On Friday, Dec. 22, Theresa Klinkhammer will be consecrated to virginity by Bishop Donald J. Hying of Madison at St. Maria Goretti Church in Madison.
Klinkhammer, a Wisconsin native, was educated at St. Mary’s College and the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, obtaining degrees in English, mathematics, and a masters in education. Klinkhammer taught locally at St. Ambrose Academy for seven years and has dedicated her professional career to
teaching.
A winding road
From a very young age, Klinkhammer has known of the Lord’s great love for her.
In an interview with the Catholic Herald on her upcoming consecration, Klinkhammer shared a memory from her childhood. She said, “I think the first time that I was interested in belonging particularly to the Lord was when I was five. My mom asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said, ‘either a nun or a tightrope walker’. From a very young age, I knew I belonged to Jesus.”
This vocation led Klinkhammer to live at a house of formation in La Crosse when she was 14. Living in community with the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George, Klinkhammer discerned the Lord’s will for her life by praying, walking, and eating with the Sisters — essentially living Religious Life as a teenager. Klinkhammer visited different Religious Orders on the weekends, always looking for where the Lord was calling her.
One Order that Klinkhammer felt particularly called to was the Missionaries of Charity. “Mother Teresa is so beautiful, and the life of radical self-sacrifice that her Sisters live was incredibly attractive to me when I was young,” said Klinkhammer.
Klinkhammer visited the Missionaries of Charity and asked to enter their order and was initially accepted by them. However, after a period of nine months, “They told me that they had decided I was no longer accepted and that I should go to college instead.”
“That was a heartbreaking moment. I wanted to belong to Jesus so much for so long, and the way that I thought He was calling me was not the way,” said Klinkhammer.
With a peace that only comes with time and God’s grace, Klinkhammer reflected upon that moment and said, “The Lord had showered me with love in my youth and in my teenage years. I knew how much I was beloved by the Lord. This interaction with the Missionaries of Charity was the Lord saying, ‘Do you love me in return and will you keep following me, even if the path doesn’t make sense? Do you love me enough to trust me?’”
Klinkhammer spent the next years of her life attending college, teaching, and continuing to pursue Religious Life. Klinkhammer even lived in a Carmelite monastery for two years, but none of those pursuits seemed to come to fruition. It was while teaching in the Twin Cities that Klinkhammer considered becoming a consecrated virgin. Klinkhammer said, “I initially had antipathy towards it. I thought that women who became consecrated virgins did that because they weren’t able to adjust to Religious Life, they had personality quirks that were too hard on the community members, or they weren’t obedient, so I thought a lot of negative things.
“But the Lord removed that antipathy and showed me that it’s just a different path of holiness. I realized that I should not try to attain holiness in the way that I think I should but rather in the way that God wants me to.”
Inspirational figures
Klinkhammer plans to draw from prominent saints and figures as she embraces her vocation to consecrated virginity.
One saint that particularly stands out is St. Teresa of Ávila. St. Teresa of Ávila was a Carmelite Nun, profoundly spiritual, and is a Doctor of the Church.
Klinkhammer said, “She’s fantastic. She’s the reformer of the Carmelites, and I got to know her really well. When I was [with the Carmelite Sisters], we called her ‘Holy Mother’.”
St. Teresa of Ávila taught that, “The way you become holy is by having charity towards others, you’re detached from all things, and you need to be humble. So, humility, charity, detachment — [having] those three things as an element of your focus on the spiritual life, I think that’s really great,” said Klinkhammer.
Another prominent saint is St. Thérèse of Lisieux. “[She] has formed me all my life. Her Little Way of small acts of charity has formed who I am. I can see people and know what they need and help tend to their needs,” she said.
For Klinkhammer, two examples come to mind when she thinks about tending to needs.
The first is performing small acts of charity when living in community. Doing laundry, dishes, cleaning around the house, or being someone to talk to are ways that Klinkhammer has been formed in St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s Little Way.
The second way Klinkhammer tends to other’s needs is in her involvement in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (CGS). Klinkhammer teaches CGS, which is a Montessori approach to forming children in the Faith. She said, “I love CGS and it’s been a huge part of my vocation.”
“Sofia Cavalletti says that children are the poorest of the poor because they are not held up by society, but to love children, to see Jesus in them, and to receive Jesus’ love from them I think has been a really great gift to my life,” said Klinkhammer.
“So, Sofia Cavalletti and Gianna Gobbi, who founded Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, will be ongoing sources of inspiration for knowing how to understand myself as the beloved,” she said.
Consecrated virginity
Consecrated virginity is one of the oldest forms of Consecrated Life. In the Acts of the Apostles, Deacon Philip has four unmarried daughters who serve as the first Scriptural reference to this vocation. This form of Consecrated Life fell out of practice for much of Church history, but “in 1970, the Second Vatican Council renewed consecrated virginity as a possibility for women because of the similarity between apostolic times and our times. The Lord is inviting women to be dedicated to Him in the world,” said Klinkhammer.
She quoted Vatican documents on consecrated virginity and said that the three parts of this vocation are to be a virgin, spouse, and mother. The first two parts, to be a virgin and spouse, are signs of dedication to the Lord.
Klinkhammer said, “The bride [of Christ] is to have a heart just for Jesus, having eyes only for Him — looking at Him to determine my every move. My heart will be fixated on Him and He’s all that I desire, to be a bride of His heart.”
To be a mother, as a consecrated virgin, means “being a spiritual mother, especially expressed in the classroom,” said Klinkhammer. “Brides of Christ are like leaven, hidden in the world, but causing an aeration of the Spirit to occur wherever they are,” Klinkhammer finished.
To learn more about consecrated virginity as a vocation, visit consecratedvirgins.org