2025 Vocations Awareness Supplement

Navilleton woman finds joy in religious vocation of ‘spiritual motherhood’

Sister Mary Amata Naville radiates joy after professing final vows as a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration on Aug. 2 in the chapel at the order’s motherhouse in Mishawaka, Ind., in the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese. (Photo courtesy of Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration)

By Natalie Hoefer

Growing up in Navilleton, Catholicism was a life rhythm for Emily Naville, the third of Bob and Jenni Naville’s four children.

“All of our family lived on the same road, and at the end of the road was

St. Mary Church,” she recalled. “We went to Mass every Sunday, I went to Catholic grade school. Our parents taught us to pray, and we said prayers before bedtime. It was a great way to grow up!”

But religious sisters were not part of her world.

“Maybe some mission sisters spoke at Mass a few times,” she says. “But I never really talked with a sister until my freshman year” at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., in the fall of 2015.

The religious woman was a novice with the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, based in Mishawaka, Ind., in the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese. And the conversation changed the college student’s life.

With the name Sister Mary Amata, the Navilleton native professed perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience with the order on Aug. 2.

With contagious joy, she shares her vocation and formation journeys, her advice for both women discerning a vocation and girls with no exposure to religious sisters, and about the two words that set her heart on fire: spiritual motherhood.

‘Something awakened in me’

With the foundation in faith set in childhood by her parents, Sister Mary Amata began to embrace the faith on her own in middle school through what was then called New Albany Deanery Catholic Youth Ministries (NADCYM), now known as Catalyst Catholic.

“I was in a youth group. I went on [NADCYM] Faith in Action mission trips. I went on retreats and started serving in leadership in high school,” she says. “Faith was very much a part of my everyday life both in action and being formed in prayer.”

Sister Mary Amata entered Ball State in the fall of 2015 to study music education.

“I wanted to become a choir teacher like my older sister,” she says. “I couldn’t imagine life without music and singing.”

She also got involved with the Catholic Newman Center on campus—where she met people “on fire for the faith” and made an impactful discovery.

“It wasn’t until college that I realized I could have a personal relationship with Christ,” says Sister Mary Amata. “I was surprised by people who knew Jesus in that personal way.”

Through eucharistic adoration and making a Marian consecration, she “fell in love with Jesus.”

To give students the opportunity to explore vocations, the Newman Center hosted events with different religious orders.

So it was that Sister Mary Amata sat down next to a novice with the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration at a spaghetti dinner late in the fall of her freshman year.

“It was the first time I had a real conversation with a sister,” she says. “I thought sisters were older or really strict. But here was a sister who was young and joyful.

“In talking with her, I realized she had real challenges and hardships. But she still had that joy because of her love of Jesus and his love for her, a joy that endured through any circumstance. I was so struck by that.

“I couldn’t have said it at the time, but something awakened in me that said, ‘I want that, too.’ ”

‘It lit my heart on fire’

That December, the sisters held a discernment retreat at their motherhouse in Mishawaka. Sister Mary Amata participated—with no thoughts of discernment.

“I went because my friend was going and I just thought it sounded like fun, hanging out with the sisters,” she admits.

The first thing she noticed was having “a sense of feeling at home, an ability to be myself.”

As the retreat progressed, Sister Mary Amata “was struck by how the sisters loved one another. They had different personalities and ages and experiences, but there was genuine love there.”

But the most impactful part of the retreat for her was a one-on-one meeting with a sister.

“I asked her about the role of religious sisters in the Church,” says Sister Mary Amata. “I said, ‘Priests are shepherds, but sisters just pray and serve—anyone can do that.’

“And she said, ‘Spiritual motherhood. As brides of Christ, we’re called to love the Church and the world with a maternal heart and to nurture the life of Christ in every person that we meet.’

“I remember what she said word for word. It lit my heart on fire.”

The next semester and through her sophomore year, Sister Mary Amata explored other religious orders and talked with vocation directors. And she continued to “grow in my relationship with Jesus, spending time with him in adoration, and falling more in love with him.”

Sister Mary Amata began to notice “a restlessness” in her sophomore year.

“I was doing things I enjoyed, I had friends, I was doing service, I loved my major,” she recalls. “But I had this sense of desiring more.”

In January of 2017, she attended a SEEK conference sponsored by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students. The event is the college equivalent of the National Catholic Youth Conference.

Among her group was a young woman who strongly desired to go to confession. But she hesitated, telling Sister Mary Amata through tears that she felt “so dirty and unloved.”

While the woman went to confession, “I sat in the noisy hall and prayed,” says the religious sister. “I never felt more fulfilled. The Lord was showing me in a small moment of spiritual motherhood that, ‘This is how I made you to love.’ ”

She could no longer deny her draw to the Franciscan Sisters in Mishawaka.

“I began to think, ‘What if I didn’t finish college?’ And the Lord showed me how he led me to trust him in life. So, when this big question came, I knew he would be with me.”

Sister Mary Amata told her parents her plans to leave college and pursue a vocation with the the order.

“That was a surprise,” Bob admits. “We had it in our heads that she would finish college. That’s what makes most sense in the world.”

He recalls her response: “If God is calling me now, how can I say ‘wait?’ ”

“She had such confidence,” says Jenni. “That’s when we realized it’s not our timing, but God’s.”

Sister Mary Amata entered the order as a postulant in September of 2017.

‘The sisters know how to have fun’

The order was founded “that love may be loved,” lived out by “ceaseless adoration, sisterly love and Franciscan joy,” explains Sister Mary Amata. “Since our founding in 1863, there has been at least one sister in adoration every minute.”

The sisters take “the love and grace we receive in adoration” to those they serve in the order’s two apostolates—health care and education.

Each sister’s day involves a flow, with times for adoration, prayer, Mass, apostolate service and personal time.

There is even daily time for recreation—a time the Navilles witnessed while Sister Mary Amata was in formation.

“They’re riding bikes, playing Wiffle ball, basketball,” Bob says of the sisters, amused at the memory. “I don’t know how they do it in their habits!”

“The sisters know how to have fun—they’re just so much fun!” Jenni adds with a laugh.

After her postulancy and novitiate, Sister Mary Amata professed temporary vows of poverty, obedience and chastity in August 2020.

Up to that point, the sisters are called by their baptismal name. Prior to their temporary vows, each postulant “prays about what name the Lord might want to give us,” she explains.

“When I prayed about it, I was struck with the thought of us as beloved daughters of God. There is nothing we did to earn that, and we’re called to help others realize God’s love for them.”

“Amata” is Latin for beloved.

“And Mary was so important to my discernment, especially through my Marian consecration,” she adds. “I prayed about her understanding of her own belovedness, how rooted she was in God’s love for her, and that’s how she was able to give her fiat. I thought, ‘I want that, to be so rooted in God’s love for me that I’d do anything for him.’ ”

The postulants submit a list of three names. Then, “with the help of the Holy Spirit,” their names are chosen for them.

Sister Mary Amata received the first name on her list.

After her temporary vows, she was sent to Franciscan University of Steubenville in Steubenville, Ohio, to earn bachelor’s degrees in business management and theology.

Bob says he and Jenni could see Sister Mary Amata “growing comfortable in her own skin” throughout her eight years of formation. (The order has since added an additional year.)

“The Church is very wise in requiring a certain amount of formation,” says Sister Mary Amata. “There’s a lot of growth and purification that happens.

“There are times that are really challenging, where it’s hard to remember why you are doing this,” she admits. “But [those times] allow us to be free to love the Lord and our sisters and the spiritual children that he’s given us.”

‘It’s such a joy to live this life’

Sister Mary Amata professed her perpetual vows on Aug. 2.

“I professed to live this life until death,” she says. “And in making that profession, I know the Lord has given me the grace to be faithful to those vows.”

Her parents have no doubt about their daughter’s vocation.

“She was never a sad person,” says Bob. “But when she made her final vows, she went from really happy to off-the-charts happy.”

Jenni agrees.

“She radiates joy,” she says. “We hear it from other people, we see it in pictures.”

Sister Mary Amata now serves as her community’s assistant vocations director at the motherhouse in Mishawaka.

“Now I help put on discernment retreats for young women just like the one I went on,” she says in a joyful voice.

Along those lines, Sister Mary Amata offers this advice to women discerning a religious vocation.

“First and foremost, your vocation is the way God has called you both to receive his love and give yourself in love,” she says. “In discernment, it’s not about solving a problem. It’s about falling in love with the Lord and following where he’s leading.”

She reminds discerning women that God “might have a different timeline than yours,” and that taking a step “doesn’t mean your committing for life. … You have nothing to lose when seeking the Lord and his will—and everything to gain.”

Sister Mara Amata also has advice for girls like her, growing up with no exposure to religious sisters: “Seek them out.”

She offers several ideas: visit a local convent; set up a call to talk with a sister about religious life; read about saints who were religious sisters; watch videos about religious life; ask your parish or youth minister to invite sisters to come give a talk.

“The Church is missing spiritual mothers,” she stresses. “We need more sisters to witness so there can be more vocations.”

As for Sister Mary Amata, she is still in awe of her own vocation.

“To be a bride of Christ is a gift I’ll never fully comprehend,” she says.

“Even though Jesus isn’t present as man here on Earth and is often hidden or quiet, the way he loves us as his brides is so real and intimate. It’s just such a joy to be so close to him and have my whole life centered on him.”

She also finds “joy in living with my other sisters. They teach me. It’s a school of love, even when we may disagree.

“It’s such a joy to live this life.”
 

(For more information on the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, go to ssfpa.org.) †