Public Celebration for Sister Marena Hoogland’s Perpetual Monastic Profession
Sometimes Math and Monastics just add up!
Bismarck, ND: On July 11, 2025, Sister Marena Hoogland will make her perpetual monastic profession (final vows), as a Benedictine Sister of Annunciation Monastery. The public is invited to join Sister Marena and the monastic community for Eucharistic Liturgy at 1:30 p.m. in Our Lady of the Annunciation Chapel/University of Mary, followed by a reception at Annunciation Monastery.
Her story:
Numbers and equations are a part of her DNA. Sister Marena Hoogland’s logic and passion for mathematics wasn’t initially what led her to becoming a Benedictine Sister of Annunciation Monastery, but as she looks back over the past years, experiences along the way just added up!
While growing up on a dairy farm in northern Wisconsin, Sister Marena and her six siblings attended Mass every Sunday. The children were altar servers, their father was a Eucharistic minister and mother taught catechism. A car drive that lasted over 20 minutes was “an automatic rosary,” recalls Sister Marena. Her encounters with sisters stem back to third grade when her catechism teacher brought the students to visit the Servants of Mary (Servites) to join them for Mass and dinner. Perhaps it was their joy and spirituality that made an impression, but Sister Marena doesn’t rule out the possibility of the delicious spaghetti dinner followed by s’mores outside that may have attracted her. “I knew that religious sisters held a unique role in the Church, and I had a brief and fleeting thought that maybe I should become one too, if only because there didn’t seem to be many around, and it seemed important that someone should become a sister.”
Time and adventures led Sister Marena on paths that brought her to attend a public university in Wisconsin to get a degree in elementary education. She soon realized this was not her calling, and she took a break from college and worked full-time at a library. She recalls being drawn to a plaque in the office that had a prayer on it about “letting God use you,” and prayed that she would be open to however God would use her to serve Him. She gave the library a year and discerned about what to do next – volunteer, return to school to complete her degree, continue in the workforce. Wherever she was called, she was looking for something that had meaning.
Through a conversation with a friend and a Google search, she was introduced to the “Benedictine Volunteers Program” at Annunciation Monastery and reached out to the program director. It sounded like something she wanted to do in a year or so. During that year, she followed her father’s suggestion to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering. After all, her brother was an engineer, and she also excelled at math and critical thinking. She even did trigonometry problems for fun.
A few months into the engineering program, she had an email from the program director who she had talked to earlier about the Benedictine Volunteer Program opportunity at Annunciation Monastery. Through prayer, discernment, and asking God to help her trust His plan for her life, Sister Marena left the engineering program and sent in her application to volunteer at the monastery for six months.
She smiles as she remembers, “I made it very clear to the sisters that I was not discerning religious life. However, I did want to make the most of my experience, so I engaged with every aspect open to me in community life.” In a message to a friend, she wrote, “I’m still amazed at how normal monastic life is. I guess nuns are normal people, too.” She recalls her surprise at learning the variety of ministries and interest found among community members, “Some sisters were teachers, others were nurses. Some were artists, and some preferred gardening. There are sisters who have earned their doctorates, and sisters who completed their education in a one-room country school. Some sisters had been presidents of this university, and others spent their lives serving as cooks, bakers, and working in the laundry.” As she pondered the unique types of individuals in community, she realized the call to religious life wasn’t limited to one “type” of person, and maybe God was calling her to become a sister. Her openness to God and the prayerful women who supported her and each other, was becoming part of her personal equation.
One day she tiptoed around the possibility with the vocation director, inquiring “for a friend,” about the steps to become a sister. Realizing that the “friend” was Sister Marena herself, the journey through the formation process began.
Sister Marena approached each step of the formation process with careful consideration, like she does when solving a math problem. She prayed for trust and openness to where God was leading next. “My call was not like a lightning strike or a clap of thunder, like one might think,” she explains. “It was more like a feeling of rightness in taking each next step of formation.” In the fall of 2019, Sister Marena made her temporary vows, which is a period of three to six years. Upon professing temporary vows, she attended the University of Mary, graduating with a degree in mathematics education. Following in the ministry of many sisters before her, Sister Marena currently teaches math at St. Mary’s Academy in Bismarck. She marvels, “I have a new relationship with Christ as a teacher, and I would have never imagined how much I love my students and the joy they bring into my life. Every day I teach is a constant reminder of God’s providence and how His ways are better than my own ways.”
As the date of perpetual profession draw nearer, Sister Marena expressed a growing sense of gratitude. “I am so blessed by the support I’ve received throughout my time of formation. To know of the prayers of so many is truly humbling, and I know those prayers have sustained me through difficult times. I am especially thankful for my sisters, who continue to inspire me by their lives of service, love, and faithfulness. As I’ve listened for God’s call at each step of discernment, they also walk with me, praying for me and encouraging me.” Sister Marena says with appreciation. “God is so good, and I pray that we all may respond to His call as He bring us all to everlasting life.”
*For more information, contact: Jill Ackerman, Director of Mission Advancement, 701-355-8907
