As an undergraduate at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota in Winona in the mid-2000s, Pro Ecclesia Sancta (PES) Sister Laura Holupchinski was intrigued by how devoutly her friends lived their Catholic faith. When several of them pursued priesthood and consecrated life, she wondered about her own vocation.
“At first I thought, well, (God’s) not going to call all of us,” said Sister Laura, 38, who grew up attending St. Mark in St. Paul with her parents and four siblings and graduating from Cretin-Derham Hall high school, also in St. Paul.
Sister Laura discerned her own vocation through a journey that included completing a social science education degree in college and returning to St. Mark in 2009 to work for a year. At the parish, she got to know PES Father Humberto Palomino, the pastor, and two PES brothers. She also spent time in prayer, silence and at daily Mass, and the seed for her vocation –– possibly planted in college –– was cultivated, she said.
Sister Laura said she was struck by seeing PES members live out the institute’s charism of living and promoting the universal call to holiness through the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Founded in 1992 in Peru, PES is a Catholic institute and ecclesial family of consecrated life that includes priests, religious brothers and sisters, and an affiliated lay movement.
Sister Laura was also interested in West St. Paul-based NET Ministries, and beginning in 2010 traveled the United States for two years with NET teams giving youth retreats.
“I just really saw that that was an opportunity to grow my relationship with God, to have a constant prayer life, to learn how to share his love with other people,” Sister Laura said, adding that the spiritual growth she experienced in the ministry convinced her to serve a second year.
In 2012, she returned to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and taught Spanish at St. Pascal Regional Catholic School in St. Paul and St. Rose of Lima Catholic School in Roseville. In the summer of 2012, PES sisters arrived to serve at St. Mark. Sister Laura got to know them and their life, and she entered formation with PES in Peru and other locations.
She returned to Minnesota to make her perpetual vows with PES in June, alongside Sister Leann Luecke of Cedar Falls, Iowa. Together, they are the first PES sisters born in the United States to profess perpetual vows in the institute. Sister Laura and Sister Leann are two of 17 sisters and 20 priests and brothers serving in the U.S.
Sister Laura said that during her first few months of living with the sisters after entering the institute in 2014, the way they lived their charism of holiness through prayer, Mass and community life brought her to a new depth of closeness to God and sharing his love.
“When you live a life that we live that has more silence, that has more prayer, everything is built around loving God and loving neighbor. It’s easier to hear God,” she said.
Sister Laura spent several years in formation at the institute’s motherhouse in Lima, Peru, before she made temporary vows there in 2018. She returned to the U.S. and served in Minnesota and at a parish in the Diocese of Sacramento, California.
In June, Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis presided at a Mass at Our Lady of Grace in Edina, where Sister Laura and Sister Leann professed their perpetual vows. Sister Laura said she felt joy and gratitude, and she recognized the permanency of her vows, and what “a great gift it is to share that with those around me.”
Nicole Bettini, the archdiocese’s delegate for consecrated life, attended the profession Mass. She said Sister Laura’s yes to Christ’s call shows her perseverance through many years of discernment and formation.
“What I know of religious life is that it’s a journey of growing into the vocation,” said Bettini, a consecrated virgin. “(You don’t just) arrive at it, you grow into it.”
This year, Sister Laura and another PES sister have been serving children in need in the Detroit area. They also help with young adult formation at St. Isaac Jogues parish in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, where PES priests and brothers are serving.
Wherever the Lord and the institute ask her to serve, Sister Laura said, she seeks to deepen her vows and to live her vocation with faithfulness and love.
Young women discerning their vocation can learn by focusing on Jesus and who he is, Sister Laura said.
“He’s really worth everything,” she said. “There are some things that any vocation requires us to give up, but if we live our vocation with faithfulness, dependent on his grace, we really do receive much more than we give him.”
