From foster care to Lourdes: Young convert leaves job to see pope, embrace monastic life
LOURDES, France — The exceptional fervor that marked the pope’s visit to Paris — the first stage of his Sept. 25–28 apostolic journey to France — should show no sign of waning in Lourdes, where tens of thousands of faithful are expected to gather around the famous grotto of Massabielle when Leo XIV comes to pray there on the evening of Sept. 26, ahead of an outdoor Mass on the sanctuary’s meadow and the traditional torchlight procession the following day.
Among them will be a 27-year-old woman who will attend alongside a group of Cistercian nuns, hoping the visit will confirm the call to contemplative life she has felt since returning to the faith during the COVID-19 crisis.
It is no coincidence that Yohanna, a sign-language interpreter for deaf people, has chosen Lourdes to mark this new beginning after years of volunteering with people with disabilities. It is a few dozen miles from here, at the Abbey of Sainte-Marie de Boulaur, one of the strongholds of monastic renewal in France, that her vocation took shape. And it is to join this community as an aspirant that she quit her job in Paris, just in time not to miss the Holy Father’s visit.
Her story reflects a broader…
