Hi there Pitcharan and Magdelaine… ( my new friends in Christ!) What a lovely and exciting thing for us all to share on here! Praise be to Our All-Knowing Father! Praises and thanksgiving for the constant and loving intercession of Our Blessed Mother! Thank you Jesus, for walking beside us and being our Brother! Look at the family You have gathered together here to serve You!
I’m so happy for you Magdelaine! I know the zeal you have because I’ve been there too… I still am… it’s a joy to discover a calling, to want to act upon it, to feel drawn in such a way that is beyond one’s own power…
There are and will be little stones on the path, you will stumble once in awhile but the key is to keep praying, keep in constant communication with God, asking for EACH day what is His Will for me… then you have the strength and the wisdom to overcome the stumbles and know why they came your way… each one is a lesson to learn.
I have so many times presumed to know my way, to know how to handle a situation, only to find that I was helpless and clueless because I saw it with human eyes… that difficult person who will test you will, that negative response someone gives you, that ‘no’ which will pop up here and there… these are the times to lay it all before Jesus and ask Him to point the way… to stand with Our Mother and like a child, ask her to teach me what to do.
I had a few times when I was about to give up thinking the obstacles were signs that it wasn’t right, yet I knew in a very short time after prayer that it was only a test… could I handle that grouchy person with a smile and the love of Christ? Would I be able to bring something alive and vibrant to the Community? Was I going to sit back and avoid the challenges? Would I have the grace to act with humility when a superior ordered me to do something that I thought was unfair?
Many of those challenges came quickly and I had to pray and pray to be able to rise to the moment. I would have not been able to on my own.
When we enter a religious community we want to think this is the ONE place where NObody will ever be rash, unkind, uncharitable, selfish… no surely here I will be safe from all the usual ‘personality types’ one finds in the world… ‘there’s one on every bus’… well to my surprise, like myself, the others are all still sinful, imperfect human beings… yet we are given a ‘family’ a community in which to practice all the virtues, all of them!
My mother was a Protestant but she attended a Catholic college. After a broken engagement she was crushed, she went looking for what to do, she approached a favorite Sister, a mentor to her… and said, ‘maybe I want to be a nun…’ Sister was wise and said to my mother, ‘Miss X…, a convent is no place to hide away from the world…’ She knew my mother thought that all the problems would be solved by joining a convent. Yet it’s just another place to live out the same lessons and practice the virtues that we all need to work on… of course you are serving God in a very profound way, thus you may obtain many many graces to make that possible…
I had a rosy painted picture of what being a sister would be like… I am a secular sister so I still have all the challenges of living in the world as well… but I soon learned that it’s not a straight and smooth path to
any where on Earth! You will still be tested, yet it’s in the loving of the testing, the loving of the sacrifice, the loving of carrying that cross that one sees the love of God and our fellow man! And it is in that where we find our service just as much as we find service in the ‘work’ we do in the Order.
I see even our Priests and Brothers being challenged in their work and in their relations with others in the Community. They live as a family and they are vowed to obedience… there are moments where silence and humility are the only way to get past that cutting remark, that demand on one’s ego to be supple and bend… yet as in marriage and all relationships, the joy comes when we do act as Jesus would, when we do love others as we love Jesus.
Why do I bring this up when you are in such joy? Not at all to discourage you or make you think twice… no, I bring up things that no one brought up to me and that I thought, ‘oh if I’d only known this might be on the road… I’d have been more prepared, been ready to ask for help…’ as it were, the help came from Above and so it will for you. You will meet all your challenges as you have met the ones you faced to get to this joyous day! You will remember to pray and rely upon Divine help in all things, even the smallest detail of the day.
It was during my discernment that I ran across this version of the hymn, ‘Here I Am, Lord’. In fact that hymn kept coming up all over the place when I was in the early stages. One day I looked on the internet to play the song as I was walking about my house and humming it to myself. I clicked on this version, why? Because God does nothing by accident!!! I sat in my chair with tears running down my face… it was the answer to the prayer I was praying at that very point in time… it spoke to me… play it, watch the words on the screen as you sing the hymn… there will be a line that will stand out to you, maybe it will be the same one that hit me… I’ll be curious to know after you do view it… anyway, have a go at this and enjoy the journey.
youtube.com/watch?v=GINNh15cT08
May you be blessed in ways you never could have dreamed for yourself… may you serve God and others with all your heart and soul. I can see that where ever you go, God will be using you to the fullest. Your heart is so willing and on fire for Him! Go, be the Light of His Truth, not hidden under a basket but shining for all to see and to bring many souls to Jesus!
I’m betting on you! And so is Jesus!
Lovingly in Christ,
Mary Teresa, OSSM
I will keep you informed as often as I can, but if we should part ways, take care of yourself, eat properly, take care of your family, and pray God answers prayers in the most amazing ways!