CANOSSIAN Sister Jessika Trieu smiles whenever she thinks back to receiving the Eucharist for the first time as a professed woman religious on January 1.
“I’m still beaming from that moment,” she said.
She said she was “so blessed” that everything was able to go ahead during a time of COVID uncertainty.
Sr Trieu’s family and friends, including her fellow Australian Canossian Daughters of Charity, Indooroopilly parish priest Fr Michael Grace and Wilston parish priest Fr Ihemelandu Uzuegbu, filled Oxley Chapel for the occasion.
She had met Fr Grace and Fr Uzuegbu in her time at St Stephen’s Young Adults Ministry, which she said was “instrumental” in her life.
Her whole journey to this point was a walk with the Lord in prayer, she said.
“It’s only through prayer and more prayer and through the sisters praying for me that I came to the decision that I do like this way of life as a Canossian,” she said.
“It’s helped me to become a more integrated person with the Lord.
“In that way, I get to know myself more and by knowing myself more, the Holy Spirit is working through my life at the moment.
“When I’m in touch with the Lord then I get to grow in everything, really.”
Looking back, Sr Trieu saw two waves when “God called me to religious life”.
The first wave in 2013 was short, she said, but important because it called her to take her faith more seriously.
She paid more attention to her faith, she got involved with her parish but remained adamant that married life was her path.
The second wave hit around World Youth Day Poland 2016.
She remembered Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge speaking at a commissioning Mass at St Stephen’s Cathedral when something he said “struck me”.
“The Lord takes you as his pilgrims for a particular message, listen out to that message and ask the Lord what is the message he asks you to receive,” she recalled Archbishop Coleridge saying at the Mass.
“That opened my heart to seeking the Lord’s will in going to World Youth Day,” she said.
“After that Mass, instead of praying for … I was very adamant, I want to get married … so I stopped praying for the marriage vocation, I was actually more open then to what the Lord says on this pilgrimage.”
Upon returning from her pilgrimage, she said she was ready to take the next step.
Up until that point she had been involved with the Canossians, the Carmelites and the Verbum Dei Sisters in Brisbane.
“I didn’t know where to start, so I asked the Lord, ‘Can you please make it clear’,” she said.
Two weeks later, a Canossian Sister approached her about discerning religious life.
Sr Trieu said she knew at the moment the Lord was asking her through this person.
“In a way, I expected it – but I was still stunned,” she said.
“I took another month to decide but I knew in my heart that I was going to give it a go.”
In 2017, she started staying with Canossian communities as part of “come and see” programs and, by mid-year, she began her postulancy.
She said one of the greatest things about her postulancy was learning how to pray and being drawn into a conversation in prayer.
The conversation often steered to what God wanted for her, and Him asking her how she felt on this path, she said.
Detaching from her normal life, like selling her house and unit, went “so easily”.
“I was touched by the people He sent along the way – it all worked out very smoothly and I was excited to get to the novitiate,” she said.
The novitiate was the “big learning curve”, she said.
Her novitiate took her to live in the Philippines, which became an extended stay because of the pandemic.
While there, she said she learned a lot about living in community and interacting with her fellow sisters.
“There’s the Canossians and me – this is really the discernment about how the two of us come together, with Christ in between,” she said.
She said she learned about spirituality, human development, the institute and the Lord.
When Sr Trieu returned from the Philippines she had made the decision she was going to go ahead with her vows and started to think about what kind of ministry she wanted to do.
Youth work was a passion of hers stretching back to her time with St Stephen’s Young Adults Ministry.
She said she wanted to help young people “seek a good life and live life to the fullest”.
“It was also in (Young Adults Ministry) that the Lord helped me to be where I am and I want to give back to the youth, to help them encounter the Lord in a more powerful way,” she said.
Sr Trieu has since been sent to study youth work, and said she looked forward to working with school and parish communities.
Her advice to any young woman discerning the possibility of religious life – “spend silent time in front of the Blessed Sacrament”.
She said that was where the encouragement, energy, excitement and courage needed came from.
Prayer always had to come first, she said.
Without it, she said life became “self-focused and it will be draining; we really need the Lord’s graces to do what we do”.
“Take courage and accept any invitation that has to do with religious vocation like coming to retreats or events from the Archdiocese of Brisbane,” Sr Trieu said.
“Actively do something about it.”
She said she wanted to thank the Canossian Daughters of Charity and everyone who had been a part of her journey leading up to her profession.
“Thanks goes out to my spiritual and friendship circle that has helped me to become the person that the Lord has called me to be today, especially my friends at St Stephen’s Young Adult Ministry,” she said.
