While I'm Waiting

I sent my letter to Mother Mary Patricia yesterday morning, dropped it off in the mailbox at the corner of Cedar. And now there is waiting. Waiting for her reply and the postulant information packet, for the list of what I will need to bring with me. But also, waiting for August. There is an entire school year to get through - 9 months of days and nights, of doubts and temptations. I know the Sisters are praying for me, and that helps. Please, Jesus, keep me close to You.

But while I'm waiting, Lord, I wish to serve You. I wish to bless Your Name with every fiber of my being. I wish to praise You for all that You have done for me, to be a light here and now, to love those whom You have given me to love.

When I first started discerning religious life (April/May 2009, far too soon after my reversion to the Church), I kept an online journal on a Christian website. I just remembered it in the past week or so, as I was getting ready to speak with Mother Mary Patricia. It's so strange, funny, embarrassing, humbling, to read through those old journal entries, to see my record of the path that God has led me on these past two and a half years.

And oh, what a long and winding road it has been! Only the Lord could have led me out of the wilderness I was lost in then - that wilderness of secular politics, postmodern ideologies, identity crises, hedonism and despair. Only He could have reclaimed the truth of who He created me to be out of all the darkness of our fallen world.

I thought I needed to have all the answers right away...and discernment quickly became just another part of my post-college identity crisis, just another way that I was trying to figure out that all important thing, What To Do With My Life. I should have been listening for Your voice, Jesus - but I hardly knew You. I could only hear You faintly, what with the cacophony of other voices ringing in my ears. Yet even in that poor beginning I was making, You were leading me home to You.

Something I wrote on May 3, 2009, in a brief moment of clarity:

What I felt last night, Lord - that sense of needing to give up control in my life to You; to let go of my best laid plans, of my attachments to praise and honors, to academic achievement and proofs of intelligence; to the empty charades of my self-definition - that, Lord, I cannot turn my face from.

But if I need more time before I can enter religious life - if I need more time to know You and Your Church, to put down my pride and my intellect and my doubts and my preconceptions, to put down mind and will - it is alright, because this path is leading me to You.

And I can still try, Lord, to put down the things that keep me from You, even while living as I am in the world. I can try to put down pride, and seek education because it will help me to minister to Your people, not for my own praise or honor or self-satisfaction. I can try to put down control, and seek the counsel of others with more wisdom than I; seek spiritual direction; let Your Spirit guide my feet, rather than my own plans and goals and desires. I can try to put down selfishness and fear, and live to serve others and to seek You.

I can try, Lord, to start giving my life to You; to start making my life a witness to Your Truth and Light. A light shines in the darkness, Lord, and the darkness has not overcome it. But we must be light for the world and salt for the earth. We are Your only hands here on Earth, Lord. We are Your only feet. We must be Your beating heart, Sacred and overflowing with Love for all the world, for all Your glorious Creation. 

What can I give You, Lord, besides my life?

It's still true...what can I give You, Lord, besides my life?

Thank You for reminding me of my weakness, my brokenness, my utter helplessness without You. I am still filled with pride, still like to believe that I can do things all on my own. But what I felt in Alma, Lord, was the truth that I have done nothing to deserve the great gift of this vocation. I am not called because I am oh so spiritual or intuitive or kind or compassionate or so in touch with You (all those things I have believed of myself, Lord). No! I am called only by Your grace. I am saved only by Your grace. I have life and love only by Your grace. I trust that You will continue to teach me this truth, Lord Jesus.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Blessed be Your Name!

Lord, You are so good. I am overwhelmed and exhausted right now, but so happy and excited. Please give me the words to speak, to tell all that You have done for me to lead me to this moment.

And please Lord, above all else, let Your will be done.

Worries and fears

Oh my Jesus, please be with me. Please send Your Spirit to guide me. I cannot do this without You - there is no reason to my doing this without You, because You are the reason.

Sitting in my kitchen, warming water and mixing apple sauce to make bread, waiting for 7:30 to roll around...

Lord, I am afraid of so many things.

I am afraid to leave medical school early - whether it is after one semester or two. I am afraid of what my professors and advisers will think. I am afraid to leave my classmates with one less person in the class. We are supposed to be in this 5 year journey together. I am afraid to tell my family. I am afraid to give up Christmas and Thanksgiving with them.

So many fears about what I would be leaving behind...but Lord, please, remind me of what I am leaving it all behind for.

Come, follow Me.


None of it makes any sense without You, the eternal Bridegroom, staring back at me from the monstrance. Loving me into life.

I do not want to live my life in fear. I want to live boldly, joyfully, courageously for You. I want to give my entire being to You - my entire self, body and soul.

I ran so far...will You take me back again?

Wholly Yours

Oh my Jesus, You are so good to me. You pour out so many blessings upon me. One of the novices says at dinner - "He's a romantic" - and it is so true. All weekend You sent me signs of Your love for me. You have done such great things for me, Lord - such things that I am not worthy of. Truly, You have prepared the way. Only You could work such wonders. Only Your hand could have led me to this moment.

I spent the weekend on retreat with the RSMs in Alma, MI. There is too much to tell about the weekend. So many, many, many graces! And the slowly dawning realization of what the Lord has worked in these past six months. I feel such peace and certainty that this is the vocation He has chosen for me. This is the life He wishes for me - not only now, but for all eternity! I feel so certain, Lord - this is not my will, but Yours. This is not about what good work I can do in the world - this is about eternity with You. This is the plan You have laid out for me from the moment You conceived me in my mother's womb, from the moment You gave me life.

And Sister Catherine Marie says to ask the Lord when He is calling me to enter - because the postulant entrance is usually August 1, but there have been sisters who have entered at other times. It is all up to You, Jesus. I will go when You ask me to go.

Tonight I was supposed to have a phone call with Mother Mary Patricia, the postulant formator, but she was in a meeting with someone and asked me to call her tomorrow evening. And that is the sort of thing that should be sending me into a spiral of anxiety and despair. But I called out to You, Jesus, and You gave me peace and a reminder of Your love for me. You are in charge here, Jesus. You are building the house.

So I will call again tomorrow, and we shall see.

Ora et labora

Day by day, this place becomes my monastery. And I strive to mark each day with prayers and sacrifice. I will smile at everyone, especially Jesus. I will be obedient to my superiors, and especially to the Lord. I will be kind and loving, compassionate and gentle. I will treat everyone as Christ.

Forgive me Lord – I become short with others when I should be kind. I just get so tired of running into opposition about abortion and contraception, so tired of being told that I can’t tell other people what to do, when that isn't at all my intention. You said the world will hate us because of Your Name, and that we must pray for those who persecute us. I try to pray for everyone I see, Lord. But You know my heart, and the extent of my pride and sin. You see the grudges that stick to the insides of my soul.  

Teach me, Lord, to still my mind and slow my breath. Teach me to hold my tongue and speak the truth in love. Teach me to smile when I'd rather sit in stony silence, to do my part when I'd rather be alone. Teach me to offer all my sorrow to You, to immolate myself in the fire of Your Sacred Heart, that nothing in me might cause anyone to stumble.

This is a school of prayer and work, of service and study. And day by day, Lord, You are showing me that You meant what You said - You are with me always. And nothing can separate me from Your love.

A school of love

Thomas Merton wrote, paraphrasing from some other saint I'm sure, that a monastery is a school of love. But for those of us outside of cloistered walls, the whole world must be a school of love.

9 am on a Monday morning and I am standing above the body of a man who less than 48 hours ago was dying in a hospital bed on one of the clinic's floors. A lateral incision through the chest wall reveals diaphragm and pericardium, esophagus and lungs. I crowd with my classmates to one side and peer into the cavern opened up before us, nodding my head in time to the discussion of trauma surgeries and aortic clamps. This is a school of anatomy and physiology, biochemistry and histology...the threads run together in my mind, reminding me of how much I do not know.

But his skin is pink and marked by the faded ink of old tattoos. And when the surgical cloths slip for just a moment so that I catch a glimpse of thinning gray hair at the base of his skull, I know suddenly that this too is a school of love.

This is my body, given for you. Given that you might learn. Given that you might one day heal.

And so I offer thanks, through lips as mute as his. May his soul rest in peace, Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him.