May 20, 2015 |
By Spiritu.
Here’s one thing that works to my advantage: I’ll never need to pay a psychoanalyst to decipher the hidden meaning of my dreams. Last night, for example, I was kneeling in my parish church when the Sisters from my former community unexpectedly walked in. They didn’t see me, but I watched them as they genuflected and took their seats near the front, and I wondered whether or not to go over and join them, since I wasn’t wearing my postulant uniform. Then I woke up.
Nearly two years out of the convent, my subconscious clearly still hasn’t quite let go of what might have been. Thankfully, it’s better than it was: at around the time I would have received the habit, for example, I started waking up in the middle of my Clothing ceremony several nights a week. (At least my community had the understated custom of giving the novice’s religious name at the start of the ceremony rather than the end, so I always got that far!) After about a year back in the world, I’d dream myself standing outside the convent in twilight, just as I had stood in real life while wheeling out the bins each week during postulancy, looking up through a window into the brightly-lit community room where the Sisters were gathering for evening recreation. Now, I wonder what that dream means?
For a long time after returning to the world, I slept a lot, but badly: going to bed at 8.30pm, waking up as late as possible the next day, and getting dizzy with tiredness sometime in the late afternoon. A number of times, I was appointed designated driver home from outings when, despite being stone-cold sober, by 10pm by I was definitely no safer to drive than anyone else in the car. (If I make it to heaven one day, I confidently expect that Saint Christopher will be waiting just inside the pearly gates to deliver a lecture on the subject that I’ll never forget.)
Not being a doctor, I can’t offer medical advice, but if you’re in this situation I can tell you a few things that have worked for me:
1) For a short-term rescue if you’re getting faint during the day, forget the sugar and eat a salami stick. I started carrying some around with me (the individually-wrapped ones), and found that the salt, fat and juices gave a much better energy boost than chocolate.
2) The biggest one: no screens for an hour before bed-time. No phone, computer or even TV, as the bright lights 
apparently interfere with the brain’s sleep cues. (Well, minimal screens, anyway. I cheat. I’m cheating as I write this now, in fact.) This one actually fixed most of my sleep problems in one go, and drastically reduced the dizzy spells next day.
3) Chamomile tea. If you’re like me, the challenge, waking or sleeping, is to find a channel in your mind that’s not playing repeats of Life in the Convent. Slowly drinking a cup of chamomile tea just before turning out the light can help gently disconnect those loops of thought and take you downward into sleep.
And then there’s the 2am demon: what if I’d…/perhaps if I’d…/if only I’d… (Or its evil twin, what if they’d…/perhaps if they’d…/if only they’d…) The only thing that helps here, unfortunately, is time and a conscious effort to understand and process the grief. It’s as though every memory of life in the convent, good or bad, is a sharp edge that needs to be gone over with sandpaper a certain number of times before it gets dull enough that you can handle it. However, it’s 2am and you’d really like to go back to sleep, so what can be done for some relief in the meantime?
Here, I’ll pass on three suggestions from the wise and patient priest who suddenly found a wildly unhappy recent ex-postulant in his confessional back in 2013.
1) If you’re playing certain scenes over and over, perhaps making magnificent speeches where you actually once stood mute, bring your sense of the absurd into play. Imagine the scene with Bert and Ernie in the background reacting to what’s going on, or Mr. T providing a running commentary. If it sounds extremely stupid, that’s because it is… but I actually laughed out loud the first time I tested it on one of my painful convent memories.
2) Or, if that’s just too silly for words, how about this? Imagine you’re sitting at a table so long that the far end disappears into the distance, and slowly, gently slide the people you’re angry with down the table away from you, further and further until they’re so small you can’t see them anymore. Keep them there and turn your mind to something else.
3) If all else fails or – worse – the person you’re angry with is yourself, then turn the light on and write down, very specifically, what is bothering you. Then (my own later addition), decide on something concrete that you will do in the morning to move on from that situation. I will say a decade of the Rosary for someone’s intentions. I will put $5 in the Saint Vincent de Paul box. I will make coffee for my parents/housemates. I will say the Office of the Dead for the souls in Purgatory. Anything, as long as it’s clear, charitable and constructive. Then turn the light off and, for heaven’s sake, go back to sleep.
And me? Self-evidently, I’m not “over” the most vivid months of my life just yet. But two years out is a hell of an improvement over two months out, no longer bittersweetly receiving the habit night after night being but one example. The Sisters still walk through my dreams sometimes (do I ever, I wonder, walk through theirs?), but slowly, a couple of years behind schedule, my heart and mind are catching up to my life in the outside world. Thanks be to God.
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 21, 2015 |
By ladyemmay.
“Wait, so you broke up with Jesus?” The confused look on my third grade student’s face spoke volumes. I was trying to explain to him that I had been in the convent for a year, preparing to marry Jesus, but decided that it wasn’t what God was asking of me at that particular time. I stuttered as I attempted to respond… after all, isn’t that exactly how I had felt so often in the last two and half years since I had left? It is certainly confusing to me as well, how could I expect a third grader to understand! If I am not called to live fully that spousal intimacy with Christ here on earth, I know I am still called to it forever in Heaven. But sometimes it just seems like the idea of dating a regular Joe Schmoe after being lined up to marry the most perfect man (slash GOD) is just a little bit of a step down. And perhaps that’s the message I’ve been sending to those Joe Schmoes as well…
So I’m on Catholic Match. I made a New Year’s resolution to be actively open to dating, whatever that means. After realizing in prayer that this was necessary, my first (bad?) move was to check out the Catholic Match website. To my surprise it said that I could fill out a profile for free! I did so out of curiosity. When I got to the end of it, of course, there was a price tag. Just before clicking out, my mom ran over with her credit card. “I’ll pay for three months!” she said. So yes. I’m on Catholic Match, sponsored by my mother…yikes! Does this sound desperate to you? I really, honestly am not desperate. I left the convent 2½ years ago and it has taken me this long to even allow myself to be open to dating. There is something weird about the idea of online dating sites, though everyone assures me that it’s the way most couples are meeting these days. I am suspicious of every person I “meet” on it… is there something wrong with them? Where’s the catch? But maybe there’s just something wrong with me, and my struggle to open myself to the new-fangled methods that the Holy Spirit is using these days… my excuse for being out of the loop on technology and current events (even three years later) continues to be “Well, I was in the convent!”
I loved religious life as much as I struggled in it. I loved the routine, the constant opportunities to love and to give, and the sense of belonging I received in being a tiny part of the whole. But I also felt deeply that lack of intimacy between me and the other sisters in my community. Of course we shared the ins and outs of our lives, and made ourselves vulnerable at appropriate levels. But exclusive friendships were not encouraged, and I had a hard time navigating this without feeling lonely. I knew it was just something that I was giving up in exchange for a deeper intimacy with Jesus, and I believed that over time these friendships would deepen and grow, like family. Now that I am back in “the world,” I value my friends in a new way. I do not think I am as attached to others as I once was, but I certainly have friendships with both men and women that are exclusive and particular. I still believe (perhaps falsely?) that as a married woman, it would be much harder to have a deep intimate relationship with Jesus.
I admit too – it was a little strange that in the convent, we were all married or planning to marry the same guy: Jesus! Everyone, religious or lay, is called to a spousal relationship with Christ. But in a particular way in the convent, I found that I would compare myself to Jesus’ other brides way too much, doubting myself and His love for me. This was dangerous and full of lies. It seemed like all the sisters around me had a deeper love for him, devotion to him, care for the poor, love for their sisters, than I did. Before I entered the convent, I had been surrounded by people who loved Jesus but most didn’t seem to desire the intimacy of relationship that I desired. I had always felt a little different, like Christ had claimed me in a particular way for Himself. And now, the pride that I had upon my entrance was completely shot because I was surrounded by these very human but holy women who felt the same way. It was extremely sobering. I had to learn how Christ could love me particularly while also loving everyone else particularly. I went to him with my pain and those desires for intimacy. I remember praying on one particularly lonely day, “no one knows or cares how much I am hurting right now, except for you Jesus. There is no one else to tell, and I can’t pick up the phone and call a friend. Please listen to me and hear me out on this.”
I don’t think I’m called to marriage simply because I felt lonely in religious life. There is an existential loneliness in every vocation here on earth. This “Original Solitude” as John Paul II calls it, is what always reminds us that God alone can fulfill our deepest longings and desires, no human being. I think the biggest fear I have about marriage is that the intimacy with Christ that a religious sister is called to and a single woman can at least afford, seems to be substituted by the intimacy with one’s husband and the needs of the family. After all, St. Paul says “And the unmarried woman and the virgin are anxious about the affairs of the Lord, so that they may be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband.” -1 Cor 7: 34b. Are they mutually exclusive? I want to please the Lord first, but if I were to insist on a daily Holy Hour or a quarterly retreat as a married wife and mother to the neglect of feeding or caring for my children, this in itself would be selfish. Certainly the married saints have been powerful examples, but let’s just call a fact a fact – there aren’t too many of them declared by the Church yet! It has been shown through the ages that the life given to spreading the Gospel and dedicated to prayer has been the life of the religious or priest. I am grateful however, to live in the Theology of the Body generation, in which we are just beginning to unpack the words of St. John Paul II and his love for human love. This gives me great hope. If God calls me to marriage, I will love my husband as if he is Christ, and yet he will not be Christ. I will go to Christ everyday to give me the love I need to love my husband, so that ultimately it will be like Jesus loving Himself.
Read part 2 of this post here.
Ladyemmay loves the Eucharist, the mountains, the color yellow, anything active, forgiveness, and the goodness in everyone.
Mar 24, 2015 |
Through Storms to His Heart.
By Guadalupana.
I have been out of religious life for almost four years and was in religious life for almost three years, with it being discerned by the council at my religious community that I had been called there but that I was not called to make first vows. Through inner storms and pain, consolations from God and friendships after leaving, I have been making my way to becoming more secure in God’s love for me in the midst of trials and learning to walk on water into a deeper relationship and intimacy with God. One particular storm came to mind recently after talking with someone who had been in a religious community for ten years before being called back into the world. We spoke a bit about the experience of leaving religious life and I shared with her a portion of something I had typed up several months ago after experiencing an inner storm after watching the profession of first vows at a Mass. It consisted of analogies of what it felt like to leave a religious community and I also included a couple of things that I had heard from other women.
This was the description:
It’s like living with your boyfriend before marriage and having given him everything and then shortly before your wedding day, he calls it off & breaks up with you.
It’s like losing many members of your family all at once, having them die suddenly & without being able to say goodbye to many of them.
It’s like a vet having traveled to a foreign land who was planning to give his life for his country but instead finds himself missing a limb and then returns home to discover that everything has changed & life has gone on around him as if he had died.
It’s like being invited to live in a house closer to the gates of Heaven and then being pushed out a window & landing in a pile of manure.
It’s like being stripped of your clothes (habit) and feeling initially as if you are walking around naked with people staring at you.
It’s like being in your mother’s womb where it’s quiet and then suddenly finding yourself in the middle of a busy intersection with cars honking loudly at you (and yes, maybe even while you are still naked!).
It felt really strange being back in the world and leaving a religious community was an experience that so few understood or that even good intentioned people would at times make jokes about, such as stating that I had been “kicked out of the convent”. It was and still can be a real cross and a sensitive area in my heart. Yet, this heart is so loved by God and it is in this cross and opening my heart more to God and His healing and unconditional, personal, merciful love for me that this suffering is actually an opportunity for me to receive grace, to go deeper into God’s thirst for me, and to grow in compassion for those who suffer and forgiveness of those whom I have felt hurt by both in and out of the convent. When storms arise, it is an opportunity to grow in trust and reach out my hand to Jesus like St. Peter and have Jesus help me to walk on water to Him.
A priest I met after leaving religious life gave me advice that I still try to follow: do a half an hour meditation every day; it is a good antidote against sin. I may not be in religious life any more, but I am still His (we all are) and He desires communion with me in prayer. It won’t look the same as in religious life, but I have been blessed to be able to still attend daily Mass, frequent the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and have a Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration Chapel in walking distance of my apartment. Prayer is crucial and I would not have progressed as much as I have in my healing process without it. I am also weak and know that my heart needs to be reminded daily of the truth of His love for me. Through prayer, we give God the Father the opportunity to tell us as He told Jesus “this is my beloved (daughter) with whom I am well pleased” or to speak to our hearts the words He spoke in Isaiah “you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you”, or to be hit with the thought “You died for me so that I could be married to You”. Jesus consoled me after having that very thought pop into my head one night. With Christ’s death on the cross, He made the Church and each of us His spouse…I am His bride! He did not “break” His engagement to me!
While writing this very blog post, I began to also reflect on this – what if I were not here? What if I were not back out in the world now? How different my life and the lives of others would be if I did not exist in it and how many opportunities I would have missed out on if I were still in religious life. Since being out, I have been asked to be a bridesmaid in four weddings including of two friends I did not have pre-convent, became a godmother, was present to a sibling during a difficult time in his life (my younger brother was diagnosed with a form of leukemia a few months after I had left the convent but he is now in full remission, thanks be to God!), started and lead a group for women at my parish to grow in the spiritual life, am sponsoring a young woman in RCIA, have spent countless quiet hours before Jesus in prayer giving Him the opportunity to better love me without having the responsibilities and stress I had felt at times in religious life (and before being in a possible vocation of marriage), and am planning to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in a couple of months.
There have been and will be ups and downs, but if we continue walking to Him and with Him on the water turning to Him and His Heart of love in prayer and seek to see the blessings, our cross can become a source of grace for ourselves and others. Regardless of our vocation, our hearts are made for God & union with Him and to live with Him for all eternity in Heaven. He is the #1 source of love in our lives and only His love is perfect and is to complete us. How great is His love for us! Receive His love!
“Suffering has to come because if you look at the cross, He has got His head bending down – He wants to kiss you – and He has both hands open wide – He wants to embrace you. He has His heart opened wide to receive you. Then when you feel miserable inside, look at the cross and you will know what is happening. Suffering, pain, sorrow, feelings of loneliness, are nothing but the kiss of Jesus, a sign that you have come so close that He can kiss you…” – Mother Teresa
“Lay all your cares about the future trustingly in God’s hands, and let yourself be guided by the Lord just like a little child.” – St. Teresa Benedicta
Mar 18, 2015 |
By Josephine.
“Most women who leave the convent leave the Church.”
I was shocked to hear this statement when I told a young man whom I had just recently met that I had been in a convent for a bit. I couldn’t imagine losing Jesus on top of my perceived “loss” of the convent and all my Sisters.
The way he said it, so matter-of-factly, and the way he looked at me, like I might lose my faith in Jesus too, scared me and put me a bit on the defensive. I don’t like that statistic, whether it’s true or not. Just because someone finds out that a particular community wasn’t their “fit”, or religious life wasn’t their calling, does not mean they are going to lose God.
We must build our foundations strong on Christ so we can weather all storms; we must stand firm on Jesus, our Rock. All God’s people are called to be “like gold refined by fire”, and the fire that we withstand with Christ as our Strength makes our faith in Him stronger, if we allow it.
Let us use our hurts, struggles, and feelings of rejection to help us grow closer to God and His Church, and thereby “win” Jesus; do not “lose” and fall away from God, from Jesus, from the Church, from Love.
Jesus is our True Lover and Friend still. He stands by us through thick and thin, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. If we lose, it is because we rejected Him; if we win, it is because we accepted Him and His Will for us.
And Christ is present in all of us, so we must stick by each other, all other women who have had similar experiences. We need to hold on to one another and build each other up. Let’s turn that statistic into a lie! Not all women who leave the convent leave the Church. We must be living examples of that.
Leonie, St. Therese’s sister, left two convents before she entered the Visitandines where she ended up staying! We all have our own paths to follow to find God’s Will for our lives, remain faithful, and He will show us true love, joy and peace.
~Pax vobiscum~
Mar 11, 2015 |
By Maria Jacinta.
Have any of you ever made a list of the qualities you would want in a husband? I certainly have.
After leaving the convent, I wondered (and still am) if I am called to be married. I am not at the point where I can start dating and have not received a legitimate call to the vocation, but I cannot help to think about what I would want in a husband if I were to get married. I believe it is wise to have an idea as to what we want. It’s not healthy to be too strict about it or we may not find anyone. After all there is no “perfect man”, except for Jesus. It is also not healthy to lower the bar and settle for anyone.
I came across an interesting article on a blog called “Single Catholic Girl” that spoke about the qualities we can look for in a husband. She started out with a long list of qualities in the “perfect man”, which I found to be quite humorous. Then she suggested that we narrow it down to 4 qualities.
So here my question to those who feel called to be married: what four qualities would you look for?
I actually came up with five. Here they are:
1) Practicing Catholic who goes beyond the minimum requirements
2) Making enough money so I can be a stay-at-home mom
3) Knows what it truly means to be a man, a husband and a father and is living it
4) Handsome
5) Loves God more than he loves me, but at the same time, loves / cherishes me for who I am
Feel free to comment on any you come up with!
Here is the article (now archived on the Wayback Machine): https://web.archive.org/web/20130226051151/http://singlecatholicgirl.com/thoughts/four/
apparently interfere with the brain’s sleep cues. (Well, minimal screens, anyway. I cheat. I’m cheating as I write this now, in fact.) This one actually fixed most of my sleep problems in one go, and drastically reduced the dizzy spells next day.
wo years out is a hell of an improvement over two months out, no longer bittersweetly receiving the habit night after night being but one example. The Sisters still walk through my dreams sometimes (do I ever, I wonder, walk through theirs?), but slowly, a couple of years behind schedule, my heart and mind are catching up to my life in the outside world. Thanks be to God.
By Petra Stella
By ladyemmay.
: Jesus! Everyone, religious or lay, is called to a spousal relationship with Christ. But in a particular way in the convent, I found that I would compare myself to Jesus’ other brides way too much, doubting myself and His love for me. This was dangerous and full of lies. It seemed like all the sisters around me had a deeper love for him, devotion to him, care for the poor, love for their sisters, than I did. Before I entered the convent, I had been surrounded by people who loved Jesus but most didn’t seem to desire the intimacy of relationship that I desired. I had always felt a little different, like Christ had claimed me in a particular way for Himself. And now, the pride that I had upon my entrance was completely shot because I was surrounded by these very human but holy women who felt the same way. It was extremely sobering. I had to learn how Christ could love me particularly while also loving everyone else particularly. I went to him with my pain and those desires for intimacy. I remember praying on one particularly lonely day, “no one knows or cares how much I am hurting right now, except for you Jesus. There is no one else to tell, and I can’t pick up the phone and call a friend. Please listen to me and hear me out on this.”
eems to be substituted by the intimacy with one’s husband and the needs of the family. After all, St. Paul says “And the unmarried woman and the virgin are anxious about the affairs of the Lord, so that they may be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband.” -1 Cor 7: 34b. Are they mutually exclusive? I want to please the Lord first, but if I were to insist on a daily Holy Hour or a quarterly retreat as a married wife and mother to the neglect of feeding or caring for my children, this in itself would be selfish. Certainly the married saints have been powerful examples, but let’s just call a fact a fact – there aren’t too many of them declared by the Church yet! It has been shown through the ages that the life given to spreading the Gospel and dedicated to prayer has been the life of the religious or priest. I am grateful however, to live in the Theology of the Body generation, in which we are just beginning to unpack the words of St. John Paul II and his love for human love. This gives me great hope. If God calls me to marriage, I will love my husband as if he is Christ, and yet he will not be Christ. I will go to Christ everyday to give me the love I need to love my husband, so that ultimately it will be like Jesus loving Himself.
Through Storms to His Heart.
There have been and will be ups and downs, but if we continue walking to Him and with Him on the water turning to Him and His Heart of love in prayer and seek to see the blessings, our cross can become a source of grace for ourselves and others. Regardless of our vocation, our hearts are made for God & union with Him and to live with Him for all eternity in Heaven. He is the #1 source of love in our lives and only His love is perfect and is to complete us. How great is His love for us! Receive His love!
By Maria Jacinta.
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