Sr. Clare Lentz, a spiritual director and companion for most of her ministry, is constantly discerning where God wants her to be. Through good times and challenging, the answer has always been the same.
“I’ve never really questioned that God wanted me to be a vowed religious,” she says. “The details were not always clear but a lifetime of discernment always brought me back to the same place.”
She and her five sisters grew up in a faith-filled Yakima, Washington, family. Summering at their cabin in the White Pass mountains, Sr. Clare shares memories of swimming, hiking and playing games.
Even as a young child her future ministry shone through as she attended daily Mass, led the Junior Legion of Mary, participated in the Sodality and thrived in school. When she arrived at Providence Heights she felt immediately at home.
Sr. Clare earned a BA in mathematics and received her first teaching assignment at Blanchet High School in Seattle, where she taught math and religion. Not long after, she went to Fordham University to earn a master’s in religious education.
While at Fordham, the Vietnam war was raging and Sr. Clare studied with Fr. Daniel Berrigan, S.J., the noted anti-war activist and pacifist, while she also read Thomas Merton and James Douglass known for their spirituality and activism.
When she finished her post-graduate work, the Church was undergoing rapid changes and she was hired as a director of religious education for St. Michael’s in Olympia, Washington. However, she was soon called to minister with the Provincial Council as director for religious development. She accompanied many sisters in their spiritual journey as she taught the congregation about liberation theology and served on several boards – at task for which she felt ill-suited.
After her time with the council, she returned to religious education, serving for a short time at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Alaska, until the long darkness impacted her health. She then moved to St. Brennan’s in Bothell to serve people in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) program.
She lived for a time in Spokane with other Sisters in an intentional community. There she ministered as a spiritual director and educator, sometimes with as many as 18 directees. Then she moved back to Yakima ministering in prayer for the gangs in that central Washington community. Starting in 2003, Sr. Clare served for six years as vocation director for the province and cared for her mother who lived with her at St. Joseph Residence until her mother’s death in 2010. She has had cross cultural experiences in El Salvador and the Philippines.
“I’ve loved what I did, all the way through my ministries,” says Sr. Clare. “Sometimes it was very difficult and I struggled but always Providence brought me back to where I belonged.”