Sister Bridget Waldorf shares a quote from Mother Caroline Friess with a participant at the SEEK26 Conference in Fort Worth, Texas.
Sister Bridget Waldorf’s smile is a welcome. Broad and reaching straight up to her eyes, it’s a smile that says she not only is happy to see you, but eager to know you. Her openness and genuine delight in connection make her a perfect fit for her dual ministries as both a member of the SSND North American Vocation Team and head of mission integration and campus ministry at Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep.
In the ten years Sister Bridget has spent on the vocation team, she has had the privilege of sharing her experience as a School Sister of Notre Dame and accompanying others as they examine whether God is calling them to life as a vowed religious. Some of her relationships with discerners begin through events hosted by dioceses, universities, schools, or parishes. Others happen through SSND-sponsored opportunities such as monthly evening prayer events and discernment weekends for seekers. Still other connections come through personal referrals or outreach; sisters, associates, and area vocation ministers regularly introduce the vocations team to young women who might be interested in the SSND community. As they convey the joy this life has brought them, Sister Bridget and her fellow vocation ministers also support women as they explore the questions, hopes, and fears that inevitably arise along any vocational journey. “We try to meet each person where they are,” said Sister Bridget. “Some are just beginning to learn about consecrated life, while others have been praying, researching, and actively discerning for some time.”
Sister Maria Gomez and Sister Bridget Waldorf represent SSND at a vocation event at St. Ann parish in Coppell, Texas.
In addition to walking with women as they discern a call to religious life, Sister Bridget helps seekers get to know SSND by providing opportunities to visit and pray with sisters, participate in community gatherings, and learn about the congregation’s distinctive charism—the specific gift given by the Holy Spirit to the SSND community to serve the world. “What makes the SSND charism so unique is that it started as a living reality in one person—Blessed Theresa of Jesus Gerhardinger,” said Sister Bridget. “She shared it with everyone around her, people were attracted to it, and for almost 200 years, that same gift has been shared across generations of religious and lay people. Sharing the powerful stories of how Blessed Theresa dedicated her entire life to striving for unity inspires discerners to see how they, too, are invited into that same call.”
Making connections to the SSND charism is an important part of Sister Bridget’s work at Cristo Rey, as well. This past fall, Sister Bridget invited sisters from all over the SSND congregation to lead the school’s morning prayer during the month of October. Every morning at 7:45am, the school community was led in prayer by an SSND or group of SSND on video from some part of the world. The sisters spoke in their own languages, greeting the students and choosing the focus for the prayer. “The school community was able to see the diverse sisters, hear their native tongue, read the translations of their prayers, and feel their care for our community,” said Sister Bridget. “I think the impact of those consecutive days of prayer was meaningful. Students looked forward to prayer every day and they learned a lot about our congregation without me saying anything.”
Volunteers enjoy a poolside moment with Sister Bridget at Camp Whole Kids.
Last summer, SSND introduced a new opportunity by inviting students from their sponsored schools to serve at Camp Whole Kids, an SSND-affiliated summer program that serves low-income families in rural southeast Missouri. In that first year, four students from Cristo Rey took part. This summer, interest has more than quadrupled. The young people who participate work together with students from other SSND schools as well as sisters who minister alongside them for the week. In working, eating, praying, and playing side-by-side, students get to know the SSND community in a deeper way. “I know one of the young women who joined us at Camp Whole Kids last summer is now considering religious life in a way that she hadn’t prior to that trip,” said Sister Bridget.
The Blessed Theresa of Jesus Rosary Society at Cristo Rey Dallas is named after the SSND foundress. “That’s been a good connection to SSND,” said Sister Bridget.
Opportunities like the one at Whole Kids not only provide a chance to grow in relationship to the mission and charism of SSND, they also help create an environment in which young people think about their life as a calling—whether that be to marriage, single life, religious life, or ordained ministry. Nurturing that culture of discernment is an important point of overlap in Sister Bridget’s two ministries. “I think both vocations work and campus ministry are about accompanying young people and helping them to ask questions,” said Sister Bridget. “‘Who is God? Who am I in relationship to God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit? How do I want to respond to God’s generous gift of life? Do I identify myself as a Christian and what does that mean in how I am present in the world?’”
“Today’s youth are navigating a noisy, chaotic world, but I think their core desire remains unchanged: they long for authentic connection,” said Sister Bridget. “They want to know God and experience God’s personal care; they want to know they’re not alone in this world. Our role is to help them quiet the external noise and create spaces where they can build a genuine relationship with Jesus. When young people experience this profound quiet, they realize that God’s offer of life and light and authentic relationship is far more valuable than anything the world provides. Once they truly grasp that truth, it transforms their path and opens up the possibility of any vocation.”