Sister Rita Plante — 50 years

BORN: Juneau, Alaska.
ENTERED CONGREGATION: March 18, 1960

“Live out your life with one desire only: to be always what God wants you to be, in nature, grace and glory, for time and for eternity.”
(Maxim 73 of the Little Institute)

Even though I didn’t know it, this maxim of the original Sisters of St. Joseph and of today was being taught to me through out my life.
At age 11 in sixth grade, I was pretty sure of my vocation — even though I was always adventuresome, loud and in trouble a lot.

After graduating from high school in Colorado Springs, Colo., I was ready to enter the convent. My dad’s parting words were, “You’ll be back in a couple of months for three reasons: you can’t keep your mouth shut, you can’t obey, and you’re too stubborn.”

Unknown to Dad, these were the keys that kept me in religious life — to always be what God wanted me to be, in nature, grace and glory, to be who I am in my nature:

• To be stubborn, which is also steadfast and faithful;
• To be noisy, to “make a joyful noise unto the Lord,” the psalmist says; and
• To obey, which I could do, if I knew the rules.

For all this I needed a lot of God’s grace.

These 50 years haven’t all been easy but they have been very exciting. I have taught primary grades, lived and worked with the mentally and physically challenged in L’Arche and I am now administrator of St. Mary’s Spirituality Center in Silver City, N.M., and volunteer chaplain at our local hospital.

At the time when people at my age are winding down, I seem to be rewinding with more energy than ever before, more creativity, more full of — to use a term that Father Neper, who studied our origins, used — “Hot Zeal” for the mission of Jesus.

And for all this I say “thank you” to all who have been part of this journey.