He spoke about how people with liberal arts degrees, former sisters, seminarians, etc. can approach work and the job search. We think you’ll find it very interesting and potentially helpful. Some of the discussion topics:
What is the correct Christian view of money and work?
How to take your liberal arts degree and find a great job
The Catholic lay vocation and its understated importance
How to find fulfillment as a Catholic in the modern workplace environment
Eight years ago, I was a young novice, Sister Mary Inez. Today I am happily married and a mom of two. I had an amazing convent experience, but God never meant for me to stay there. Here is my story.
In August 2012, I joined a community of Dominican teaching sisters. The Lord began calling me to religious life during a retreat that spring. When I felt certain Jesus wanted me to go, I quit my job, sold my car, and became a postulant.
Being a new sister was hard. The other postulants and I had to adjust to a new routine of prayer, work, and study. The hardest thing for me was all the silence. Regular silence and profound silence. Silence in the chapel and silence in our airy, white-curtained cells.
All that silence made it impossible for me to hide from myself. It was like Yoda’s cave in Star Wars:
“What’s in there?” Luke asked about the mysterious cave.
“Only what you take with you,” Yoda wisely replied.
Inside the Cave
I didn’t know it at the time, but I brought a lot of baggage with me into the convent cave. Every time I made a mistake, I was assailed by negative thoughts: You don’t belong here. You could never be a religious sister. No one could ever love you. Jesus loves everybody in the world except you.
These hurtful words stung like physical blows. Adding to this interior misery was the back pain I’d experienced since I was a teenager. In January 2013, I finally told my novice mistress about my struggles.
“I want to stay in the convent, Sister,” I said. My aching body stood hunched over in her doorway. “But I need help.”
Even more, I needed healing.
My novice mistress first gave me permission to see a back doctor. I went to physical therapy and had some X-rays done, but the X-rays didn’t show much. My back pain was invisible on the charts, but still very real.
“Ask the Lord to reveal if there’s a psychological reason for your back pain,” my novice mistress suggested. So I prayed, and soon received an answer.
Easter Revelation
On Easter Monday, I was working in the convent kitchen. I put a few spoons in the wrong drawer, and the sister next to me – my closest friend there – shot me a look of exasperated fury. That minor event stirred up a far more serious incident from the past:
In the winter of 2000, someone whom I loved got very angry with me and hit me. In front of everybody, at a party. They apologized later, but they never explained why.
I was 14 then. I wasn’t sure what to think. What had I done to deserve this? To make sense of it, I decided someone must be to blame: me.
“There’s something wrong with me,” I decided that day. “Something, very, very wrong.”
I didn’t mean my sins. I knew that sins could be forgiven, washed away in the confessional. I also knew God loved to be merciful. No, I believed there was something wrong with me that was unchangeable. Something unredeemable.
And so I began believing an unconscious lie:
There’s something wrong with me. If I did not exist, I would fix what is wrong with the world.
This thought didn’t make sense logically, but emotionally it felt real and true.
Before that winter, I had an optimistic look at my freshman year of high school. Afterwards, I remained cheerful on the outside, but I was deeply depressed on the inside. My back pain started a few months later, and never stopped.
Seeing Sister Mary
I told my novice mistress about my discovery, and how I thought it was linked to my back pain. When she saw my distress, she sent me to see Sister Mary*.
“You need someone to talk to. Sister Mary can help.”
I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to share my ugly wounds with a complete stranger. But I knew Jesus would want me to go, so I went.
I talked to Sister Mary, and she listened. I told her how I was hurt at 14, and all the nasty things I heard in my head. Over several months, Sister helped me. She offered simple words of wisdom, and a clearer vision. She taught me to put those lies from the Devil at the foot of the Cross.
“The Devil is always accusing us, reminding us of our faults,” she said. “But Jesus offers love, forgiveness, healing.”
The more I talked to Sister Mary, the more the pain got out of my head and into the open. My heart, made numb from past hurts, began to feel again. It was a painful experience, but liberating.
Acknowledging the Truth
Through prayer and meetings with Sister Mary, I saw that what had happened to me at 14 was only one piece in a much larger puzzle. I grew up in a household with sometimes unrealistic expectations of perfection. As a consequence, we sometimes ignored the imperfect situations within our own family. This left me hungry for justice, rightness, the truth.
At 14, I couldn’t see that truth. But at age 26, I could acknowledge that my family was loving and supportive, but not perfect. I could also find comfort in Jesus, who came to heal the brokenhearted.
“Sometimes Jesus allows us to suffer physically, as part of His plan for us,” my novice mistress explained. “But He always wants to heal us spiritually.”
Jesus helped me along the difficult road to healing. I surrendered my wounds to Him, wrote to Him in my journal, and begged for healing and perseverance. Finally, I wrote a letter to the person who’d hurt me, saying that I forgave them and that Jesus had healed me.
Sister, What Do You Desire?
Afterwards, however, convent life continued to be difficult. I felt like I was slogging through quicksand. Still, I kept going, determined to stay where God wanted me, as long as He wanted me, here in the convent.
I visited Sister Mary one last time. “I’m healed, Sister. My back pain is gone, and I can feel again.” I sighed. “So why do I feel so unhappy?”
Sister Mary gave me a long look.
“Sister, what do you desire?” she asked.
I stared behind her, into the grey. “I want…a tangible kind of love. I try to give it to my sisters here, but no one wants it.” At night, I’d peer into the bathroom mirror, just to confirm I was still there. I felt invisible. “I want…to be seen, known, loved.”
“What does that sound like?” she prompted.
The answer came to me all at once. “Oh. Marriage. It sounds like marriage!”
In that moment, I knew right away that I wasn’t called to be a sister. I was supposed to get married! No one could have been more surprised than me. I felt so much joy!
I smiled and leapt to my feet. “I have to go home, Sister. My husband is waiting for me!”
A Future With Hope
One week later, I left the convent. Six weeks after that, I met my future husband for the first time. We’ve been married for six years now, and have two beautiful children.
God healed me in the convent, but He didn’t heal me just so my back would stop hurting, or to free me from depression. He healed me so I could see the truth that had been there all along: I was called to marriage, not religious life. And later, to a vocation of writing, not teaching. Healing allowed me to discover my true vocation and calling.
Saying “Yes!” to Jesus led me to a wellspring of grace and healing. The Lord truly took my broken soul and gave me a future “filled with hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).
* Name changed.
About the Author:
Mary Rose Kreger lives in the metro Detroit area with her family, where she writes fantasy for teens, and blogs about her spiritual journey: before, during, and after the convent on www.monasteryinmyheart.com.
Eight years ago, I was a young novice, Sr. Mary Inez. I spent 19 months in the convent before realizing I was called to a married vocation. Today I am a happy wife and mom, but re-entering the world was a great struggle for me. Here is a poem about my experience:
Once outside the convent
You still long to be inside it
The white curtained walls
The ancient creaking floors
The silence and the song.
He drew me in and I followed,
Hungry for the final Word in treasures—
His secret gaze pierced me, pleaded silently:
Come.
I left everything to find Him,
My home, my job, my family—
Stepping out of the boat into the deep waters.
In return, He gave me the Cross,
That bitter cure-all for a thousand ills,
But also a taste of Heaven.
19 months in His garden, and then He says,
“Go home and tell your family all that I have done for you.”
Do you find yourself ready to start dating and yet limited by the lack of social activities these days? (Thank you, Lord, for paradoxically opening my heart to marriage in the midst of a global pandemic!) Or maybe you’ve found the local Catholic dating scene leaving something to be desired. (Too many awkward conversations on tap.) Maybe you’ve thought of trying an online dating site but have hesitations for multiple reasons including horror stories, safety concerns, or the belief that if God wants you to date, He’ll bring someone into your life.
I always desired to meet someone organically. And I did. Multiple times. I probably started dating before I was ready, considering I had been in consecrated life for a decade. But several years and a few breakups later, the Lord did something in my heart. And He called me to create a profile on a Catholic dating site. I believe that I reached a point where clicking “not discerning a religious vocation” gave me a sense of finality and intentionality in my discernment of marriage.
I am grateful for the person I met online! I also know people who tried it for years and finally met their spouse in real life. It’s different for everyone, but I’d like to encourage people to prayerfully consider it. And because it can be so brutal, I’d like to offer some thoughts based on my own experience.
Craft a stellar profile. Make it honest and detailed. Be specific—it helps you to stand out and not just be “one more profile” that someone reads. What makes you unique? Choose good photos that represent you well. If you don’t have many, ask a friend to help you take some. Be you. Don’t be afraid to talk about yourself. That’s easier for some of us than others.
Find a tribe to support you. Or at least a friend. I was blessed enough to be living among holy friends when I entered the online dating scene. Because it can feel demoralizing at times, it helps to have a sister to remind you of your worth. It’s also great to have someone to bounce messages off of and to seek advice about a particular person or conversation.
Be intentional and disciplined. Set aside certain times to scroll, like profiles, and send messages – both so that you don’t become obsessed with it and so that you don’t do nothing at all.
Don’t be afraid to make the first move. We all want to be pursued, am I right? And much of our formation has told us that this is the “right” way. I always assumed that if God wanted me to get married, He would bring that person to me. But that mentality kept me from taking ownership of my desire for marriage.
I’m here to tell you that sending a first message to let a guy know that you’re interested IS OKAY. It is NOT contrary to letting yourself be pursued. Men want to pursue, but they also want to know that they won’t be rejected. And many men appreciate women who are confident.
If he doesn’t eventually begin to pursue you, then you can move on. But sometimes we need to be the ones to drop that first hint. If he’s right for you, he’ll take it from there.
Be open minded. Know your non negotiables, but don’t unnecessarily lock yourself into a certain type when it comes to things like interests, career, or location. You could be surprised by someone who didn’t seem to be your “ideal match” at first.
At first I was looking for someone within driving distance. Or someone who lived anywhere but worked in ministry. The man I fell in love with fell into neither of those categories. I sure am glad I expanded my search and kept an open heart.
Send messages. Don’t be afraid. The more you send, the more of a chance you have at finding someone you really click with. And it’s good practice. Read their profile and acknowledge something from that. Ask leading questions, not ones that can be answered with “yes” or “no.” Be genuine. Allow some back and forth, but don’t continue relentlessly if he doesn’t seem interested.
Say “no” if it’s not going anywhere. Don’t be afraid to kindly express that you’re not interested in taking the conversation any further.
This is hard. It was especially hard for me. I can make good conversation with just about anyone, and I have a sensitive heart. But I had to be honest I wasn’t interested in going further. If I knew this person in real life, I’m sure that we could continue being friends. But the reality of online dating is that you will have to reject good people, and you will never see them again. A relief for some, a cross for others.
But don’t ghost. It’s not kind. I appreciated polite rejections from others, so I wanted to do the same. Sometimes a conversation will fizzle out without either person having to say anything, and that’s ok. But if you’ve corresponded a lot or have talked on the phone, sending a polite rejection couched in appreciation and compliments, is the right thing to do. Even though it can be super hard.
Maintain hope. Don’t let the bad apples discourage you from finding a potential match. You’ve heard all about it—the number of guys who don’t believe in all the church’s teachings, the ones who don’t go to Mass, the guy whose mom set up his profile so that he could find a “nice Catholic girl,” the ones who lie about their age or don’t update their photos in years. Click “not interested” and move on. Don’t hate the tool because not everyone uses it perfectly.
Remain rooted in your identity in Christ. It can be pretty discouraging when none of the cute guys are responding to your messages, when a promising conversation fizzles out, when a first phone call doesn’t lead to a second. We can be harsh on ourselves and wonder if there’s something wrong with us.
This is where our relationship with the Lord has to be our source of truth. Who we are in Him is much more important than how we are perceived by anyone else. That must be our foundation and where we return day after day.
Keep it light! You can be both casual and intentional. Just because the ultimate goal is marriage doesn’t mean you have to have it all figured out from the beginning of each encounter. That’s unrealistic. Not every conversation will turn into a date. Not every date will lead to marriage. Relax. Enjoy getting to know people. Laugh at the awkwardness. Rejoice in the variety of humanity. Be grateful for pleasant conversations and new things learned.
—
Dating is a great act of faith and trust. If we believe that God works all things for our good, we are called to trust that each dating success or failure is part of His greater plan. In the midst of a heartbreak it’s tempting to wonder endlessly why things didn’t go our way. Sometimes it is only chapters down the road that we get a glimpse of understanding—and are even filled with gratitude that the Lord had His perfect way in the matter.
So if you’re feeling the itch to try online dating, approach it prayerfully, with a system of support, keeping an open mind and a trusting heart. It’s one more way of putting ourselves at the Lord’s disposal, allowing Him to lead us as He wills.
If you’re interested to try online dating and would like help creating a profile, or if you’d like to give your current profile a makeover, contact me to sign up for a free 45-minute profile session. I’m happy to share tips based on my own dating experiences and my background in marketing. Please send a message addressed to Cate via the Leonie’s Longing contact form, and it will be forwarded in confidence.
I was on a very difficult discernment visit with a community, when a priest in confession assigned me to pray Psalm 23 as my penance.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. . .”
As a 22-year old cradle Catholic, the words were so familiar that they had lost their meaning. But in this moment, they really took on new significance. In the midst of this stressful period, I felt Jesus reassuring me that he was there with me even though I didn’t feel it. He had led me here; he had started this journey with me and he would see me through.
He guides me along right paths for His name’s sake,
Even though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death,
I shall fear no evil, for you are at my side. . .
As I continued to read, in the chapel, before the giant crucifix that the community had behind the altar, the final verses of the psalm struck me like a lightning bolt:
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup overflows. . .
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
This hit me strongly, with both peace and anticipation. I sensed that the Lord was really getting my attention about something. I deeply felt a call from him, that despite the difficulties, he truly was calling me to enter this community and “dwell in His House” – this house. My cup did “overflow” with joy in response to this, and as I looked at the crucifix, it seemed to me that despite the struggles and sufferings I had encountered there, he had great graces to give me also, in that particular place with that community.
Fast-forward to the following spring, when I applied to this community, and despite the revelation I thought I had received, was not accepted.
If the experience in the chapel was a lightning-bolt showing me the way ahead, the rejection letter was a thunderbolt, appearing out of nowhere and painfully throwing me to the ground. I felt jolted by this on multiple levels. Not only were there the feelings of hurt and rejection, but there was something else, even deeper. I really had – so I thought – learned to recognize and listen to the Lord’s voice and followed an instruction direct from Him. And then, it would seem, he did not keep His promise. I fulfilled my end, and he failed to uphold his.
This disturbed me even more than the circumstances and misunderstandings that led to not being accepted by the community. For if something that I clearly heard God say was not Him, how could I ever trust Him again? More importantly, how could I ever trust myself again, in believing that he spoke to me?
I learned to pray anyway, even if it was more often complaining than anything else. I learned to go to Mass anyway even though my heart felt dead rather than alive in the Lord. I learned to go through the motions of my life, seeking his will for me in practical ways (job searching, finding God in friends and family). I took comfort that St. Francis too, thought that God spoke to him (“rebuild my church”) and it meant something completely different than he thought – in fact greater than what he thought. But something was missing, completely gone, to the point where I didn’t think it would come back and barely remembered what it was in the first place.
Fast-forward again to six years later. . . I had reached a place in my spiritual life that was more peaceful. I had learned to see the Lord in my daily life, even while I was unsure about the future. I had accepted that some things about his workings with us remain a mystery in this life; but it didn’t mean they weren’t real. Yet I still felt annoyed whenever I “ran into” Psalm 23. Like an old injury or pain that is mostly gone, but “flares up” under the right conditions, Psalm 23 was a sticking point in my relationship with God. I avoided it by skimming through when it came up in any reading I was doing, thinking about something else when it came up during Mass, and generally writing it off as a part of the Bible where God had something to say to everyone except me.
Then one cold winter day, I was sitting at my kitchen table with a warm cup of tea, doing my prayer-time for the day, and generally experiencing a pleasant time with the Lord. I opened the scripture readings for that day, and lo and behold, waiting for me was That Psalm. Its’ words jumped out at me from the page and danced before my eyes. They seemed to taunt me, reminding me how I didn’t trust God enough, reminding me how much I sucked at listening to him, and how prone I was to “getting it wrong” when it came to his message for my life. Oh no, not That Psalm! I thought. Not today. I will read the gospel instead.
Normally the gospels provide me much food for meditation. But that day it just left me restless. “That Psalm” kept distracting me. So I thought, perhaps, the Lord wanted me to go there after all. I turned the page, took a deep breath, and asked Him what he wanted to say. Then, by some small yet magnificent miracle of grace, when I read the words over again, they were no longer taunting at all. They came washing over me, like gentle waves that wore away at my resistance and washed over the hurt in my heart.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. . .
He guides me along right paths for His name’s sake,
Even though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death,
I shall fear no evil, for you are at my side. . .
“This is still true,” he seemed to be saying to me. “I am still your shepherd. I always have been. Through the “deaths” of rejection and confusion, still I have been beside you. Even though you have stumbled in the dark, still you have not strayed from ‘right paths’ because I have been with you.”
You anoint my head with oil,
My cup overflows. . .
You spread a table before me in front of all my foes. . .
I realized I had been anointed. Literally. At my baptism. That was where he had chosen and called me. And that call in itself, was unique and beautiful. He had not chosen me for religious life; at least at that time, in that community. But he had chosen me to be baptized. And he called me and chose me still, out of all the others on earth who could be privileged to know His name and yet, by some mystery, hadn’t been. It was a great honor and a great responsibility. “My cup overflowed” again, for different reasons, but even more so than the first time.
I felt in that moment too, that he had “spread a table in front of all my foes” because the darkness and the devil were vanquished, in a very significant way. The “fear of being wrong” in prayer began to lose its’ power.
And then finally. . .
Only goodness and kindness follow me, all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Previously I had misinterpreted this to mean “only blessings follow me” (in my relationships with other people) all the days of my life. But now I realized, these words were not the Lord’s promise to me. They were my promise to Him, in return for His goodness as my shepherd. I would choose to be kind, to bless others, that even the smallest encounter with me would grant them an encounter with Him. And “his house” – beyond being the Church I was privileged to belong to — was also His presence. In that, I could choose to dwell always, regardless of success or failure.
These revelations were profound for me. That Psalm that taunted me was transformed into the first place I now go for consolation. When other storms have come, that is where I have found Him.
I pray that this experience of mine grants His peace to each of you reading it. I hope that it gives you a foretaste of the healing he has for you and the nearness he wishes to restore to you, even in the scriptures or devotions that you now find most painful. He makes all things new, even the thing you find most “ruined” at the moment.
By Mary Rose Kreger.
Acknowledging the Truth
By Mary Rose Kreger, republished from her shared blog 
By Cate.
Dating is a great act of faith and trust. If we believe that God works all things for our good, we are called to trust that each dating success or failure is part of His greater plan. In the midst of a heartbreak it’s tempting to wonder endlessly why things didn’t go 
By LumenChristi
I learned to pray anyway, even if it was more often complaining than anything else. I learned to go to Mass anyway even though my heart felt dead rather than alive in the Lord. I learned to go through the motions of my life, seeking his will for me in practical ways (job searching, finding God in friends and family). I took comfort that St. Francis too, thought that God spoke to him (“rebuild my church”) and it meant something completely different than he thought – in fact greater than what he thought. But something was missing, completely gone, to the point where I didn’t think it would come back and barely remembered what it was in the first place.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. . .
Previously I had misinterpreted this to mean “only blessings follow me” (in my relationships with other people) all the days of my life. But now I realized, these words were not the Lord’s promise to me. They were my promise to Him, in return for His goodness as my shepherd. I would choose to be kind, to bless others, that even the smallest encounter with me would grant them an encounter with Him. And “his house” – beyond being the Church I was privileged to belong to — was also His presence. In that, I could choose to dwell always, regardless of success or failure.
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