A young woman in Hong Kong finally finds her vocation—but it’s not what she expected.
By Fr. Jim Mulroney  
Michelle Chan is a pseudonym. For the benefit of her job with a Catholic Chinese news agency, it is better she remain anonymous.

A slightly boisterous Michelle Chan plunked herself down in the chair across the small table in a shopping mall café in Hong Kong’s teeming Mong Kok district.

Her usually demure pleasantry was surprisingly absent, replaced by an ebullient sparkle in the eyes looking out from behind her fashionable glasses and enhanced with a cheeky grin.

“I’ve made a decision,” she blurted. “I’m not going to join the convent.” As her words struggled to keep up with her racing mind, she continued, “I’ve given up the idea altogether.”

This was a momentous moment for the 27-year-old journalist. Being a Sister had been her overriding dream for at least 12 years. She left high school with her eyes firmly set on a local, diocesan congregation, the Precious Blood Sisters.

Advice told her to go to the university and see if the desire remained or abated. She happily complied, following up graduation with study in Kyoto, Japan, where she added Japanese to her Cantonese, English and developing Mandarin language skills.

 ‘It’s Not What I Thought’
A year ago, she quit her job at the Catholic, Chinese-language newspaper, the Kung Kao Po. Late one evening, when most had gone home, she almost whispered in her slightly lilting Japanese through the open, bamboo screen that separated her desk from mine, “I’m going to be a Sister. I’m joining the convent.”

She laughed at my flabbergasted expression, “I’ve dreamed about it for years,” she giggled, then added in a more serious tone, “I’ve prayed for this every day. It really is what I want.”

She recalled frosty, cold mornings during Kyoto’s winters, weather totally foreign to her tropical birthplace, when she rode her bicycle to Mass.

“I would join my frozen hands,” she reminisced, “and ask God to give me a vocation.”

Half obscured by her computer monitor and a pile of newspapers stacked on a shelf, she announced triumphantly, “And God did! I’m leaving here tomorrow and beginning postulancy in two weeks’ time. I wanted you to know.”

The months passed. I woke early one Saturday morning to hear on the BBC news that Pope John Paul II was dead. I realized this meant my English-language Catholic paper, the Sunday Examiner, would have to deliver a supplement to the doors of churches before the vigil Masses that evening. I ran through the shower and bolted for the office.

“Hello, Jim,” said the familiar, Japanese voice from behind the computer monitor and stack of newspapers. I leaned on the bamboo screen and the shy face smiled, “I left the convent; it was not what I thought.”

That Saturday was a rush, but papal supplements did appear in both English and Chinese at every church door in Hong Kong before evening. But Michelle never returned.

On June 4 last year, our feisty Bishop Joseph Zen Ze-kiun was speaking at a prayer service preceding a memorial rally to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. I was there with my camera and note book, mingling among the 80,000 people drifting into Victoria Park in Causeway Bay.

A friendly dig in the ribs revealed the smiling Michelle. “I’m working for a Catholic news agency now,” she said.

Still determined to try convent life again, she insisted her job was “temporary” but “interesting” as it involved travel and contact with the Catholic Church in China. “I’m thinking of joining the Trappist nuns in Japan,” she confided. “I’m praying about it.”

God’s Turn To Talk
Prayer comes in unexpected ways. A young, English journalist, from a local daily paper, telephoned me one day. “I want to write a story on young women joining the convent,” he said. “Got any good contacts?” I introduced him to Michelle and a schoolteacher who is contemplating religious life.

As Michelle ordered a beer in lieu of her customary milk shake, she solemnly licked the froth on the top and reflected, “I am a journalist. I interview people every day, but I never thought of it as a prayer. The interview with the Englishman was terrific. For the first time, I told everything. He helped me listen to what the Holy Spirit was telling me through my body and my mind.”

She explained that she was not prepared for the regimentation of convent life. “I began to show signs of clinical depression. I cried at night. There was no one who understood; no one to talk to. I did not have any incentive to do anything—all you do is get up early, go to Mass, read the Bible and go to bed. And I thought, ‘Is my whole life going to be like this?’ ”

Michelle said that after the interview she went to her parish church and sat for long hours. “For the first time I shut up,” she said. “I stopped telling God what I want and allowed myself to listen to the Holy Spirit telling me what God wants from me.”

With a big smile she sat up straight, grabbed her beer glass and clanked it against mine, “I’m God’s journalist now!” she toasted and, switching languages, giggled, “My boss wants me to work at my English, so let’s talk that for a while.”

I replied, “Amen!”

Fr. Jim Mulroney of Australia first went to Hong Kong in 2002. He is the editor of the Sunday Examiner in Hong Kong. The newspaper’s website is sundayex.catholic.org.hk