“I want people to know and understand that as women, we are daughters, brides and mothers, and whether we are biological mothers, religious or single, we are all called to mother the world,” says Dr. Jennifer Rose Havey of St. Mary Parish in Sacramento. The consultant, speaker and retreat master attributes her insight to a slow unveiling in her own formation and life that point to “a kind of pattern of spiritual maternity,” she explains.
“It’s not something I really pursued,” Jennifer muses with clarity about the spiritual motherhood mission ingrained in her. She refers to a lifetime of professional work, blessings, and hidden graces that have shaped her, enabling her to see herself and every woman as sharing a universal calling – the capacity for spiritual motherhood. Her vision is to help others become aware of and step into this call.
“It’s all about receptivity to the Holy Spirit,” Jennifer insists, describing “a thread” woven throughout life – a holy needlepoint – that covers the canvas of existence. It leads to an eventual awareness, she says, among women of faith, that they are to help usher in abundance for others. Just as biological mothers bring physical life to their children, Jennifer contends, spiritual mothers bring “life to souls and birth vocations.”
“I think the world is desperate for the spiritual and for meaning in life,” Jennifer explains, suggesting a pervasive soul-ache that permeates society. “It’s the loss of hope ... people feel alone, and there is a lot of fear,” she explains, perceiving that spiritual motherhood “gives you the ability to hear the cries of the children of God.”
Reflecting on the work of the Holy Spirit
Jennifer easily remembers spiritual mentors, both mothers and fathers, who influenced her journey. She is convicted that the Holy Spirit was the guiding force throughout her journey and that God gave her spiritual accompaniment to direct her path.
Among her spiritual mentors: Jennifer’s “very devout” Catholic grandmothers; her father, a longtime local Catholic high school teacher; her Aunt Mary; her first-grade teacher, Mary Hesser (who later served as principal at Christian Brothers High School during Jennifer’s time there).
Later, Jennifer’s participation in the Teacher for Tomorrow program at St. Mary College in Moraga not only broadened her classroom horizons but also exposed her to people and places across the globe. For the January term, she served at an orphanage in the Dominican Republic before accepting a first-grade teaching position in the Sacramento Unified School District.
In her 20s, Jennifer was asked by the district to serve in administrative roles and then as principal of the 700-student school.
“It was such a beautiful experience of mothering a community,” Jennifer recalls, reflecting on the challenging directive to transform a struggling school into a successful one.
“I loved them with the love of Christ,” Jennifer says, yet she expresses a “holy dissatisfaction” at being unable to preach Jesus. It was a necessary revelation of the yearning in her heart, followed by more volunteer work in orphanages, on prayer teams, and with healing ministries in Haiti, Costa Rica, Peru, and Brazil. She furthered her education, earning a Doctor of Ministry in what she describes as “radical discipleship.”
“A tangible peace” came when Jennifer accepted the call to serve as principal at St. Robert School in Sacramento from 2014 to 2018.
“It was a grace-filled time,” Jennifer says, keenly aware of “God’s provision” for a school “steeped in Gospel principles” that fulfilled her desire to “teach to the soul” of her young charges. She describes renewal, sustainability, and still, a call for more.
“I heard the Lord say, ‘I want more of you,’” Jennifer confirms, perplexed about giving more than the routine 12-hour days. She listened, wondering what more might be.
The possibility of religious life preoccupied Jennifer. She moved to Los Angeles to discern a vocation with the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles.
“It was a leap of faith,” she remembers, as she rented a room near the sisters and their Adoration chapel. As she settled in Los Angeles, she opened her heart to the Carmelite spirituality of deep union with Christ and developed an important friendship with Sister Gloria, the postulant and novice director.
“She saw my calling,” Jennifer reflects on the turning-point conversation with the now mother general, Mother Gloria, who gently helped her discern where God might be calling her. Jennifer had attended a retreat for about 600 young adults in the San Gabriel pastoral region, led by then-auxiliary Bishop David O’Connell. With a “corporate” approach, he presented and prayed over participants using the powerful Unbound model of healing and deliverance. But what happened afterward changed everything for Jennifer.
“I went to talk to him afterward, and he put his hand on my shoulder,” Jennifer explains, repeating his words as if it were yesterday. “The Blessed Mother is bringing us together to work together,” she says, echoing the bishop’s comment to her, still slightly stunned, having never met him before. She politely dismissed the idea and shared her plan to join the convent, but it was Mother Gloria’s spiritual motherhood that prompted her to deepen her discernment.
“She knew what would help me blossom and grow in the spirit,” Jennifer says, and before long, she accepted a position as coordinator of spiritual renewal.
What followed, as Jennifer describes it, was something of a training ground, unmatched by any standard, as she served Bishop David. She traveled throughout the San Gabriel Pastoral Region, delivering retreats, spearheading spiritual renewal among teachers, principals, and administrators, coordinating women’s groups, invigorating young adult ministries, and praying for the oppressed.
“I got to fan into flame all these things the Holy Spirit was already doing,” Jennifer says, smiling brightly, keenly aware of Bishop David’s spiritual fatherhood and its role in forming her in spiritual motherhood, especially with the young adults and priests of Los Angeles. “I worked with him for almost six years. We saw so much light in very dark places,” she conveys with gratitude. In February 2023, Bishop David was murdered in his home, sending shockwaves around the world and casting a shadow of uncertainty over Jennifer.
“They invited me to a position in the school department, but I couldn’t do it,” Jennifer shares, carrying the weight of grief as she continued working in the bishop’s office. To compound matters, Jennifer endured two vehicle accidents: she was rear-ended in her car just one month after the bishop’s death, and then struck in a crosswalk several months later while praying her rosary. With a concussion and injuries requiring physical therapy, she knew she needed to return home to Sacramento to heal, surrounded by her family.
Recognizing grace
Working virtually for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles through 2024, Jennifer often returned to LA to reboot the retreats and programs created under Bishop David’s tutelage. She focused on school, president and principal retreats through 2025, most recently leading a retreat for the Catholic school superintendents of California.
“I didn’t know this was going to be my life,” Jennifer acknowledges, her voice tinged with surrender. “I am just following the current of grace,” she adds, noticing those “threads” again, the Holy Spirit weaving a pattern of spiritual motherhood, unique to each woman. It became increasingly clear to Jennifer.
“For me, the journey of being a woman,” Jennifer posits, “is always a great blessing, marked by being broken and given. This is in the imitation of the Eucharistic Christ.”
Jennifer calls it a way of beauty, like a rose, and cites an awareness of the vocation of spiritual motherhood through the “fruitfulness of femininity.” Through sacrifice, nurturing, generosity, accompaniment, example, presence and prayer, women exude feminine fruitfulness, which Pope St. John Paul II calls “the feminine genius.” Between 1928 and 1932, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) wrote extensively on spiritual motherhood and the desire for “a loving union and perfection of the other.”
“It is the pinnacle of the feminine genius,” Jennifer says, describing the profound and inspired fruitfulness that emanates from the love of Jesus Christ and union with him. “Our Blessed Mother, who was deemed mother of all humanity at the foot of the cross,” models this, Jennifer elaborates, tracing the roots of spiritual motherhood to Mary, “... the shelter for our souls, helping to nurture and form our souls in union with her son, Jesus Christ.”
Aligned with the theology of the beloved Carmelite Teresa Benedicta, Jennifer chose to be known as Jennifer Teresa Benedicta of the Cross when making her temporary promises for Sacramento’s Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites.
“This awareness arose within me,” she says, marveling that “it was always in me” to answer the call to Carmel.
Responding wherever you are
“Who are you invited to mother in your life now?” Jennifer asks, encouraging women to have a mindset that sees a world in need of a spiritual response marked by humility and sacrifice.
“It’s not like you’re thinking ‘I’m something special,’ because it doesn’t even cross your mind,” Jennifer clarifies, easing any confusion, doubt, or tendency to overthink it. “It’s just something that comes out to nurture life in souls,” she insists, further clarifying that it’s a type of supernatural gift ready and waiting to be tapped.
“We are given womanhood and femininity,” Jennifer stresses, implying a necessary response, not a pursuit or a self-proclamation, but the fostering of “presence and blessing.”
A memory of Bishop David O’Connell comes to the forefront of her thoughts as she summarizes her revelation about her spiritual motherhood. “He gave me a mission, not a position,” she shares with great fondness, comprehending fully that the gifts of spiritual fatherhood and motherhood are eternal.
Today, Jennifer spends time and energy formalizing her ministry and book, Heart of a Mother, and continues to travel near and far, sharing the message of spiritual motherhood. She gives talks and retreats, working with women, mothers, young adults, educators and the Diocese’s vocations office