Grant, Lord, that in the service of our fellow-men we may always reflect your own gentleness and love, and so imitate Francis de Sales, whom You made all things to all men for the saving of souls.
We make our prayer through Christ our Lord. Amen.
By Mater DolorosaHearing the announcement from Pope Francis that 2015 will be a year dedicated to consecrated life initially left me with mixed emotions. Obviously, this will be a great grace for the Church. It will be beautiful to pray for those in the consecrated life and it will create more awareness about consecrated life. And I am confident that my former sisters are very excited!
However, I can’t help but feel a little left out. You see, a few years ago I was in the convent going about my normal Monday when I was called into my superior’s office. To my great surprise I was asked to leave the community. And even though it’s been a few years, my heart is still confused by this. Initially, it seemed that hearing about this
special year reopened those wounds.
And yet, I don’t believe that is the entirety of what is going on in my heart…
Jesus always calls us to greater healing and wholeness. Yes, hearing this announcement did stir up feelings and emotions. But this “stirring” in my heart is also a beautiful opportunity to let God into those hurts and receive more healing. In these moments, when I feel left out and when my life feels meaningless, I have to reach out in faith. When I have the courage to let God be the only thing that I possess He fills my heart with the knowledge that I belong to Him.
He is enough for me.
Now I look back and see how much I have grown and healed. This announcement is not so much salt in a wound but rather a reminder of the healing balm the Lord has placed in those wounds.
How about you? How does this announcement make you feel? God bless!
By J.E. Sigler
What was there to fear? Misery, for one. Because despite all my success so far, I had never been really happy, because I had never known God. Throughout my early 20s, I converted to several different religions, but wound up disillusioned with all of them. So by the time I was 28, although I still believed in God, I was tired, tired, TIRED of seeking, thinking I’d found, and then realizing I hadn’t. I was completely spiritually exhausted. So I gave up my religious search, telling myself that I would “walk alone with God” for a time, a choice that quickly plunged me into the most depraved years of my life.
And at just this time, the collapse of the American economy began to reverberate internationally. My freelance work tanked. My fiance left me. My religious identity was dead. All my relationships had fallen apart. I had no job. And I was alone in a foreign country that isn’t exactly known for its easy way of life. I had no idea who I was or what my life was for anymore. Eventually I saw no choice for myself but to leave Israel and return to the U.S. to “retrain” for a different career, to start my life all over again, from scratch.
At 29, I crossed the Atlantic, feeling as if I was flying into a gaping black abyss. I had no idea what I was going to do 
with my life, where I was going next or where I would end. I was 100% unambitious, with no desire to do anything or be anyone. I had failed miserably in life, in my career, in my relationships, even in my faith, and I did not know how to go on.
Sound familiar?
In my mind at the time, life had taken a wrong turn after school. I’d always been good at that. So, after a few months of wandering about aimlessly back in the U.S., I took the GRE and started a Master’s in Philosophy (a very sorry substitute for religion, I must say!). Within two weeks, I was very worried: I was reading philosophy for the first time, and I didn’t understand 95% of it. The other 5% I hated. I told myself to relax, that the professors would explain things to me and it’d be ok. But they explained, and it was still not ok. I only hated philosophy more and more. Within three months, I could not imagine myself continuing in this discipline. I could barely get through each day.
As I saw it, I had now failed in academia, too. If I couldn’t make it in a career, or in love, or in religion, or, now, even in school, where I had always been successful, what in the world was going to become of me? By the time Thanksgiving break rolled around, I was emotionally and psychologically incapacitated. I spent the entire break, 10 days, in bed, chain-smoking, drinking Arak, Netflix-binging Grey’s Anatomy.
At the end of Thanksgiving break, I picked myself up, went to my computer, and started applying for different graduate programs, not in philosophy. Then I started church hunting.
By “serendipitous” (read: “grace-filled”!) means, I found my way to the local Catholic parish. Something there seemed vaguely true, and beautiful, in an inexpressible sort of way. So when I discovered that Catholics have daily Mass (“Oh my gosh, these people have church every day?! I’m so in!” ;-), I started going. Every day, from the depths of my desperation, I knelt in the pew after Mass and threatened God (really): “You know what? I’m not leaving. If you don’t wanna give me faith, that’s fine. But I’m not going anywhere. I’m just gonna die here in the Catholic Church without faith. Fine with me. Or, You can give me faith. Whatever You want. But I ain’t leavin’. Not this time!”
In all my years searching religions, no one had ever said to me that faith is a gift. I had simply figured out, through years of trying to grasp faith on my own, that it was just downright impossible. Now, of course, I can see that my threats-from-the-pew were, in and of themselves, the fruit of grace. I had not given up on God, even though I thought I had. Even when I believed I was just being a desperate, stubborn nuisance to the Almighty, I was really expressing a deeply rooted trust in the Catholic Church that I did not know I had.
So I became Catholic (of course!). But two amazingly grace-filled years later, I found myself rejected from two PhD programs, with no options, no job, and, again, no future that I could see. And once more, I forgot my faith.
By a not-so-small miracle, this time I was accepted at the last minute to a PhD program, four months after their deadline. I should have rejoiced, but by this point, my faith was so shaken and my fear of the future so all-consuming that, when I finally got the letter offering me admission, I agonized over whether to accept them.
Why? Because the school was in: A war zone? An AIDS- and malaria-infested third-world country? The middle of drug cartel territory?
No. Because it was in Indiana, and I had never been to the Midwest. (Confer my 23-year-old self from the first post!)
For over a month, I was paralyzed by indecision, terrified of the unknown, and really, REALLY angry with 
God for not saying anything at all to help me decide. When finally my stomach was so tied up in knots that I’d been surviving on Sprite and crackers for a week, a friend (God bless him) lost his patience with me and literally cursed and bullied me into going to visit the school, so that it wouldn’t be “unknown” anymore. That sounded so simple and logical that I literally slapped myself. Frantically, at the last minute, I drove 10 hours overnight to Indiana, one day before the department deadline for me to accept or decline.
And there…
At Mass one morning, it dawned on me that I had forgotten a service opportunity downtown. Forgetting the miracle taking place before me, all I could think about was how lazy I was for spending a Saturday lounging and catching up on my own life while there are people suffering and in need.
But then I thought about it for a minute. Ok, do I even remember the first reading? No, good thing it was mentioned in the homily! At least one of the letters of St. Paul was mentioned, so I assume that is what was read. Am I being present to the Lord who is deserving of all my love? Am I grateful that He has brought me to receive His Love in this beautiful old Dominican Chapel? Well, I was then!
I started thinking about charity, and how sometimes I feel motivated towards works of charity not because of love, but because of a need to feel good about myself. As I continue my spiritual and psychological healing and readjusting to “the world,” I notice that I am sometimes motivated to serve others because interiorly I feel a certain emptiness. And this emptiness always seems to return until I busy myself more with work, helping someone, or being “useful” in some way, shape, or form.
This little light is another part of what God has been trying to tell me about the concept of identity, especially after such a life-changing transition. I was reminded that my identity is not based upon how productive I am, what I “am” to others, how helpful or useful I have been, etc. etc. I am not necessarily “better” because I have done “more”, or “worse” because I have done “less”.
During the walk home from Mass, I was thinking about how charity/love is first given by the Lord, who is the only One who can fill that emptiness, and then, after His love permeates our whole being, we can be love for all. The Lord also provides us 
with MANY opportunities to practice charity. It doesn’t have to be a set day or time or number of hours or even a scheduled service opportunity (as good as those things are, and as much as I should try and take advantage of them!). He, however, is present in every soul we encounter, and therefore we can reverence Him in everyone we encounter and everyone we keep in prayers. I thought of Mother Teresa, and contemplated what she might say. The image that comes to mind is that of light. To everyone entrusted to our prayers we can keep vigil, lighting a candle in the sanctuary of our hearts, and on the altar we can sacrifice our prayers, works, time, etc.When I was a block away from my house I saw two figures standing just outside my house, clothed in white with a tint of blue. It couldn’t be… yes, it was. Two Missionaries of Charity walking the opposite way down the same street. This circumstance isn’t extremely out of the ordinary, given that there is a Missionaries of Charity Convent about a mile away. However, I knew that God’s Providence was stirring something within my soul, urging me to take this concept to prayer… and to Leonie’s Longing.
Both in and out of the Convent it can be easy to become so busy with giving that there is no room to receive the other or the charity of others. I remember feeling so worthless as a Postulant, when my responsibilities were reduced to making my bed, vacuuming the parlor, and occasionally pouring water for breakfast! And after leaving the Convent I had a hard time accepting myself without possessing some sort of work or project or service to another. My identity was still rooted in what I did.
I have learned from Blessed Mother Teresa, whose Feast we celebrate today, that charity will naturally flow out of a heart given to God. May you receive the Love of Christ today so that you may be Christ to the world!
I pray that you will understand the words of Jesus, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Ask yourself “How has he loved me? Do I really love others in the same way?” Unless this love is among us, we can kill ourselves with work and it will only be work, not love. Work without love is slavery.
“Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing.”
On August 13, 2013 we hosted a live chat to discuss the experience of leaving the religious life or seminary. We had a lively conversation with many beautiful insights. We touched on topics like asking for help, not feeling alone and how to be a friend, among others. Please write any comments below! We hope you enjoy watching it!
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