by The Rev. Virginia L. Bennett, D.Min.
[Editor's note: Originally this article was written in response to an email from a parishioner at St. Andrew's. The parishioner wanted to know what it was like for Mother Bennett to " feel the presence of God in your life, moving within you, beckoning you to the priesthood?"]





I was raised in the 2nd largest Lutheran Church (not Missouri Synod) in the country. It had 6000 baptized members. So my first impression of church/religion was something that awed me, made me feel as though this must be about something 'enormous'. A picture of the nave and sanctuary is in my office at church. I remember being so small that the top of the pews were taller than me, and walking with my mother down that aisle I remember the sun coming through the stained glass window behind the altar of the risen Christ and it was just overwhelming; breathtaking; something that affected me on a visceral level, but I could not explain.

I hated Sunday School and before that my mother always told me that when she could hear babies and small children screaming in the nursery she was sure I was the loudest. Confirmation Class however, ( 7th through 8th grade) interested me. I guess it was the first time I had really been exposed to any 'theology'; and even today I remember a lot of stuff that I still think was/is good.

The liturgy at the church where I grew up was very lovely, beautiful. Definitely something of the mystery of God 'caught me'. I always/often felt as though I was different from the other kids in this way; felt as though I was impressed or drawn to something that they weren't experiencing. A sensitivity perhaps, I don't know.

(Although I can't really remember exactly when this was, although it was about the same time as the event I will describe below, I saw the movie "Ben Hur" and it wiped me out. I was so 'caught' by the movie, the reality of Christ and the Passion, it moved me beyond any words I can describe. I suppose in a way some would liken it to a conversion experience.)

Once our Confirmation class ended I and a couple of other kids (we were 14) really wanted to learn more, so we asked one of the older pastors if he would keep teaching us. So he did. However, there was an 'event' that happened in the midst of all this that really affected me.

I was Confirmed on a Sunday morning when I was 14 and in the afternoon a family friend of ours was ordained to the RC priesthood at the Cathedral in the afternoon. My mother and I attended. I was absolutely blown away. It was everything, the incense, the mystery, the whole idea of giving one's whole life to God. (Once my pediatrician told my mother, "she is the most sacrificial child I've ever known") - whatever that meant! It probably meant I was really stubborn; which I am.

That ordination event affected me deeply. I wanted priesthood more than anything I had ever known. Before that all I ever wanted to be - and strongly so - was a doctor. So I had these two interests; medicine and God and the church. (I think in some way at that time I probably thought God and the church were pretty much the same). Anyway....

I struggled with all this because I just thought, "Why didn't God make me a boy? All this is completely beyond me." I even wrote about 'priesthood' in my pink pony tail diary. Seeing the movie "The Cardinal" made it all even worse. Ultimately I revealed it only to my mother, who basically said, "Well, you'd better think of something else, cause we can't afford a psychiatrist." She always denied that, of course, but essentially it was true.

So....I searched out everything under the sun as a substitute, parish worker, missionary, deaconess. Not only were there no women pastors in the Lutheran Church at this time, girls couldn't even carry candles then! I made a big scrapbook with all the possible answers to my vocational yearnings, although none of them really fed or met the hunger.

Then one day I was sitting behind a girl in biology and overheard her talking about the fact that in her church (Episcopal) there were monks and nuns. I thought, 'that's it!' I'll become a nun" Well, it wasn't quite like that, but it was the beginning. In my young mind I felt that if I just didn't become Roman Catholic it wouldn't upset my mother if I became a nun. Wrong! Well, I started investigating all the possible orders in the Episcopal Church; and that wasn't easy for a 14 year old girl without internet or anything like that. I went to see an Episcopal priest and he said "Have you talked to your parents about this?"

After a long investigation and being in communication with the Mother Superior of an Episcopal Convent in New York, I flew to New York to spend the summer with them. That is a long story, but I didn't stay very long. My Dad was against it but my mother said "She has to find out", so she borrowed money for me to do that.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, in the midst of all this, my two girlfriends and myself (my idea) built a chapel in my basement. Ultimately it was in the Des Moines Register and Tribune and in Guidepost Magazine. One of the editors of the magazine came to stay with us for two days, part of a trip he was already making. Our group of chapel girls grew to six girls. Some of our parents thought we'd lost our marbles; getting too religious...why weren't we out dating like 'normal' girls...had our pastor talk to us.

In the end the chapel was dedicated with over 40 people in attendance. Wow to look back on all this now..amazing.

High School came and ended. The chapel folded. We went our separate ways. I went into nurse's training and was thinking about the convent again, when I met my first husband and we got married. There went the convent. I was still not an Episcopalian. That didn't happen until I was 26 years old.

I was married way too young (18). The marriage should have never happened. The good that came out of it was my oldest daughter Kelly. My husband got sick when she was only 3, with Crohn's Disease. He was from Canada and his illness and other stuff involved us moving back to Canada when he graduated from chiropractic college. Then we moved back here when I went to chiropractic college and then back to Canada because he was very ill and we had no health insurance. Ultimately we separated and divorced.

I never really thought about the priesthood for a long time after that. I ended up marrying again, moved to St. Louis, saw my first woman priest at the Cathedral in St. Louis and thought it seemed really strange. I ended up losing a baby when I was six months pregnant, a little boy, and that plunged me into a massive grief reaction.. made worse by the fact that I was married to an ob/gyn and was unable to get pregnant again.

Ultimately we adopted a little girl (nother long story). I finished nursing at Missouri Baptist Hospital school of nursing. I bought a horse, started teaching at Logan Chiropractic College in the mornings (nother long story), and rode my horse three afternoons a week; finally felt as though my life was getting back together. I was actually still thinking about possibly going into medicine.

Somewhere around that time I saw the article in Glamour Magazine about the young woman, Peggy Munzie (I still remember her name!) who became an Episcopal priest. I couldn't let go of it. And one day, when I was in the choir (The Church of St. Michael and St. George, Clayton, where Romayne used to sing), as I was totally pre-occupied with getting music ready, the priest in the pulpit said something to the effect of "some of you know there is something you are meant to do and you're not doing it". It was like I had been stabbed and I said "Yes" and I knew I would never turn back.

One night my husband said he thought sure he could get me into St. Louis University School of Medicine. I said "That's not where I'm at." He said "What? What do you mean, that's not where you're at?'" I said something about the priesthood and he said "What?!!! Oh my God". I remember he got in bed quickly and thus began the long long journey.

My mother was stunned; didn't really see how it would all work. My brother said (to my mother) "We're so different".