The Reubers: Sisters Who Are Sisters

Discovering your vocation in life is a challenge. Two sisters from Celestine took different paths, but found similar callings. Sister Jill Reuber of Monastery Immaculate Conception in Ferdinand, and Sister Susan Reuber of Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Beech Grove, Ind., live in two different communities, but both of the same Rule of St. Benedict.

Sister Jill, Sister Susan and their brother, Eric – triplets – grew up in Celestine, with an older sister 12 years their senior. “We always ate supper together every evening,” Sister Jill explained, of the family who attended Sunday Mass together every week too. During those evening meals, the family talked about life and built community together. “We also went to Grandma’s and said the rosary,” Sister Jill added. These family events grounded both Sister Jill and Sister Susan’s lives in the Catholic way of life.

They attended religious-education classes and scripture-based summer events, and this trend continued into their high school years. “Faith was always there, but not overbearingly so,” Sister Susan explained. In high school, Sister Susan, and then Sister Jill, attended a Teens Encounter Christ weekend, which “helped to build my faith,” said Sister Jill.

At this point in their lives, however, joining a religious order wasn’t on either of their radars. “I didn’t want to be a Sister,” Sister Jill admitted. She attended St. Mary-of-the-Woods College and studied elementary education. Her discernment began to deepen throughout her college experience. She worked at the Outpost with her sister, and attended a mission trip at Nazareth Farm in West Virginia. It was at Nazareth Farm that she fell in love with community life, and began attending Come and See weekends at the monastery in Ferdinand. “I wanted God to send a lightning bolt to tell me I was supposed to be a sister,” Sister Jill explained, but added that she heard a homily not long after where a priest told them that God didn’t send lightning bolts. After she finished college, she entered Monastery Immaculate Conception.

Sister Susan’s discernment of religious life didn’t happen until later in life. “I didn’t feel called,” she explained. “I wanted to teach.” She worked at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis for eight years, bought a house and was living a normal life. She did attend a Come and See weekend at Ferdinand, but explained that although she really liked Ferdinand, “it wasn’t the right fit.” Sister Susan was strongly encouraged to visit the Benedictine monastery in Beech Grove instead, and although she avoided it for a long time, “I thought I might as well go; so I did.”

She expected that she would find something that she didn’t like, and could get it off her mind. However, at the end of the weekend, she hadn’t found anything she didn’t like, and she didn’t want to go home. She continued in the months afterward to join the sisters in prayer, Mass and meals. “I skipped a Roncalli event to go to the monastery,” Sister Susan recalled, and it was at that point that she knew she wanted to enter religious life. She sold her house and entered Our Lady of Grace 11 months ago.

“I think when I entered, it put the idea in the back of her mind,” Sister Jill explained. “I wouldn’t have thought of religious life without Jill entering,” Sister Susan agreed. “But we share more now after I entered, about her journey and mine.”

Sister Jill made final profession this past October, and now teaches first grade at St. Patrick School in Louisville. She also is working on her master’s degree in education with an emphasis in reading. Sister Susan is currently a novice and continuing her discernment at Our Lady of Grace in Beech Grove.