UST alumna’s vows were Pro Ecclesia Sancta’s first taken beyond Peru

As a young Catholic growing up in the northern Twin Cities metro, Sister Maddie Shogren didn’t know any religious sisters. So, she attributes the fact that she now is one only to God’s grace and providence.

“I’m very happy,” said Sister Maddie, who professed first vows Oct. 15 as a sister of Pro Ecclesia Sancta. Her vows were the first a woman has taken outside of Peru, where PES is based.

Being able to profess vows in the Twin Cities meant that she was surrounded by family and friends who may not have been able to travel to Lima — and the opportunity for them to see something that many Catholics never personally witness in the life of the Church.

The day brimmed with “lots of joy, lots of emotion,” said Sister Maddie, a 26-year-old alumna of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. The religious community’s superior, Mother Naeko Matayoshi, was present for Sister Maddie’s vows. She professed them during a Mass presided by Bishop Andrew Cozzens, bishop-designate of Crookston, at St. Mark in St. Paul, a parish where PES priests and sisters serve. Concelebrating were two of her relatives, both priests of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis: her uncle Father John Floeder of The St. Paul Seminary and her cousin Father Louie Floeder, associate pastor of Divine Mercy in Faribault. Frankie Floeder, Sister Maddie’s cousin and a seminarian, served at the altar.

“It was a beautiful moment where I could profess my vows in front of our bishop and before the Lord, and promise him to live and try to imitate (him) by living out the evangelical counsels, which are poverty, chastity and obedience,” Sister Maddie said. “That was a very beautiful and intimate moment between me and the Lord.”

While greeting people after Mass, “you could just tell that the Lord’s joy and the Lord’s love had radiated to everyone there,” she said. “I don’t know how to explain this, but I could see in their eyes — lots of people looked like they had watery eyes, like they had experienced God in a new and more powerful way than they had before. That was so beautiful for me, to be able to see that that ceremony where I was able to make my vows was so much bigger than just me making my vows. It was the Lord loving all his people.”

Sister Maddie’s white veil is a sign that she’s taken temporary vows. She’ll likely take final or permanent vows in four to five years. She is the second woman from the Twin Cities to take first vows with PES; Sister Laura Holupchinski took her first vows in 2018. She is also the fourth American to take first vows — two others, Sister Leann Luecke and Sister Lynn Luecke, are biological sisters from Waterloo, Iowa.

Sister Maddie grew up attending St. Paul in Ham Lake, and she was homeschooled until she entered Blaine High School. The PES sisters were the first religious sisters Sister Maddie got to know personally, and she was somewhat surprised to find that she had fun with them, and they were anything but dull. She met them while attending meetings of a Catholic women’s leadership group her sophomore year at St. Thomas. She was studying secondary math education, and she pictured her future self as a math teacher, married with children. However, the PES sisters were joyful and loved to laugh, and she was attracted to their mission to serve the family and devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

That year she got serious about her prayer life, dedicating more and more time to what she described as conversation with Jesus. She began by committing five minutes a day, eventually growing her daily prayer to a full hour. As she prayed, she felt God asking her to give herself to him as a religious sister.

That was 2015, the year Philadelphia hosted the World Meeting of Families. She traveled to the event with other St. Thomas students, and while there, she was struck by the array of Catholic women’s religious communities. But, she felt God draw her heart to where she first authentically met religious life: Pro Ecclesia Sancta. Her junior year, she told her spiritual director — a PES sister — that she wanted to join her community, and she told her family what she felt God was calling her to. Her parents and four younger siblings were supportive, she said.

Meaning “For the Holy Church,” Pro Ecclesia Sancta was established in Peru by a Jesuit in 1992. As an “ecclesial family,” the community includes both men and women religious. In the United States, PES members serve the Twin Cities and Sacramento, California.

Sister Maddie joined PES shortly after graduation in 2017 and spent a few months as an aspirant, wearing street clothes and entering into their way of life — including speaking Spanish. In 2018 she formally became a novice, and she went to Lima for two-and-a-half years of formation. She was surprised when she was sent back to Minnesota for a pastoral year prior to first vows. For the past year, she taught religion at Nativity of Mary School and assisted at St. Mark with its Ignite youth program. Now, she continues her work with Ignite and also the parish’s faith formation program.

She lives with 11 other sisters at their convent in Bloomington. Their lives are rooted in prayer, with Mass, the rosary and two Holy Hours the non-negotiable aspects of their day, Sister Maddie said. She still loves to run, she said, and read — especially the lives of the saints. St. Faustina’s diary about Jesus’ divine mercy is among her favorite books, she said.

As she considers what her future with PES might look like, she doesn’t think about whether she’ll spend her years in the Twin Cities, or Peru, or somewhere else the order ministers.

“Every day is a gift from the Lord, and I know that I wake up and I say yes to him again,” she said. “My one desire is to be completely his and do his will.”