Sister Orianne Dives Deep for Youth

Sister Orianne Pietra Rene Dyck, a Daughter of St. Paul, converted to Catholicism at age 12, while being raised in a half-Protestant, half-Druze family. During a Christopher Closeup interview, she reflected, "I think the beauty that comes - along with the confusion - of being raised between two different faiths is that you have to ask questions. I fell in love with the Lord at a very young age. I was reading Scripture and the Koran at home. That kickstarted a lot of questions in me. . . . The more I asked questions, and asked them of God Himself because I knew that He was the one who had all the answers. . . . He really started to bring me back to that question of, who is love beyond the human conception of what love could be. . . . I found in the Catholic Church this beautiful ability to hold who Jesus was, as our most personal, intimate friend - and also as God, who created the universe."

As a former teacher, Sister Orianne thought about her former students and the struggles they faced. She realized she dealt with some of the same spiritual struggles herself and believes there is a universality to them. She felt God invite her to break open Scripture for youth "in a living way," which is what He did for her at their age. That's what led her to write Dive Deep: 40 Days with God at Sea, which is geared towards kids ages 9 to 12. And as the daughter and granddaughter of scientists, Sister Orianne used elements from both faith and the natural world to convey her insights.

For instance, she related Pharaoh (from the story of Moses) to a porcupine fish. Why? When reading about the Exodus, Sister Orianne initially felt troubled by the statement, "The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh" because it sounds as if God is infringing on his free will, which would raise all kinds of theological problems.

Upon further investigation, Sister Orianne learned the opposite was true. She writes, "In Scripture, when God says that He will harden the heart of someone, He isn't saying He is going to make that person unable to listen to Him. He is saying that is the reaction the person is going to have to His words. In fact, before this story in Exodus 8, it explicitly says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, showing us that Pharaoh was choosing not to listen to God's words. And God, respecting Pharaoh's free will, let him choose this.”

So how does this relate to porcupine fish? Pharaoh reacts like one because he feels threatened.

"[Porcupine fish are] small and unmenacing in a usual day," she explained, "but they swallow a bunch of water when they feel threatened. It puffs them up and makes their spikes stick out so you cannot touch them. I thought that was a profound, visible example of what we often do to ourselves, to our own hearts, when we feel like someone is infringing on our ability to control what is around us. We get defensive . . . and we're like, 'I don't care why you're here. I feel threatened. Go away.' So often, we do that to people who love us, who are trying to help us. But we also do it to God, who's trying to heal us and set us free. . . . To be able to see that reflected in a physical example can make us realize, 'That's exactly what I'm doing, and maybe I don't want to do that to God.'"

This essay is a recent "Light One Candle" column by Tony Rossi, Director of Communications, The Christophers; it is one of a series of weekly columns that deal with a variety of topics and current events.

Background information:

The Christophers