An End to the Drought?

Not just an anomalous uptick, but steady growth in women entering religious life in the Celtish Isles. Still very few in numbers, 45 this year, but very heartening nonetheless.

Fr Christopher Jamison, director of the National Office of Vocation, said the figure was a “milestone”. Vocations reached their lowest point a decade ago, with just seven women entering religious life in 2004.
Fr Jamison said one reason for the rise was that religious orders had become clearer about their own identity and regained some confidence.
“That clearer identity, a strong sense of what they’re joining, is what young people look for,” he said.
Fr Jamison said several Church initiatives that brought young people together socially had helped increase vocations too. He cited Compass discernment groups, the Flame conference and Youth 2000.
He added: “The Church has become better at discernment,” and that it had moved from treating vocations as “recruitment to discernment”. 

That speaks volumes - not to beat a dead horse, but one of the sillier things in the NYTimes piece about how the Church fails to value women was tying its thesis to Pope Francis's recent cry for equal pay for equal work, and then noting that women are excluded from certain "jobs" in Catholicism.

Jobs.

As if theses were vacancies to be supplied by better linkedin networking, higher signing bonuses and more generous stock options.
As if vocations directors were headhunters.

I am curious, when does a young woman's or girl's thoughts start to turn to vocation?
A practicing Catholic boy sees a man with a distinctive, and fairly easily understood, (at least at a superficial level,) role ever week - where does a girl regularly see religious life modelled?