Sr. Marena Hoogland, O.S.B., stands with her parents, Jeff and Lori. (Submitted photo)
Sr. Marena Hoogland of the Diocese of Superior made her Perpetual Monastic Profession as a Benedictine of Annunciation Monastery on Friday, July 11, at Our Lady of the Annunciation Chapel, University of Mary in Bismark, North Dakota. Her parents, Jeff and Lori Hoogland, are parishioners at St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Catawba.
Annunciation Monastery’s director of mission advancement, Jill Ackerman, provided a news release:
Numbers and equations are a part of her DNA. Sr. Marena Hoogland’s logic and passion for mathematics wasn’t initially what led her to becoming a Benedictine Sister of Annunciation Monastery, but as she looks back over the past years, experiences along the way just added up.
While growing up on a dairy farm in northern Wisconsin, Sr. Marena and her six siblings attended Mass every Sunday. The children were altar servers; their father was a Eucharistic minister and their mother taught catechism. A car drive that lasted more than 20 minutes was “an automatic rosary,” recalls Hoogland.
Her encounters with sisters stem back to third grade when her catechism teacher brought the students to visit the Servants of Mary to join them for Mass and dinner. Perhaps it was their joy and spirituality that made an impression, but Sr. Marena doesn’t rule out the possibility that the spaghetti dinner followed by s’mores may have attracted her. “I just knew that these sisters were special in the Church, and I had a notion that maybe I should become one too,” she said.
Hoogland attended a public university in Wisconsin to study a degree in elementary education but soon realized that was not her calling and began working full-time at a library. She recalls being drawn to a plaque in the office with a prayer about “letting God use you.” She prayed that God would use her for his purpose every day and one year later, discerning her direction, she inquired about the Benedictine Volunteers Program at Annunciation Monastery. A few months later, after communicating with the vocation director, Hoogland applied to volunteer for six months.
“I made it very clear to the sisters that I was not discerning becoming a sister,” Hoogland remembers, emphasizing the “not.” “However, I did want to make the most of my experience, so I engaged with every aspect open to me in community life.”
In a message to a friend, she wrote, “I’m still amazed at how normal monastic life is. I guess nuns are normal people, too. Some of the sisters were teachers, some were nurses, and some were social workers, artists and gardeners. There are sisters who earned their doctorate degrees and served in capacities from university president to pharmacist, cook, baker and laundry worker.” As Hoogland pondered the unique types of individuals in community, she felt God was possibly calling her, with her unique “type-ness,” to become a sister. Openness to God and the prayerful women who supported her and each other was becoming part of her personal equation.
Inquiring “for a friend,” she tiptoed around the conversation with the vocation director about what the steps were to become a sister. Realizing that the “friend” was Hoogland herself, the director led her as the journey of the formation process began. Sr. Marena approached each step of the formation process with careful consideration, like she does when solving a math problem. She prayed for trust and openness to where God was leading next.
“My call was not like a lightning strike or a clap of thunder, as one would think,” she explains. “It was more like a feeling of rightness.” She felt encouraged and supported with each step.
In Fall 2019, Hoogland made her temporary vows, a period of three to six years, during which she attended the University of Mary and earned a degree in teaching mathematics. Following in the ministry of many sisters before her, Sr. Marena currently teaches math at St. Mary’s Academy in Bismarck. She marvels, “Every day I teach is a constant reminder of God’s providence and how his ways are better than my own ways. I have a new relationship with Christ as a teacher, and I would have never imagined how much I love my students and the joy they bring into my life.”
“The support of the sisters, my family and friends, is a blessing. The sisters are a constant source of wisdom, inspiration, and faith for me. When God calls me to take the next step, they also walk with me. They pray for me and encourage me,” Hoogland said.
Hoogland’s parents factored into this “vocation equation” trying, as her mother Lori shared, “to have more than a ‘Sunday only’ faith when raising our family.” This included praying the rosary, listening to Christian cassette tapes in the car, engaging with Bible story books and movies at home and being involved in ministry and faith formation at church.
Living in a small rural area, there were not many opportunities for the Hoogland children to see other peers excited about their faith, so their parents were intentional about their participation in diocesan youth events. These included, between 2000-2009, three one-day events organized by the Diocese of Superior called a “Quo Vadis Day.” “Quo Vadis,” alludes to the question the disciples asked Jesus on the road to Emmaus, “Where are you going?” These events were geared toward middle school students, and Lori recalls the emphasis being general discernment of God’s will for one’s life.
Once Sr. Marena told her parents she was formally discerning religious life, they encouraged her, “just like we encouraged all of our children when they were looking for direction in their lives,” she said but admitted, “It wasn’t always easy. Truthfully, we didn’t know a lot about religious life, so we didn’t know what Marena’s life would be like” or how their relationship would change with her living two states away.
“It was difficult for me to pray the vocation prayer of our diocese, ‘Father, choose from our homes those needed for your work.’ I knew it was just being selfish on my part. If God had plans for my daughter, who was I to stand in his way?” the sister’s mother confessed. As parents, they just wanted their daughter to be happy with whatever she chose to do with her life, but she realized she also needed to pray for her openness to God’s plans for Marena. “Once I recognized that, it was easier to pray that prayer.”
Sr. Nicole Kunse, prioress of the monastery, welcomed the community, Sr. Marena’s family, friends and guests to the July 11 perpetual profession Mass and offered a prayer, “May Sr. Marena, and all of us, hear and respond to God’s call every day. May the Spirit of God’s love fill our hearts to that we may be authentic signs of God’s love to all we encounter.”
