good idea to have a condition placed on the gift.
I’m glad it worked out for the girl and for the donor.
But as a parent of teens, I’m left wondering who did not love this girl enough to prevent her from graduating from college with that much debt — especially as it’s implied she studied to be a schoolteacher, not a high-powered lawyer or something. I am already drilling into my kids’ heads that being saddled with that much debt at graduation is a very bad idea, to say the kindest possible thing about it. I see kids being taken advantage of by schools and by lenders … well, I guess now the ruling lender is the federal government, gag me.
But to return to my point … who failed to advise this girl and why?
Ray, Mater Ecclesiae is very thoughtfully set up to prevent abuses. You should check it out.
lethargic, your advice is too late. Besides, the point of the story is something that should be obvious by now. The need of the young people is real, and the desire of the laity to help them fulfill God’s call is real.
Congratulations: Please read my post in Catholicvoteaction.org today:
Suggestion: collect signatures for, and IN ROME, demanding the Curia’s definition of the Canon 915 as: NOT DISCRETIONAL BUT OBLIGATORY!, then, send the added agenda to the answerable? bishops in USA, hosting not excommunicated “catholic· genocide-abortion lawmakers”.
This most grave SCANDAL, missleading millions, still REMAINS.
The point (several times raised in The Curt Jester), is to organize the MAJORITY of people against genocide, and with ROME get actions done, instead of Tea Party debate clubs. I make an extensive alegation to step so, forward fot Life, in my eBook Los 7 Pecados Capitales (search Google), given GRATIS by the thousands in Spanish speaking lands, and could use a SPONSOR for translating it to English speaking countries.
God and Our Holy Mother bless us all
The normal mature person’s advice given to young people of the last generation and a half was “buy as much education as you can borrow money for, at as expensive a university as you can possibly manage”. Seriously. I was a little before that, but I saw it coming.
Perhaps we should all pray for an increase in vocations, but only among the solvent and/or wealthy.
What’s wrong with living at home, spending two or two-and-a-half years at the local community college, transferring to the State University (should accept 80-90% of the community college’s credits), and all the while working part-time weekends and maybe one evening per week, either on campus or at the local mall – waiting tables, or answering telephones and making copies?
This is how my sibs and I went through, back in the day, with a little help from the parental units and some student loans of our own, which we were able to pay off fairly quickly. Not much time for partying or vacations (we were usually working or studying), but we had fun times, too.
Doing it this way, today, could we still expect to end up $50,000 in debt?
Congratulations to her!
Regarding why she would have spent so much on student loans – graduate school is more expensive than undergraduate degrees, and since teaching salaries are low, she was probably only managing to make minimum payments. I should know, I went to graduate school, am 50k in debt and am unable to find a job in this economy. I have colleagues with higher debt because they needed to take out additional loans to pay for rent, food.
Secondly, a lot of others in my generation are discovering their vocation in college and graduate school. Its the first time we are away from our parents and really having to seek ourselves and God on our own accord. And who’s to assume that she has support from family and friends on entering the convent?
All the same, all this is water under the bridge and I’m so very happy for her