By Paula Day

Sister Mary Denise DeSales will make her solemn profession March 26 as a Sister of the Visitation at the Visitation Monastery in Snellville. Archbishop Eugene A. Marino, SSJ, will celebrate the 9 a.m. Mass of Religious Profession.

Sister Mary Denise is a native of Phoenix, Ariz. After entering the Church in 1973 and working with the Little Sisters of the Poor, she sought out a contemplative religious congregation whose main focus was prayer. She said a contemplative lifestyle had appealed to her for some time. She entered the Snellville monastery in 1983.

“I’m seeking union with God,” Sister Mary Denise explained. “It will take years, but God accepts me where I am. What I know now is how loving God is. I didn’t know that before.”

After a six-month postulancy and two-year novitiate, Sisters of the Visitation profess annual vows for four to six years before making their solemn profession. During the Mass of Religious profession Sister Mary Denise will promise to make “Jesus the object of love forever,” and to live in the Snellville Visitation Monastery the rest of her life.

Sister Mary Denise’s day is spent in prayer and physical labor focused on union with God. She is in charge of keeping the monastery’s 26 acres trimmed but says her main work is prayer. Her physical activities involve driving a tractor with a bushhog attachment. She also plays the guitar and accompanies the 17 other Sisters at the monastery during prayer.

The Sisters of the Visitation came to Georgia from Toledo, Ohio in 1954. Their first residence was at 1820 Ponce De Leon Ave. in Atlanta and they moved to the Snellville location in 1974. The order was founded in 1610 in Annecy, France by St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane Frances de Chantal.