If it’s more than 500 words…

Source: If it’s more than 500 words…

Do you still like the laity?

I have discerned out of the Sisters of the Lamb of God.

“Discerning out” is what religious say when they have prayed on something for a very long time and have decided to leave.

Some people have taken the news very well and have expressed their support in a very prayed upon decision; others have said they are disappointed and questioned if it is a crisis.

If it was a crisis, I would have left after a month. If I disappoint people, that’s your issue to work out, not mine. God called me in and I always knew there was a chance He would call me back out.

Some people look at religious life as a safety net for their daughters and it was that way pre-Vatican II. Today, women go in with only the will of God in their hearts, not because it is a place to retire and the will of God in their hearts. If you enter religious life because you can see yourself settling down and being safe in that place, being taken care of, not by God, but by people, you are in the wrong vocation.

The door has been left open for me to discern back in should that be God’s will for me, but for now it is His will that I discern out.

My formation directress said she knew by December that I would be discerning out, but she wanted me to come to the conclusion on my own.

A series of events happened over the past month that truly solidified my decision, but there was one thing that I have not told anybody that truly made me know I had made the right decision.

Our founder (and I will call him our, even though he is their’s, not mine) kept waving his infamous black cloak around me. I was not scared because I knew it was not death, I recognized the cloak and I was comforted. I knew it was okay and I had the blessing of Fr. René.

Fr. René de la Chevasnerie, S.J., founder of the Servants of the Lamb of God

 

 

 

If You’re in it for the Naps, Never do the Right Thing.

If you’ve ever read the comic strip Dilbert, you’ll notice that Dilbert always gets the most work because he is reliable and very good at his job as a computer engineer, but Wally has figured out the secret of success, walk around with a coffee cup pretending like you are terribly important but don’t do anything. And, well, Dogbert has just figured out that the secret to success is to say, talk to the hand, move out of my way, I’ll deal with it in the four seconds it took you four years to try to fix it.

Of course, I’m not really sure how well Dogbert is going to look on judgment day. I imagine he’ll be either drawn or animated.

In theory (and whenever someone starts a sentence out like that you know the rest never took place), I was going to update this blog every Sunday. It would be my relaxation. Now I look around and I go, “Oh yeah, I have a blog.”

Trust me, I have been thinking about it. I am still in the draft phase of a eulogy for the coffee pot; hey, eulogies have to be just right.

With this whole learning thing in St. Louis I made the mistake of learning something about vocations, something I am passionate about, but would bore another person to the sacrament of Last Rites.

Interesting concepts in vocations for women religious are taking place in our diocese led by an the vocations director for the Ursulines. While my superior is sick and vocations seem to be where I am headed in ministry, I e-mailed some things from other novices that I have met and my own passion has leaked through–gushed would be a better word.

She liked my ideas so much she suggested I e-mail them to our supportive (Praise God for that) bishop and to the new vocations director.

I like what I do very much and I could rattle on in a million different ways about vocations, and I am honored, but sometimes it would be nice to not do something right.

Ascension

So, we have this very important person who affected our history a great deal–Jesus Christ who, by all accounts, was indeed a superstar.

He did this thing called Ascension. There’s a prayer that goes “On the third he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father…” I’m not the best of Catholics so don’t ask me what Ascension is because I’ll probably give you a take on it that is nice and simple but probably contradicts the Church’s six ways to Sunday.

Today happens to be Wednesday. Professional rosary prayers know that today is the day for the Glorious Mysteries, I prefer to call them the traveling mysteries, because that way I can remember what they are better. This bit of Catholicism I do know! So take that whomever doubts my knowledge of Catholicism (mainly me)! The rosary is that long string of beads that Catholics have (other religions may have long strings of beads that they pray on too, I think Buddhists do, but don’t quote me on it).

The first part of the rosary is a cross or a crucifix (the difference is that Jesus is on the cross with the crucifix)–you pray the Apostles Creed on that one (I have to take out my cheat sheet because I don’t know this prayer completely). Directly after the cross or crucifix is a bead, where you pray the Our Father, the next three beads you pray the Hail Mary, then there is a blank space where you pray a Glory Be and the Fatima prayer. Then the decade (a set of ten strings of prayers) starts. On the first bead an Our Father, ten Hail Marys, the blank space is the Glory Be and the Fatima prayer, and so on for five decades.

With each Our Father you announce the mystery you are praying. Each day has a different mystery. Sunday and Wednesday are the Glorious Mysteries which talk about Jesus’ resurrection and the Blessed Mother’s coronation as Queen of Heaven; Monday and Saturday are Joyful mysteries they refer to the life of Jesus; Friday and Tuesday are reserved for the Sorrowful mysteries, which are self-explanatory, and Thursday is the Luminous aka Mysteries of Light which talks about Jesus’ ministry. Tired of the explanation–I know I am.

I call the Glorious Mysteries the traveling mysteries because people are going up to Heaven or coming down from Heaven. Jesus goes up, the Holy Spirit comes down, the Blessed Mother goes up, Jesus is resurrected and wakes up–up and down, up and down. Perhaps blasphemous, but it’s how I remember.

Today Jesus Ascended into Heaven–again.

Novices in our order wear a crucifix on a wooden cross with a cord. The wood is to represent humility. My crucifix fell in the middle of the night and Jesus fell off. I guess the glue in Jerusalem, where the cross was bought on a trip to the Holy Land, is not very good.

The funny thing is, this is not the first time it’s happened.

The first time Jesus fell off the crucifix was on Ascension Thursday. Ironically the crucifix on the single decade Irish penal rosary I carry with me at all times also fell off that same Ascension Thursday.

Jesus must be a big fan of ascension.

job and spirituality

God never made a bad a bad thing.

If you look at the first few things He created you’ll notice that it says, “And He saw that it was good.” So, He did a good job with everything; I mean “good is God extended” as I once heard someone say.

However…sometimes we may feel like we are getting tested or that God isn’t feeling so good about us right now or that Job has nothing on us.

In the past two weeks I left a brand new laptop on a metro train which has yet to be recovered, my old laptop has suddenly decided to only operate in safe mode (which means I can do only the most basic of things, if that), my glasses broke, I was turned down for a medical procedure by my insurance, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Okay God, I give up. You win. Whatever it is You want to win, You win.

I’d like to say that God hates me and loves the other 6,999,999,999 billion people in the world, but that would be a little arrogant. I’d like to say that He’s testing me, but I just don’t see God as the loving Father He is holding a clipboard with all the things that could go wrong in my life and putting a check mark on “Handled Well” or “Didn’t Handle Well”.

I think we test ourselves and then say that God is doing it. I got tired, I left my laptop on a metro train in an unfamiliar city. My old laptop is starting to head off to Silicon Heaven, well, that really isn’t a surprise; hence, the need for a new laptop. My glasses broke when I put them into an old case where the insides were curling inwards–I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. I think if the insurance company had approved this medical procedure right away I might have passed out from shock.

These are not tests so much as they are a series of really bad things that happened right in a row. It’s the stuff great comedies are made of. Does it mean I am happy-go-lucky about all of it? No! Because all of it happened right in a row and while Job may have lost a whole bunch of stuff and I truly have nothing on him, right now I need a breather.

When so many unfortunate events happen so close together spirituality can be affected. For me, I am distracted. I do not talk to God in the same way. I do not ignore Him, I just don’t hear Him. I asked the Lord this morning if it was enough to just let Him sit with me while this time passes and He said yes.

Sometimes the strongest spirituality can come from just being in a spiritual hospital functioning in safe mode, and letting the Lord be your permanent visitor, holding your hand while the time passes, no matter how long that time is.

“Perfect Resignation”

My God, I do not know what must come to me today.
But I am certain that nothing can happen to me
that you have not foreseen, decreed, and ordained from all eternity.
That is sufficient for me.
I adore your impenetrable and eternal designs,
to which I submit with all my heart.
I desire, I accept them all, and I unite my sacrifice
to that of Jesus Christ, my divine Savior.
I ask in his name and through his infinite merits,
patience in my trials, and perfect and entire submission
to all that comes to me by your good pleasure.
Amen.

-St. Joseph Pignatelli, SJ

Silence

Today is the Feast of the Holy Family. On Christmas Day, Mary and Joseph weren’t just a husband and wife anymore, they became a family–a Holy Family, the most holy family to all of Christendom. We revere that on this day in the Catholic Church, perhaps in other denominations too, I am ignorant.

We take as our patron the Holy Family; the formation house is called the Holy Family convent. We are to model ourselves after the Holy Family of Nazareth. I suppose that family didn’t roll their eyes, argue about misunderstandings, grumble under their breath, storm out of rooms, have secret scenarios in which the scenarioan is always right (Well, I am!), and so on and so forth.

Almost everyone who enters religious life will never be a biological mother or father, but that doesn’t mean we still shouldn’t imitate the family model. It’s a weird blessing to be thrown together with people so different from you that what you thought was a diverse group of friends you came from were actually carbon copies of your own personality just wrapped up in more fashionable outfits with better jobs.

Being thrown together comes with animosity. The animosity takes away the blessing. Who is responsible? I could say it isn’t me, but I am just as much a part of the problem as everyone else. It is in that problem in which we should find a new blessing.

I could either be sarcastically silent or I could take the potential of the misunderstanding, die to myself in a new way and be silent.

There is much to be said for silence.

It is within silence where we find ourselves the most. It is within silence that we get those funny feelings. It is within silence where we can do the most good. Silence is difficult to obtain, but it is worthwhile.

It is within silence that we hear God.

I didn’t forget

‘Tis the season to forget about the things we care a lot about like our imaginary fan base. Well, I didn’t forget, I just got tremendously busy. A dear friend has become very ill and our house is trying to deal with the question mark that comes with that; however, she just rolls on, puts up the Christmas lights by herself, walks almost a mile to go swimming when she has the time, and directs us when she can’t do things herself. She has her good days and bad days, but we all do. It’s difficult to see someone who has always been so fearless suddenly say, “I’m scared.” Or someone who used to run on six hours of sleep suddenly needing ten hours.

Changes are coming and only God knows what those changes look like and if we will have the grace to handle them with the faith and strength He has given us but that we might not know how to tap into–yet. A priest I know always says, “Be gentle.” And another says, “Rest in His Mercy.” Good bits of advice that I should consider following.

If you know me, you know that Christmas is my favorite time of year. Everyone instantly becomes more generous and has the spirit of a child; Jesus did say something about if we’re going to enter the Kingdom of Heaven we need to act like little children. What I love about Christmas is the red kettles of the Salvation Army–not everyone drops something in the red kettle because not everyone can afford it. The thing about those red kettles is that you don’t even have to believe in God to give to a Christian organization, that’s what makes them so special. It doesn’t matter what your political or religious stance is, the red kettle campaign is one of the most noticeable and loved things of the holidays; it isn’t Christmas if you don’t see a bell ringer.

We get to give without expecting anything in return. That’s one of the most difficult things about being in the convent–I can never match the things my family are willing to get the congregation. I can send them a card and  maybe one day I can even bring them a book, but I will never be able to match anything anyone gives me. I can offer them prayers and that is worth more than anything, but it isn’t one of those corporeal things like an iTunes gift card or a gift certificate to Amazon.com or anything else. I am grateful for what they can do because anything they can get for me means my congregation won’t have to purchase.

I didn’t forget.

I didn’t forget my gratitude.

Thank you for all that you have done for me.

Most especially your prayers.

God Must Trust Me A Lot

As you may have noticed it’s been a while since my last posting–25 days to be precise. That was certainly not by choice. 

My time in St. Louis has been wonderful; everyone has been so kind to me, adopting me into their own communities and sharing their way of prayer, spirituality, charism, wit, charm, self. I do not think I could have asked God for a greater group of women and men to wade through the novitiate experience than the ones He has graced me with already.

Today (on Thanksgiving of all days) I return to Owensboro, to my own community. If ever you want to appreciate the place you come from, leave it unexpectedly for a month.

Being away from your own community is difficult, being away from your own community when a member of it becomes ill is even more difficult.

I arrived Friday, November 1. By Wednesday, November 6 my superior had been diagnosed with advanced stage ovarian cancer and would be undergoing two surgeries at once that Sunday. There was nothing more I could have done there except clean the house and do the yard work; the most I could do here is pray and be a good student for her.

The advantage to being in St. Louis is that I could get out all my crying before I go back so I can be strong for my community, which is precisely what I have been doing.

In times of distress people will ask God why He made something so seemingly terrible happen to someone so good. To me, when God puts these terrible things in front of us it means that He trusts us. God trusts us so much that He is willing to put such large challenges on our shoulders. It isn’t about some sort of punishment from a loving God to a faithful child, it’s about a great deal of trust from a loving God to a faithful child.

When we are given these horrible things in our lives what do we usually do? We pray. Our faith increases. This is how much God trusts us. God trusts us enough to know that we will stand by Him no matter what illness, natural disaster, or 60-foot dinosaur may stomp down the street. 

I’m thankful to return to my community and I’m thankful for God’s trust. I pray He gives me the grace to handle His trust in the manner it deserves. 

Two Things

I want to preface this by saying everyone is okay.

About 20 minutes after leaving Aquinas Institute in St. Louis we had a car accident, but everyone is okay, except the car. It will take about two weeks to be repaired and about a week for the insurance part to go through. The specifics of the accident are not important, what is important is that my experience in St. Louis–the Inter Community Novitiate and my class on the History of the Vowed Life in the U.S. was over.

I made my peace with it the second my superior said it on the drive home (yes, the car was drive-able) because I knew to fight it would be childish. I had been given a tremendous gift and even if I had gone just once, that would have been more than I deserved.

Well, perhaps I could Skype ICN.

Well, perhaps the School Sisters of Notre Dame who hosted us for our overnighters wouldn’t mind hosting me without my formation directress until the day before Thanksgiving.

First question: Is this canonically correct? Determination: Yes, with the permission of the Superior General.

The accident was on a Tuesday. This discussion was on Wednesday. There was a weekend retreat at the SSND Motherhouse on Friday.

We needed to get permission from the Regional Superior who would have to be the one to ask the Superior General who doesn’t speak English, only French. It’s pushing 10 p.m. in France.

She says oui.

The sister who would be driving us rearranges her work schedule to be available on Friday, All Saints Day–her feast day.

Now, the School Sisters of Notre Dame. Yes, without hesitation. And, no, they would take no money.

It wasn’t until Thursday that I got confirmation so I didn’t start preparing anything really until the day before, baking brownies for the retreat, serious packing, etc. I pack in two ways: madwoman packing where I throw in everything and rational packing where I take out at least half of what I put in and wonder why I put in a sweatshirt I’ve worn only twice that should probably go to St. Vincent De Paul for that exact reason.

9:20 p.m. Thursday night. The week has been exhausting. E-mails flying everywhere. Wondering what will be. Life still plugging along. 9:20 p.m. Thursday night, tornado sirens go off. Everyone to the hallway, shut all the doors. The man on the radio says it isn’t a big deal for Owensboro, it’s passing through.

The electricity goes off.

I pack by lantern.

Job becomes my soul brother.

By the next morning we still didn’t have electricity.

The Sisters of the Lamb of God are supposed to do the prayer for ICN on Wednesday; it is prepared but not printed.

Our sisters at another house a few blocks away have electricity–and a printer.

SAVED.

I was throwing things in bags and I was aware but unaware at the same time of the things I was packing. There are two things that found their way into the chaos that surprised me.

I packed my cape and the cross that was on the make shift altar for the thanksgiving Mass for my entrance into the novitiate.

Have I talked about my cape? My cape was a gift from Eve Privman, someone who takes the 24 hours in a day and makes each of them count. She is in the MD/PhD program at the University of Virginia, does improv, owns her own home, is stunning inside and out, and is someone all of her peers should strive to be. She went to Israel to visit her grandfather and I jokingly asked her to get me a rosary that Jesus would have used. I got an awesome postcard with beautiful pictures from various places Biblical places. She said that she had a gift for me that she had prepared at many of the places on the postcard. For me, a postcard with a stamp from a foreign country is enough. A month or so later I received a care package from her and my best friend Angie Zarling who sent along some of her amazing lemon bars (Dr. Zarling, PhD, is in the middle of curing cancer with a medicine in clinical trials right now, and she’s just flat out one of the coolest people on the planet). Eve sent me a beautiful scarf (my cape) with teal, grey, fuscia, light blue, coral, brown, and violet strips of cloth with various silver patterns. She took the scarf with her wherever she went, touched it to every important looking thing in the Tomb of the Holy Sepulchre, dipped it in the Jordan River, “so it’s super baptized”. She lit two candles off of the flame the flame in the Tomb of the Holy Sepulchre and her card read, “some kind of special Jesus oil I guess.” Oh, did I mention that Eve is Jewish? She traveled to all of these sites in my honor. This is my cape that will see me through my canonical year thanks to a fantastic woman named Eve Privman.

The cross from my novitiate Mass: well, that actually has a funny story; I wasn’t originally supposed to keep it, but I noticed it said Happy Birthday in French on it. My superior said that we couldn’t use it and had she known before hand we wouldn’t have used it at Mass. Now, I have a simple cross that says, “Heureux Anniversaire” on my night stand.

There are two prayers that I say before going to bed at night, St. Gertrude the Great’s prayer for the Souls in Purgatory and St. Michael’s Prayer–I grasp this cross, it is not a crucifix, when I say both of these prayers.

I am here. I don’t know why. God has blessed me far beyond what I deserve. Even if I fell into a snake pit I think I would be okay because of the many blessings I have already received. (But let’s not try that specific experiment yet, I am so very terrified of snakes.)

No Kidding

“I am broken, crushed to the earth.”

-No kidding.

So, that isn’t the exact response during midday prayers on Friday, but without a beat that is how I responded a couple of weeks ago. The actual response is a bit more uplifting:

-Speak Lord, your Word of Life.

It can be difficult to not feel broken and crushed to the earth on a daily basis. One of the novices was very brave when she shared that it can be difficult for her to see Jesus in everyone when she has been hurt by so many people; her convent was burglarized last year which only compounded her difficulties.

Discernment is a word that is thrown around so much in religious life that it can make someone feel broken and crushed to the earth because no one really understands what it is or what it means and before you know it God has lead you on a nine-year journey which ends with you discerning out because you just walked on the yellow brick road, you never actually followed the yellow brick road.

I am not saying this is a bad thing, because no experience is wasted, and if God had lead you on a nine-year journey in seminary or the religious life and then you discern out then that was His Will and His Will is always beautiful, even if it makes no sense at the time and everyone says to the person leaving just before final vows, “How did you not know earlier?!”

Simple answer: God didn’t want that person to.

Discernment has a dictionary definition, but I think the best definitions for important life decisions come from our souls. For me, discernment means discovering the responsibilities and opportunities of the next step and how that will lead you closer to God. I mean, if God has let you make it to that next step, you are already closer to God.

When I was accepted to the novitiate, I had an unorthodox reaction–I did not phone my family right away (sorry Mom and Dad), I did not jump up and down for joy, I did not even run to the chapel to give thanks. I ran to my room, I think, because I knew what this next step would entail. I knew it would be more difficult. I knew it would be a more prayerful experience and I knew it would not last very long. I knew it was not merely a promotion to the next level, another notch on the belt; this called for a deeper, more sincere relationship with God and I simply was not sure I could do this. I did not call my family right away because I was still in the process of discerning the Council’s decision (of which I had my doubts). My superior did not understand and my reaction caused intense “sharing”.

Discernment is not something that is limited to the religious life. Everyone should be in constant state of discernment–no, I don’t mean whether you are going to choose Fiber One cereal over a Pop Tart. However, there is always a decision going on in our lives that has some angle of discernment in it.

There is a big part of discernment that we usually forget but that makes it so much easier to deal with–it’s called prayer.

When I say prayer, I do not mean a string of rosaries or thousands of Our Fathers or lengthy time spent on the knees (unless that is what you feel called to do). Prayer is much simpler than what we make it. For discernment (or anything), it can be a simple little statement of, “help” coming from the part of your soul that is frightened about a big decision.

One of the things that can be an obstacle in discernment is that we worry about what other people think. We do not live each other’s lives; we live our own lives. We should follow the path God wants us to follow and not the one that everyone else thinks we should follow because its the one that seems to fit us best. What seems to fit us best at one moment may be disastrous down the road and God knows those disasters and His discernment for us is based on that.

It is in God’s discernment and Word of Life that we must realize our own discernment.

I am broken crushed to the earth.

-Speak Lord, Your Word of Life.