Jul 16, 2015 |
On the Feast of Saints Anne and Joachim, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Elissa Jasko reflects on her vocation to motherhood and finding holiness within the family.
A child running by half clothed, a baby crying, bathwater puddles on the floor and toilet, a toothpaste painting all over the lower half of the mirror, and a frustrated child trying to put an upside down and inside out pajama shirt on like pants. This is a common scene at our house between 7:30 and 8:30pm. Chaotic? Yes. Unnerving? Yes. Beautiful? Absolutely. It is beautiful because if you look closer you may see a father helping one child brush her teeth while patiently listening to another enthusiastically describing a superhero, ninja turtle, firefighter who fights villains with tube sock nunchucks. You may hear a 2 year old quietly singing to the baby while trying hard to do it all “myself!” I hope you would see a mother closing her eyes, taking a deep breath and choosing to act in charity instead of frustration.
The family is a path to holiness. Siblings are one of the greatest gifts you can give your children. The family is a domestic church. I have heard each of these phrases many times. As parents, my husband and I have a continuing dialogue about all the choices we make for our family. During one recent conversation, we began to internalize what I think these phrases about family are trying to describe: the only goal that really matters is doing everything in love. It does not matter if our kitchen floor more closely resembles the before shot in a Lysol commercial or if we manage to pull off a Pinterest perfect birthday party for each of our children every year. What matters is taking every opportunity to teach our children to love God and others even when the baby is screaming. Even when water is dumped all over bathroom floor. Even when there is a month’s worth of Kid’s Crest artfully spread across the mirror. Even when we really just need the kids to get in bed so we can fold the laundry without the piles being used as step stools to get onto the couch. Instead of focusing on everything in our life that is not “going right” we need to use all of these naturally occurring opportunities to teach our children to love each other, to value people over task lists, and to have peace. Lord help us!
We pray that as we move toward our eternal destination, we prepare our kids to know Jesus and to let His Love into their hearts so it can overflow to everyone they meet. While this responsibility is huge, we are discovering that must be accomplished through minute by minute choices to “do small things done with great love.”
Jul 8, 2015 |
By Cinnamon.
Jesus opened the book of nature before me, and I saw that every flower He has created has a beauty of its own; that the splendor of the rose and the lily’s whiteness do not deprive the violet of its scent, nor make less ravishing the daisy’s charm! So it is in the world of souls, the living garden of the Lord. It pleases Him to create great saints, who may be compared with lilies or the rose; but He has also created little ones, who must be content to be daisies or violets nestling at His feet to delight His eyes when He should choose to look at them. (Saint Therese, The Story of a Soul.)
While studying a few years ago for a teaching degree, I came across a fascinating article about the role that genetics play in children’s levels of vulnerability and resilience. The authors suggested that there are two kinds of people: “dandelion children,” who will succeed in just about any environment, and “orchid children,” who are acutely sensitive and will only thrive if their environment is safe and nurturing. (For more information, click here.) It’s not limited to certain obvious temperaments, either: I’ve had lively, sanguine students break down in tears and tell me their essays were “stupid” (orchids) while a handful of melancholics worked on quietly in the background and wondered what all the fuss was about (dandelions).
Of course, the comparison between people and flowers immediately reminded me of Saint Therese of Lisieux, and I wanted to explore the idea further. According to the popular stereotype, young women who are too delicate to cope in the “real world” retreat to the cloister – making the religious life a safe haven for orchids, while the dandelions work nine-to-five jobs, volunteer in soup kitchens, then eventually get married and populate the world with more little dandelions.
There are two things wrong with this idea. Firstly, it suggests that orchids are fragile or even weak – as opposed to intelligent, passionate, and reflective people who perceive everything that goes on around them and find that sometimes those things really grate.
Secondly, the religious life is complicated, and some aspects of it are not actually designed with orchids in mind. While the external structure seems to be ideal – long periods of prayer and silence, a strict horarium, and an established procedure for everything from cleaning a sink to meditating on a passage of Scripture – I started to see within a couple of weeks of entering the convent that the systems in place were set up for minds that worked quite differently from mine. For example, take the frequent changes of occupation throughout the day. Suppose that I’m told to scrape carrots. I might settle happily into the task and scrape away for an hour or two until the job is done, but if instructed part-way through to leave the carrots and start on the dishes, it will take me several seconds to change gears and mentally put the carrots down – a delay which, in the convent, looks like disobedience. Similarly, if you’ve ever rushed out after Holy Hour as if the chapel were on fire, breathing the air of freedom after being stuck with nothing but your own thoughts for company for the entire time, you’re probably an orchid. (Fun, isn’t it?)
Is religious life, then, only for the dandelions? Thankfully, no. I’ll summarise the study’s findings very briefly:
Dandelion in a difficult environment: success.
Dandelion in a positive environment: great success.
Orchid in a difficult environment: stress, depression.
Orchid in a positive environment: outstanding success.
So, in difficult circumstances, the dandelion will be much better off than the orchid, but in the right environment, the orchid will flourish even more than the dandelion. The same gene that points to the worst outcomes also points to the best.
I’ve begun to understand that, although I loved my community dearly, I found their way of life grinding because it wasn’t my vocation to be there; I was attempting to carry a cross that wasn’t actually meant for me, and that’s the one thing an orchid really can’t do. Somewhere in my future, though, is the cross that I am meant to carry – a yoke made so light by joy that even an orchid can hold it high. Who knows yet what it is? But orchids, too, are meant to bloom in the garden of Christ.
Apr 26, 2015 |
By Petra Stella
Are you one of the many former religious who will sit in Mass this Sunday hearing Father mention that it is the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, and immediately feel that painful twinge in your heart? It probably feels like yet another painful reminder of the “Year Of Not Me” all over again!
It’s easy to fall into that trap… thinking this is not about you.
After all – this is the Year of Consecrated Life, and it’s the World Day of Prayer for Vocations.
But if you think this isn’t about you, you aren’t paying attention! You – and I – and all the women in our situation: we need the graces and guidance that will come of the World Day of Prayer for Vocations as much as anyone else… perhaps more than anyone else!
About 2 weeks before I returned back to the world, I was sick in bed with influenza, and remained in my cell for a few days. During that time, I re-read Christifideles Laici. At this stage I already knew I’d be approaching my superior about returning home when I was well and she was back from her retreat… and so I read it with very much a searching mindset. And with a great deal of hope and excitement, not yet tinged by the grief of loss that was to come after actually leaving.
As I read this beautiful gem from among the legacy of St John Paul the Great, I was struck by the important reminder that ALL of us are consecrated. Our Baptism is a consecration, and religious life is one very beautiful way of deepening that consecration. It is not the only way.
So how do I live out MY consecration? I may one day be called to marriage, or I may be called back to religious life down the track… but if I’m consecrated by virtue of my Baptism, then I need to be living out this consecration NOW… not just waiting to deepen it some way in the future. Christifideles Laici reminds us that there are many different kinds of workers in the Vineyard of the Lord, and there is much work to be done. How can I bear fruit if I stand around idle all day? I want to bear fruit for Him!!
I gave my “yes” once upon a time to the Lord when He asked. This “yes” hasn’t changed, and every so often on special occasions, I renew this “yes” to Him. Wrapped up in this response was a realisation that even though I thought I was assenting to religious life, I didn’t really know what the future would hold, but I said “yes” to it all – everything He asked of me, no matter how little, how big, how crazy. I meant it then. I mean it now. Like Therese, I choose all. My “now” is part of this all. I’m out in the world again because He asked me to be. He has a purpose in this, and He wants me to be fruitful. Yes, Lord. I choose and embrace this “now” in which I find myself. Bless the work I undertake out here in Your Vineyard. May You bring this work that You have begun in me to completion!
I would really recommend following the link above to the Vatican website and reading Christifideles Laici prayerfully, if you are seeking guidance as to how to live your “now” fruitfully. I’d also prayerfully read – and take comfort in – Chapter 15 of John’s Gospel. This advice was given to me by a wise friend last year, and it brought me much comfort and guidance in my own situation.
And so I exhort each of you – as you lend your voice to the many that are praying for vocations today… realise that YOUR vocation, whatever that is, is every bit as much the target of any resulting grace. :) Today is a World Day of Prayer for YOU.
Apr 14, 2015 |
By Liz Miller.
“Sometimes the only way the Good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them.”
– Ven. Archbishop Fulton Sheen
It’s been almost 1 1/2 years since I wrote “A Hairy Story,” and yet it feels like eons ago. Firstly, I’ll just say that, as women who have entered and left religious life, it is healthy to take time to look at how we’ve grown since “That Day”. After all, who wants to live “the unexamined life?”
As a young, Catholic woman having left the world, entered the convent and then re-entered the world, my life has gone through such a beautiful string of phases, it’s hard not to recognize God’s hand in it all:
Peace… Confusion… Struggle… ReAbandonment… Discernment
Because I could write a book [and perhaps someday I will… bucket-list maybe?], I’ll try to limit myself to short snippets of insights I’ve gathered throughout my experience thus far.
Peace: If ever I am distraught about or question my current situation, I must never forget that strong sense of peace I received from leaving the convent and knowing it was God’s will for me. This peace stayed with me for a maximum of 5 days after leaving the convent. All of a sudden, I felt…
Confusion: During the month between leaving the convent and going to college, the questions that ran through my head are very legitimate. Why would God do this to me? I love Him with all of my being, but how am I supposed to reconcile this feeling of having my heart broken? Who am I? Where do I belong in this world? Confusion then led to the hardest…
Struggle: Immediately upon attending University, I experienced a relapse of self-consciousness that I hadn’t felt since high school. At this point, I know I am supposed to attend and graduate college. But I ache to figured out who I am in the world: am I the crazy Catholic girl who wears long skirts and does all the Catholic things on campus? Or am I hiding behind the skirts because I want to make my femininity absolutely clear due to my short hair? The answer was the latter, which played a large role with my insecurities. Praise God that I didn’t have it in me to take the downward path to despair but instead walked tip-toe on the road to…
ReAbandonment: Once I recognized how much I still needed Christ, I found comfort only in His presence. With the help of the chaplain on campus, and my now-best friend who – Providentially – had left the same convent and attended the same University, with the help of the Mother Superior of a Community that is close in location and heart, and Leonie’s Longing, I learned that my life’s not over. In fact, Life Himself has taught me the truth and beauty about my vocation. This was the stepping stone for my…
Discernment: My second semester of college found me at a conference organized by the diocese where my university is. There was a religious community that I was intrigued by, which surprised me because I had distaste for all things religious life prior. Curiosity led to interest which led to a conversation by phone with the vocations assistant. To my surprise, she didn’t want to talk about my having left the convent. For half an hour, we talked about my prayer life. This is the second most life changing event, but probably the first and foremost best change that has happened. Through her direction, I have re-discovered my relationship with Christ because I made time for Him in front of the Blessed Sacrament. I’ve learned how to pray with Scripture and with Christ.
During one of our monthly phone calls, I mentioned to her that I was struggling with worries about my vocation. Am I called to marriage or to the religious life??
Her answer: “That’s not for you to worry about right now… Your vocation is to love Jesus Christ.”
So I’ve found that this is the best and most exciting vocation there is. That being said, there are moments when I wish I could just snag a guy, run away, and get married. There are moments when my heart leaps for joy at the sight of a religious sister. And of course, there are moments when I want to quit school because the road seems too long, the light at the end of the tunnel too far to see.
But then I think of how much the Lord can do with the little I give Him.
Take heart, sisters in Christ! And “always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15); even if that “anyone” is the doubt inside you. We gave up everything to follow Him once… He’ll give us strength to do it time and time again. Let us not forget that a life worth living is a life worth giving – a daily laying down of our own wills in exchange for His; a daily re-version of heart, mind, body and soul.
Here I am, Lord, I come to do Your will.
Then:
Reunited with siblings after leaving the convent.
Now:
Enjoying abundant blessings of studying abroad in the Eternal City!
*If you check out this video, Ruth Bachman explains well the story of the book after which this post is titled.
Feb 23, 2015 |
Today, we’ve swapped posts with Blessed and Beloved, a blog about the single life for Catholic women! This article was written by Michelle, one of the blog’s four foundresses, and originally published on the 14th of November 2014.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29: 11-13
I make plans. I have always made plans. I enjoy and get excited planning. Whether it is what I am doing this weekend or my childhood plans of going to Africa, living in an orphanage, or going to graduate school on the East coast, plans have directed me in life and given me security. For the most part too I have followed these plans believing they too were God’s plans for me. Plans gave me control and following them made me feel successful. They allowed me to be able to share with people where I was heading in life and look like I knew what I was doing. If you know me I am always doing something and usually many somethings. Just having plans to have plans though is where things get dangerous.
But God’s plans are not our plans. Most people have heard the saying, “if you want to make God laugh tell Him your plans”. I think it is probably more of a little endearing chuckle followed by a big smile of a loving Father. His plans are sooooo much better, greater, and truly the only way for us to follow Him and be truly happy. As said in Jeremiah, His plans give us a full, rich and worthwhile life. It is a life where we are successful and not by the standards of the world but by His call to love and serve and glorify Him. It is a life where we can truly live as though we were created to do nothing more than love and be loved.
Figuring out those plans is not always easy especially when we put so much into planning and like me are stubborn and convinced we know best. It takes much discernment. It can take someone saying, “What are you doing?!” It can take everything lining up perfectly except certain things that we were convinced were never in God’s plan. It takes taking chances, trusting, and letting go of our pride, need for control, and lack of faith.
Yes, I went to live and work in an orphanage. Yes, it changed my life. Yes, it taught me in so very many ways that God’s plans are not ours. Looking back on my discernment process to join the Salesian Lay Missioners 2.5 years ago is when it all started. As my plans went I had to find an African orphanage. There were no other options and that is where I would be for the next year or more. But, when I found the Salesians God lead my heart first to their mission: seeing Christ in the Face of a Child first, and secondly to their specific sites. If you had asked me months before I applied to the program: do you see yourself going to South America? The answer most likely would have been probably not and secondly do you see yourself learning and becoming fluent in Spanish? The answer would have been “forget about it!” I took five years of French because I didn’t want to take Spanish with everyone else. While my friends would speak Spanish in front of me I would plug my ears and wait till they started speaking English again. Well as God likes to laugh at our plans and oh how much patience He has in our stubbornness. I ended up settling (I say that lightly) for an orphanage in Bolivia, where of course Spanish was the spoken language. Some would call it irony, but I call it God. Along with so many other aspects of my life in Bolivia, Spanish is now a part of my identity, my faith, my world, and my future.
From the moment of God leading me to Bolivia until now God taught me over and over that He was in charge and all I need to do was reach out, grab His hand, and let Him follow. My last few months in Bolivia were so very busy and as I started the New York job search, I thought, I’ve lived in an orphanage for the last two years: I can handle graduate school and working full time. I looked for a family that would be flexible, knowing my school schedule. Finally I was contacted by a woman who said my schedule wasn’t a problem for her. Everything seemed to start to fall together and then she started to help me think about my post-Bolivia perfect “plan.” Being in charge of the medical needs of the girls in the orphanage for the last year and a half had got me thinking about my vocation and what God wanted to teach me through this experience. The head sister, Hermana Rosy at one point looked at me and said “I think your work here shows that you might have a vocation in the medical field.” One of the doctors I often worked with told me that he could see God calling me to be a doctor. I thought perfect, the medical field that is where I am heading.
Heading to graduate school to study Child Life (supporting children in the hospitals) still seemed on track with what these wise people were suggesting. But, as I was advised by my future boss to look more into the graduate school I was heading towards things weren’t fitting. Financially, vocationally, and even practically I started doubting. It went from I am going because it’s my plan, to could God have a different plan for me? Should I be a nurse, PA, or even doctor? to ok, well I’ll go for at least a semester, to I’m moving to New York in one week and I don’t think God wants me to be attending this graduate school, to I have no housing but a job and I still believe God has something to show me, teach me, and for me to do in New York. It was a process that went rather quickly and I truly felt like my life and plans were falling apart and my life being turned upside down. It was the first time in my life that I didn’t know what I was doing with my life. But, it was also the most freeing realization letting go of the plans I had held onto and letting God show me that He has something so much better for me.
No matter where we are or what we are doing as long as we love and letting God lead us, we are His. We can find Him in any tabernacle of the world, in others we encounter, and in our own hearts. As I journey from one place to the next sometimes I feel that my heart is in so many places. I leave it in Kirkland anytime I leave home, I left it in Africa when I went there in college, I left it at Gonzaga where God formed my heart and led me to many wonderful people, I left it in Bolivia with my girls and the sisters, and so many other places and people that God has blessed me with the chance to encounter. But when I think about that the line “Let your goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee” from the song Come Thou Font of Every Blessing comes to mind. My heart has wandered from place to place, person to person, experience to experience but in His goodness He has always wandered with me. In feeling my heart being torn in many directions I always feel most at peace in Him and through Him home is wherever He is with me. Often we do so much searching in the world especially when it comes to our planning. God calls us to come back to Him, encounter Him in our hearts, and in that see what His plan is. As St. Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” It is so easy to look in other places for that peace, in our plans, in our ideas, in our activities, etc. But, in the end we can only find that in Him, in His love, and in His plans for our lives.
As I continue on the adventure that God is taking me on I don’t know where He will lead me. I don’t know everything that is in His plan. I never will and that is alright. I choose to let Him bind my wandering heart to His and seek Him with all my heart. I know He has never led me astray before. In fact, His plans have always blown mine out of the water and given me the biggest gifts in my life. Although it’s not easy giving up that control it’s worth it always. He blesses each of us with our own story, our own journey with Him and back to Him. Help us Lord to remember You are in control, to trust in Your plan over ours, and find our home in You.
Feb 2, 2015 |
By AfterEpiphany.
A short while ago the Leonie’s Longing blog featured an article called “A Year of Not Me” This article invited the reader to reflect upon his or her interior response to the commencement of the Year of Consecrated Life.
It is both easy and tempting to become immersed in questioning one’s own identity before God; our Plan A had involved living the consecrated life and now we’re all “stuck with” Plan B.
At the time I read the article my response was that “A Year of Not Me” was an invitation to go beyond myself, to put aside for a time whatever suffering had arisen upon returning to the world, and to focus on serving others.
The Feast of the Presentation (which has about to be finished for me in Australia, but which is still in progress for those of you on the other side of the International Date Line) is an obvious day of significance, perhaps THE day of significance, in this special year for those living the consecrated life.
Now we know that the feast is often also referred to as Candlemas, and there is a great deal of emphasis on light: Jesus Christ is proclaimed as that light to enlighten the Gentiles in the Nunc Dimittis prayer of Simeon. Well this is going to blow your mind.
Who are the Gentiles?
Well, in the LITERAL sense, they are those outside of the Jewish faith.
Who were the Jewish people?
The chosen people of God, those who had been set apart for Him.
What does it mean to be consecrated?
To be called by God, to be set apart for Him.
So perhaps it isn’t too big a jump to consider that one possible allegorical sense of Simeon’s prayer is that those of us who are not consecrated are the ones to be enlightened here.
This feast is for us, too!!!!
Where does that leave us? In this year of “Not Me” I’m sitting here asking Christ, our Light, to enlighten me, a Gentile, as I meditate upon this special event in His life. One thing that jumps out at me as I ask for light is this: I cannot avoid suffering. Even His much beloved and blessed Mother found her heart on the pointy edge of a sword, even after her “yes,” her obedience, her total life of service and undivided love for Him.
And so I return to where I began: the grief and loss of my former Community? My confusion over who I am before God now that He has called me back out to the world? Those occasional feelings of frustration at the mess of it all, the complication of figuring out what life in His service now means? He shines like a spotlight, focused on His Mother, showing me exactly what to do with that suffering. It is real. It can’t just be dismissed. But in this year of “Not Me” it just doesn’t have to be the focus. My life doesn’t have to be about that. My life is about Him. And He and His Mother are both models of obedience, humility, service and authentic love.
Lord, now you let your servant go in peace;
your word has been fulfilled:
my own eyes have seen the salvation
which you have prepared in the sight of every people:
a light to reveal you to the nations
and the glory of your people Israel. (Luke 2:29-32)
By Cinnamon.
wanted to explore the idea further. According to the popular stereotype, young women who are too delicate to cope in the “real world” retreat to the cloister – making the religious life a safe haven for orchids, while the dandelions work nine-to-five jobs, volunteer in soup kitchens, then eventually get married and populate the world with more little dandelions.
established procedure for everything from cleaning a sink to meditating on a passage of Scripture – I started to see within a couple of weeks of entering the convent that the systems in place were set up for minds that worked quite differently from mine. For example, take the frequent changes of occupation throughout the day. Suppose that I’m told to scrape carrots. I might settle happily into the task and scrape away for an hour or two until the job is done, but if instructed part-way through to leave the carrots and start on the dishes, it will take me several seconds to change gears and mentally put the carrots down – a delay which, in the convent, looks like disobedience. Similarly, if you’ve ever rushed out after Holy Hour as if the chapel were on fire, breathing the air of freedom after being stuck with nothing but your own thoughts for company for the entire time, you’re probably an orchid. (Fun, isn’t it?)
attempting to carry a cross that wasn’t actually meant for me, and that’s the one thing an orchid really can’t do. Somewhere in my future, though, is the cross that I am meant to carry – a yoke made so light by joy that even an orchid can hold it high. Who knows yet what it is? But orchids, too, are meant to bloom in the garden of Christ.
By Petra Stella
By Liz Miller.
Confusion: During the month between leaving the convent and going to college, the questions that ran through my head are very legitimate. Why would God do this to me? I love Him with all of my being, but how am I supposed to reconcile this feeling of having my heart broken? Who am I? Where do I belong in this world? Confusion then led to the hardest…
eAbandonment: Once I recognized how much I still needed Christ, I found comfort only in His presence. With the help of the chaplain on campus, and my now-best friend who – Providentially – had left the same convent and attended the same University, with the help of the Mother Superior of a Community that is close in location and heart, and Leonie’s Longing, I learned that my life’s not over. In fact, Life Himself has taught me the truth and beauty about my vocation. This was the stepping stone for my…
e because I had distaste for all things religious life prior. Curiosity led to interest which led to a conversation by phone with the vocations assistant. To my surprise, she didn’t want to talk about my having left the convent. For half an hour, we talked about my prayer life. This is the second most life changing event, but probably the first and foremost best change that has happened. Through her direction, I have re-discovered my relationship with Christ because I made time for Him in front of the Blessed Sacrament. I’ve learned how to pray with Scripture and with Christ.
So I’ve found that this is the best and most exciting vocation there is. That being said, there are moments when I wish I could just snag a guy, run away, and get married. There are moments when my heart leaps for joy at the sight of a religious sister. And of course, there are moments when I want to quit school because the road seems too long, the light at the end of the tunnel too far to see.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29: 11-13
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