In the Waiting, in the Struggle…He is There
V.J.E
“The Lord will fight for you; you have only to keep still.” Exodus 14:14
Praised be Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, now and forever. Amen. These past few weeks have been quite a rollercoaster. On August 14, Sr. April Marie Josefina (we received permission to add a saint name to our baptismal name) and I made our first profession of vows. It was a beautiful evening where I truly felt the love and prayers of the family God has given me. I am still adjusting to the black veil, the added name, and all the new adventures!
You are probably familiar with the saying, “When you make plans, God laughs.” This is still very true in religious life. Two other Sisters and me had plans of being in our new location in Jacksonville, FL this past weekend…but Hurricane Irma decided to go to FL first. Long story short, we are in a waiting period. I have and am learning a lot in the waiting.
First, in all honesty, I am struggling in the waiting! Not having a specific, consistent apostolate and with every day being so different, I have felt all over the place. Yet, deep down, I know that this is where God wants me––in the struggle. In the midst of this, Jesus’ Sacred Heart also keeps coming up in prayer. Ironically, the parish and school where we are going to in FL is named after the Sacred Heart. Instead of avoiding this struggle, I have been bringing it up in prayer and questioning why His Heart keeps coming up.
Honest dialogue in prayer is something I have come to grow in. I tell God FROM my thoughts, feelings, and desires, and not just about them, as if they were separate from me. Having a background in counseling is helpful with identifying some of these things, but to enter into what is usually painful, takes a lot of courage. Thankfully we are not expected to do this alone! This is where we have to let God into our innermost being.
In prayer, then, I am being challenged to go deeper…in the waiting. This has been coming up for a while, and I figured that once I professed vows, that would be it! Not so much. Yes, professing vows was a huge step, but now He wants more. This desire of Jesus was confirmed by my spiritual director when he also challenged me to go deeper and to be immersed in the Trinity. Not long after that intense challenge, I reread an article that I really like and something really pierced me:
…God wants to enter and possess and abide within the core of our humanity. When we fall in love with the Crucified we receive what all lovers receive: the deepest reality of the beloved, the heart. The heart of Christ, astoundingly, is also shared with those who would rest against it. This heart is communication with the Father, and this communication is the Holy Spirit, and so in allowing Christ to see us, to behold us, to love us, we receive the Holy Trinity.
(article link: http://priestlyformation.org/site_files/PDFs/Faculty%20Articles/Deacon%20Keating/Keating-Falling-in-Love-and-Staying-in-Love.pdf )
To receive Jesus’ Heart, to be immersed in the Trinity, means that I must allow Jesus to SEE me, to BEHOLD me, to LOVE me…especially in the waiting. It is really only in letting Him truly love me that I am able to truly love others. Everything I “do” must and should flow from this constant communion of Heart speaking/listening to heart.
I will now close with some words of wisdom from my favorite saint, St Francis of Assisi:
“Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves, that He Who gives Himself totally to you may receive you totally!”
Please pray for me and my Sisters in this time of waiting! Know that I am praying for you too.
Sr. K.M.Chiara, HMSS
Not Your Typical Proposal
“All suffering contributes in one way or another to our happiness” (Power of Silence, p. 88).
Imagine me on an 8-day silent retreat to conclude a not so typical ‘cloistered’ novitiate year. As I stared into the sky marveling at the beauty of the setting sun, I caught a glimpse of a hot air balloon and began to think: If I do commit my life to Jesus, I will never be able to ride in one. I mourned this loss, saddened at a missed experience but my heart was at peace.
We are NEVER too far from His Mercy!
My dear brothers and sisters, God has miraculously converted my heart to a deep realization of His love for me. I didn’t believe He could love my weaknesses, yet He was safeguarding what I thought I had lost until He knew He could return it to me. This pilgrimage has not been without painful confrontation with my own poverty of spirit but He has led me to an oasis of beauty which is His pierced feet. Oh the beauty of these feet (I know not all will agree with me) but allow me to bare my sole..get it?!?!
God has tangibly made Himself present, in the midst of suffering and experiences of joy, always confirming that I was following the Father’s will even in what I was living seemed to look to be a desert of nothingness. To live in the freedom in which you don’t know the result but you know you are being led is humbling and truly without words.
Brothers and sisters, the feet I kiss every morning and night walked a road that He now is asking me to follow whole-heartedly. I too will fall on the dusty path, be kicked, mocked, and misunderstood for choosing to live in His image. I freely choose such a life. I recoil from the thought of joining my Beloved on the cross, but it is His invitation to help redeem souls that I cannot resist. If my hidden prayers and hopefully silent offerings of pains can help a wandering sheep return to the Father’s pasture, as I have, then I will daily say ‘YES’ until He calls me Home.
This path to conversion is my journey to holiness. I beg you to pray for all souls the Lord is beckoning to kiss His pierced feet and join Him in a relationship as a victim of love through priesthood, religious life or the consecrated single life. (Married couples, I need your witness of love to better live my consecration, so please know you are not forgotten, you too are victims of love!) Ask God what grace He wishes to bless you with and then respond to the Father’s unique call. For me, courage, patient endurance, and child-like simplicity will be daily virtues I will fail at but always strive to live more fully!
Believe in His love! He delights in you not because you are successful at what you do but because He has chosen you as His beloved one; His daughter, His son! Relish in this truth and live in the promise that He remains with us always! May the knowledge of my humble prayers offer you the strength you need to tune your ears to the voice of the Good Shepherd calling you by name.
Will you follow me to His feet?
Hide me in Your wounds Lord Jesus, bathe me in Your blood, and heal me, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!
Hidden in the wounds of Christ, I remain your sister,
See you in the Eucharist,
Sr. Marianne
Perfect Love Casts Out All Fear
May God give you His peace!
A few days ago, Sr. April Marie and I returned to Cleveland after spending a week helping with a Totus Tuus (“Totally Yours,” from St. JPII) camp in South Dakota. This camp was a vocational camp for middle school girls, but also included high school girl leaders. The camp was hosted by the Diocese of Rapid City at their Terra Sancta retreat center (http://terrasancta.org). There were 25 religious sisters from about 13 different communities (including Sr. April and myself) helping with this camp. Talk about funsies with nunsies!
The theme for this camp came from 1 John 4:18: Perfect love casts out all fear. This verse just happened to be the verse given to me by my spiritual director during Lent. Right before the Lenten season began I was struggling with a deeply rooted fear about my upcoming religious profession of vows. Basically, I was afraid that Jesus was not pleased with me. I experienced tremendous healing during that time as I realized that I have to let perfect Love cast out whatever fear was preventing me from going forward. I owe a lot to the loving support of my sisters and to the gentle encouragement my spiritual director has given me. From all this awareness, I learned that I cannot do anything on my own (John 5:30) and that I have to let God love me!
Anyways, after learning that the theme was 1 John 4:18, I felt that God was challenging me to live out all that I learned during Lent and to share this with others. Each volunteering community was also given an activity or talk to lead during the camp. For us, we were asked to give a talk/activity for the high school leaders about spiritual mothers as leaders, and we were also asked to lead 3 rounds of a talk/activity for the middle school campers about the life of St. Philomena and overcoming the fear of being unlovable.
Very briefly, St. Philomena was an early Church martyr. She was the age of most of the middle school girls at this Totus Tuus camp when she was killed for refusing to marry the Roman Emperor Diocletian. Her refusal came from the fact that she was consecrated to God. Her story is unique in that she was tortured and miraculously healed multiple times before she finally died. Her testimony won many converts to Christianity. How was she able to withstand the horror she endured? My theory is that she knew and believed that she was loved by God and she was able to love Him in return to the end. This is something we are all called to today!
When I asked each group at the Totus Tuus Camp, “Who here struggles with the fear of being unloved/unlovable?” almost every hand (including those of the sisters) went up. The Holy Spirit prompted me to talk about being rooted in an authentic relationship with God. Just like any relationship, they take work! We make time to be with our family and friends, we reach out to our loved ones, and we listen to them when they want to share something personal. How much more is this with God! We are challenged to make time to get to know Him (prayer), to vulnerably share our hearts with Him, and to LISTEN to Him!
All of us at some point have been hurt by others, but so often this gets projected on God. God is love (1 John 4:8) and He is always wanting to give Himself completely to us…but He also doesn’t force Himself on anyone––that wouldn’t be love! The ball is in our court, so to speak, to receive the total gift of Himself. By receiving His love, we are then challenged to reciprocate (remember, this is a relationship!) by making a gift of our very selves. This is often where the fear of being unloved/unlovable creeps in.
“What will happen to me if I give myself to Him…?” “How can God love me if I…?” The Enemy does not want us to be in a relationship with God, so he does everything he can to make us believe the lie that we are unloved/unlovable. We become captives of this fear when we believe the lies of the Enemy.
The interesting thing about overcoming this particular fear is that we have to let ourselves be loved by Love Himself! In this way, Perfect Love literally casts out all fear! I can say that this is true because this is something I have experienced myself. May God help you to let yourself be truly loved so that He can cast out all of your fears!
Please pray for me and be assured of my prayers for you!
Love always from your Sister,
Sr. Katie