That was the case when, mid-September, my one and only sister, fresh-faced and starry-eyed from our World Youth Day trip with the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE), decided to enter the religious life as a servidora herself (as the IVE sisters are affectionately called).

Now, the decision didn’t come as a complete shock. The two of us had been surrounded by priests and religious our entire lives, ranging from the ancient orders of the Franciscans and Carmelites, to the newer, trendy orders of the Sisters of Life. My mom had a big hand in that exposure so it was basically inevitable that one of us would one day become a nun or a religious sister. But that day came a lot sooner than expected.

Our pilgrimage to World Youth Day in Madrid was an especially eye-opening experience in my sister’s discernment process. We went with a group of about 300 North Americans, 100 of them being priests, seminarians and religious sisters from the IVE. Needless to say, we heard our fair share of vocation stories during that trip. While I admittedly started to feel sedated with each tale, my sister grew increasingly starry-eyed and was always gravitating towards the IVE blue habits.

By the time we returned home to Canadian soil, she signed up for the spiritual exercises as I prepared for another year of university. Right before my departure, she announced publicly and firmly her decision to enter. Having witnessed her discernment growth from day one, I fully supported her choice and even ran interference for her with the expected parental protests. But I don’t think I realized what her decision truly meant until I recently went home to Toronto for reading week and she wasn’t there. And she won’t be there ever again.

That got me thinking: entering the religious life is not easy. My sister basically told her family, her friends, her engineering career, her Canadian livelihood (she has been re-located to the United States), her steady boyfriend — all of these comforts the world has to offer — that they are secondary. That they are not as important and that Christ is worth more than anything.

She certainly won’t be the last to enter religious life, but for the first time, the immense sacrifice that a religious or a priest must go through to “take up their cross and follow Him” suddenly has a lot more meaning for me. And I can’t help but feeling Zebedee must’ve felt left behind.

(Thien-An Nguyen, 18, is a history and political science student at the University of Ottawa. Read her full profile at youthspeaknews.org)