Editor’s Note: Matthew Chicoine interviewed Sister Orianne Pietra René via phone call on July 30th, 2025. Some of the questions have been rearranged and edited to provide the best reader experience without losing any integrity of the answers given.
Can you tell us about your vocation story?
I wasn’t particularly drawn to religious life at first. I was already a teacher, I had a career of my own. I wasn’t quite satisfied and I wanted to give God more, but I didn’t know what that meant at the time.
I was also a local youth leader and attended a Steubenville Canadian Conference (2016) in Toronto with our youth. During confession, I had a priest ask me if I had ever considered a vocation. This was the seed that grew in my heart. At the recommendation of the priest in Toronto, I made an appointment with my parish priest. He suggested that I research different religious orders. I came across the Daughters of Saint Paul online.
What drew you specifically to the Daughters of St. Paul?
Initially, it was their spiritually. There’s a beautiful emphasis on bringing the whole Christ to the whole person.
While I was a teacher and the Daughters of Saint Paul aren’t a teaching (in the classroom) order, their spirituality really attracted me.
And secondly, they were authentically themselves. One of my personal fears was that I would have to fit a mold to be in a religious order. But because the Daughters of Saint Paul are such an eclectic bunch of individuals it was comforting to me that I didn’t have to change who I was to have a vocation to religious life.
How do you balance prayer, community life, and digital evangelization?
The beautiful thing about religious life is that it has a structure to help us balance. We have Morning and Evening prayer as a community, daily Mass, one hour of personal Eucharistic Adoration, and a half hour of personal prayer during the day (the exact times may vary based on the day).
And we also have a half hour of meditative prayer, Lectio Divina on the Gospel. We begin our day meditating on the Word of God. We end our day with reflecting on the Gospel for the next day. It’s a sort of bookending of the Good News each day.
Every sister is assigned an apostolate (aka specific mission work). And depending on the various needs of the Church different sisters might be called to give a talk at a conference or help with retreats.
Besides St. Paul, who is a saint that has deeply influenced your faith journey—and why?
I was actually afraid of Saint Paul prior to joining the Daughters of Saint Paul. I was afraid of him because he was a really intense guy. I had a lot of really intense guys in my family and I had enough.
When I joined the Daughters of Saint Paul, I discovered the heart of Saint Paul. Saint John Chrysostom once said, “The heart of Paul is the heart of Christ.” When I discovered the more tender fatherhood of Paul I started to lower my defenses.
As a second (I’ll give one instead of ten), I would say Saint Rafka. She is a Maronite saint. In a very personal way Rafka taught the true value of praying for our enemies. She was a nun who lived in Lebanon at the time and that people were in a kind of civil war with the Druze (an ethno-religion stemming from Islam). My ancestors are Druze. I found Rafka’s story inspiring and I took up her baptismal name (Pietra) as part of my religious profession name when I took my first vows.
What has surprised you the most about life as a religious Sister in the digital age?
I think what surprises me the most is that everything we do online must be physically connected to the sacramental life, otherwise it will be untethered.
If we are living in a sacramental life we will be able to share the truth of the Gospel in a way that brings people back to a sacramental, incarnational life after they are online.
Do you have any hobbies or fun pastimes that might surprise people?
One of the beautiful parts of our life is that many of our hobbies tie back to our prayer life. I like hiking. I learned during the pandemic to make rosaries out of rose petals.
When the NHL playoffs start, I am watching at the start. This might be an unpopular opinion, I cheer for the Toronto Maple Leafs. I fell in love with hockey when I watched a glove save by Curtis Joseph, the Toronto goalie at the time, in ‘99.
As a Canadian Catholic, are there any unique aspects of the Church in Canada you’d love to share with our American audience?
This exists in the U.S. too, but overall the Church is more rural in Canada. There are more remote places where there’s not a priest permanently stationed at the local parish, which can be a unique challenge. One beautiful thing, especially in the cities, is how deeply multicultural the Church is both in the pews and in liturgical devotions and traditions.
I have a top three for shrines in Canada that I’ve visited: The Canadian Martyrs Shrines (the North American Martyrs) in Midland, Ontario- it’s a beautiful place and includes some moving representation of some of our earliest indigenous Christians whose causes for canonization are open.
Saint Joseph’s in Montreal, which was built by St André Bessette.
And Lac Ste Anne in Alberta, which is also an indigenous pilgrimage site in Canada.
For young Catholics discerning their vocation or simply trying to grow in faith, what words of encouragement would you offer?
The most important thing is when we are longing for something more, that’s already a sign that God has already begun the journey with us. And He is always with us because he is faithful.
About Sister Orianne:
Sr. Orianne Pietra René was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and grew up in the Ottawa Valley, Ontario, where she converted to Catholicism at the age of twelve. After studying Anthropology and Education, she taught elementary school in the UK and in Canada. She was serving as a youth leader at her local parish when the Lord blindsided her with an invitation to discern religious life. She entered the Daughters of St Paul in 2017 and professed her first vows in 2021.
Since entering the Daughters of St Paul, Sr. Orianne has served in St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, Toronto, and Alexandria. She is currently active in social media ministry, vocation ministry, and on the Pauline Books & Media marketing team. She is pursuing a Master of Theological Studies at St. Augustine’s Seminary in Toronto. Her greatest passion is helping others discover the same Jesus who changed her life.
