Mother Mary Paul was born in New Jersey, one of four children in a Catholic home.  She felt a call to religious life at an early age and wanted to enter in high school.  Her parents decided that it was better to wait until after graduation.  Life events interfered  and Mother Mary Paul enrolled in college at Rutgers University in New Jersey.  Shortly thereafter she met and married her husband, graduated, and entered into teaching Home Economics and raising her three children.

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Years later, alone and with adult children on their own, Mother Mary Paul again explored religious life.  After visiting several communities both in the United States and abroad she entered a religious institute in 2010. During formation Mother Mary Paul realized that God was calling her to leave.  In 2011, she returned to her home in Idaho. 

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Mother Paul then accepted a teaching position in Germany. While there, still longing for religious life, she found another religious community  and returned to the United States to formally enter in 2012. It seemed the perfect fit, and thus it was deeply puzzling when once again she felt the call to leave.

 

Having returned to Idaho, Mother ardently addressed God in prayer, wondering of His plan for her, and  expressing her continued longing to be the spouse of the Lord Jesus in consecrated religious life. From the Lord's response within her soul, Mother realized her call, and began the process of founding a new religious community.

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Mother was confident and peaceful that she was on the path God desired for her, but was also very aware that she did not know how to accomplish the task.  She entrusted herself and her journey to God and moved forward, praying, researching and meeting with those who could offer guidance.

 

"As soon as I gave my 'yes' to the Lord, it seemed as though I was on a bus with God as the driver, going from one appointment to another.  The community became an entity and I grew in my understanding of what God wanted.  I held my head high for Him in the midst of many obstacles.  I didn't know how anything would turn out, and I still don't,  but my peace and certainty in the call has never wavered. I remain continuously amazed at the hand of God working in my life and in the Sisters of Divine Grace." 

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Mother Paul's life experiences, which included many years of severe and debilitating illness along with a most wonderful and complete miraculous healing, nurtured in her a heart that seeks to love beyond herself and to connect the hearts of others to the most Sacred Heart of Jesus in and through His Catholic Church.  "Divine Grace is the very life of God, and  His Heart is the source of that life.  We really are the Sisters of the Heart of God.  People are longing for that life, that love.  All we want to do is to bring their hearts to His heart."