Caring for the sick, Lori discovered her calling from Our Lady

Lori Ehrman has always had a great devotion to Saint Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes and at one time even considered becoming a nun. In addition to being a wife, a mother of five home-schooled children, and a missionary volunteer, Lori is also a surgical nurse with a master’s degree.

Lori attended New York University majoring in French language and international politics. NYU had a study-abroad program, and during her junior year she attended classes at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. The city of romance was also where she met her future husband, Scott, who was a Marine guarding the U.S. consulate there. Once married, they settled in Texas.

In 2005, Lori was watching a program on EWTN asking for persons to come to Lourdes, France, to do volunteer service for a few weeks at the shrine of the Virgin Mary. “The only qualifications for volunteers were that you be human and of good will.” Lori made her first trip to Lourdes in October 2005.

“I saw debilitating physical conditions and I had no idea what they were. I wanted to know more and help, but I lacked the medical knowledge.” When she returned home from Lourdes she enrolled in nursing school. “I was learning exactly what I did at Lourdes—working with people at a hospital.” Lori had discovered her calling from Our Lady of Lourdes.

”Nursing seems like a natural extension of being a wife and a mother—it’s an extension with love,” she said. Lori looks on her nursing career as a kind of mission—whether it be in Texas as an RN or in caring for pilgrims at the healing baths in Lourdes. She returns to France for three weeks of volunteer nursing each summer and her children have also volunteered. “Lourdes and the Blessed Mother have transformed our family.” 

Adapted from an article by Carol Ferguson printed in the Herald-Banner, Feb. 1, 2015 with permission