Serra Club Vocations Essay

Student inspired by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton to live out her vocation

By Olivia Egan (Special to The Criterion)

There were many great saints that influenced the life of the Church in young America. One of the first was St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.

She was a great pioneer of our faith when America was brand new and in need of leadership. She was a mother and wife, and after her husband died, she discerned a vocation to religious life. She founded the nation’s first community of women religious, as well as the first free Catholic school in the U.S. and multiple orphanages.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was a key player in bringing the faith to many people in the United States, and her religious communities continue to do so today. She was not just important in the past, but continues to be a great example of the many ways to live out my vocation and find my role in the Church today.

Sometimes discerning what God is calling you to do in the different phases of your life can be overwhelming. There are so many places and ways to help out, and they are all important. In this phase of my life, I’m focusing on how to be a good daughter and student. I am serving my church community by participating in my family faith formation program as a junior catechist because I want to teach and evangelize.

I am also serving at Mass as a lector or sacristan as often as I can. In addition to this, I’m already discerning where God wants me to be in the next phase of my life as I prepare to go to college. Not just where I will go to school, but where and how God wants me to serve his Church.

One way that I can contribute to the Church and its mission is realizing that I can have an impact right here, right now. When I went to the National Catholic Youth Conference in Indianapolis last fall, I got to hear Pope Leo XIV speak in a livestream to all of the young people gathered in Lucas Oil Stadium.

One of the things that has really stuck with me and inspired me is when he said that we are not the Church of the future, but the Church today. He encouraged everyone who attended to stay involved in their parish, to share their faith and to evangelize. He emphasized the importance of confession and growing your life of prayer.

These are all little things that we can do every day to build up our faith and the faith of the Church around us. Right now is the best time to start contributing to the Church, because there will never be a time when it is more comfortable, more convenient, or more effective. We will never be more ready than we are today, and the world desperately needs what we have to share.
 

(Olivia and her parents, Justin and Katherine Egan, are members of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross Parish in Bright. She recently completed the 11th grade as a homeschooled student and is the 11th-grade division winner in the Indianapolis Serra Club’s 2026 John D. Kelley Vocations Essay Contest.) †