People ask me this all the time. Those more in tune with the whole process also ask me what my discernment process was like, how long it took, and similar questions. I love all of them -- to anyone who ever asked me something about becoming a Sister, thank you. I get excited for every opportunity to talk about it.
In view of that, I have typed up the whole story of my experiences thus far, for your reading pleasure and hopefully edification at the goodness of God to one little insignificant,
very imperfect girl. This will also be my second-to-last post -- I will do one more, tonight or tomorrow, saying goodbye. And then that's it!
Oh yeah, and still nobody has told me that I need to delete anything, so it seems like this blog will be staying around. (I just obviously won't be updating it.)
Okay. Now for the "autobiography." If something is vague, by the way, it was done on purpose. I can't reveal
all my life to the internet.
I've wanted to be a nun since I was very small: six years old, to be exact.
It
is no coincidence that this happened in the same year my family stopped
going to the Novus Ordo: you may roll your eyes, but I know that had much to do
with it. My mother bought me a children's life of St. Therese that
Christmas, and that year or the next we read a life of St. Margaret Mary
as our bedtime story-book. I guess my vocation (if vocation it truly
be) came through them. St. Therese taught me the beauty of religious
life; St. Margaret Mary taught me about its suffering. After that I
devoured every saint-book I could find, especially the ones about nuns:
St. Catherine of Siena, St. Rose of Lima, St. Catherine Laboure, and
many more.
I continued in this sort of daydreaming desire to
become a Sister for many years, until my family left Germany, where we
had been living, and returned to the US, where we lived on an Army base
in KS. There were
tons of other kids to play with (none of
which were religious in any way), and I was nearing my teens by that
point, so I sort of stopped thinking about being a nun. It wasn't that I
decided I didn't want to be a nun, but just that I was surrounded by a secular culture which simply could
not stop
discussing who liked whom and what they would do when they started
dating, and I was immersed in it. This state began at age ten and was pretty bad for the next two
or three years. After that, I sort of "allowed" the possibility of
entering religious life back into my mind, but I still didn't take it
seriously.
Finally, one Sunday when I was fifteen, maybe
sixteen, a group of Dominican Sisters showed up unexpectedly at our
church. They gave a presentation on their life after Mass, and my
parents stayed (a bit of a sacrifice: we had a long drive home) until it
was over. I remember looking at the slides while the Sister spoke, and
my eyes filling up a bit. This was what I wanted. Nothing else would
do. I fiddled around for months, and then eventually I contacted the
Dominicans' Mother Superior and discussed things. They were in New
Zealand, which I admit added significantly to the attraction. I emailed
Mother Superior back and forth for a few more months, and then, having
concerns about a certain policy, asked the proverbial wrong question.
She never wrote back. I was disappointed and a little bitter. So
finally, one day I talked to one of our priests about it. He told me
that if it didn't work out, it was obviously because God didn't want it,
and that for all I knew, He may have saved me much more heartache than I had
presently to deal with. That really helped me, and I waited fairly
patiently for something else to happen.
Just over a year ago,
finally things got moving again. My good friend Victoria invited me to
come with her to a retreat given by the Daughters of Mary in NY. My
parents gave permission, I went, and instantly I fell in love with all
of it. But of course, it wasn't half as easy as I had expected. Again
there was a policy that caused trouble, but it was a lot worse this
time, and I struggled for about seven months to bring myself in line
with the group's opinions. In that time, I spent a week at the convent,
and loved it even more. I was determined to overcome the issue. So
eventually I convinced myself that I agreed with the policy, and was
allowed to proceed. I started getting everything together, filled out
papers, had a physical. Most importantly, I had to finish highschool,
because my diploma was a required part of the application papers. I
spent about two months
frantically writing papers and crying
half-heartedly over how impossible it was, drinking tea, and taking
tests with little preparation. I finished about six months' worth of
French II lessons in one month. I'm still inordinately proud of that.
So
finally, by the end of July I had everything but a letter of
recommendation from our priest. I requested that, and waited
impatiently. On August 1st, the priest came to our house to talk to me
and my parents. Long story short, he convinced me of my error in
ignoring the issues with the congregation I wished to join, and
recommended that I wait and pray about what I should do. So I did.
Before the conversation, I had intended to override whatever he said,
but it made too much sense, and God gave me the grace to obey His Will,
spoken through His servant. I had been supposed to enter at the end of
September, so I had to call the Novice Mistress and tell her that I
wouldn't be coming after all. She is a very gentle person, and she
definitely made this difficult thing easier, for which I thank her.
I started looking into different congregations. I was torn between the
vita mixta,
or half-contemplative, half-active way of life lived by most of the
congregations I was interested in, and the more difficult to find (and
difficult to live) fully contemplative life of a Carmelite. None of my
Carmelite investigations succeeded, however, so I assume it was not
God's Will.
In September, I visited the
Sisters of St. Thomas Aquinas
in Arizona, threatening everybody that I was going to dislike it. I told the Sister in charge all of my
problems, and she gave me some advice. At the time I had little
emotional investment in this congregation, but I decided "with my brain"
that I should enter there. Sister recommended that I enter as soon as
possible, so I planned to try for the beginning of November. I came
home and told the priest, but he had other ideas. He wanted me to visit
one more convent before I made any more rash decisions. Of course, when my plan was met with opposition, the convent in Arizona became the most desirably place on the face of the earth; but I could see that Father's plan was prudent, so I acceded with a
rather bad grace and began attempting to contact a small Dominican
congregation in Michigan. Finally, with some help from Father, I got a
hold of a Sister by phone, and blurted out that I was interested in
their convent and could I visit and when, please, Sister? (I was trying
to get the thing over with.) She told me that I had to write a letter
and do things properly. Annoyed, I wrote the letter and
waited complainingly for an answer. In the meantime, I contacted a
wonderful group of Italian Sisters by email, and was just about ready to
fly over there to visit. When I tried to seriously plan it, though, I
found that it would take too long, and when I asked the advice of the
Sister in charge in Arizona, she recommended that I stay within my own
country, and choose what was practical over what was exciting. She was clearly right, and I agreed (a bit tearfully) and waited for the
Dominicans' letter. It finally came, and for a time we corresponded by
snail mail -- just to find out, in the end, that they do not have
visitors' accommodations and they would not be accepting postulants
until the end of August 2014. Frustrated, I informed the priest and
begged that he would allow me to dispense with this third visit. I had
found out that if I wanted to enter with the Sisters of St. Thomas
Aquinas, I had to do it by the beginning of January.
Then
commenced another month of waiting. I was getting nervous, because it
was almost December and I had no word from Father. At long last, on
December 6th he visited us again and granted his permission. He added a
stipulation, though: I was to visit a certain couple of Sisters in
Boston, not to join, but just to "see," saying it would prove useful
sometime. I obeyed happily, not caring what I had to do as long as I
could get to Arizona by January 6th. I started buying up postulant's
clothing and getting ready, and I successfully made that Boston
visit...gracious, I think only two weeks ago. I believe I learned much,
though it did not go the way Father was imagining, and I gained the
prayers of two very holy Sisters. I'm sure that God organized it the
way He did for a very good reason, and I am content.
Now I'm
becoming a postulant, God willing, in a matter of days. I bought the
last supplies I needed a few days ago. All I have to do is give my
flight information to Sister, wait three days, and say goodbye to my
family.
This chapter is almost over, but the story's got plenty
more chapters to go. While I feel certain that this is my vocation, I
have learned from experience that God's ways are not ours, and He may
require me to leave the convent, for a different one or for the world.
If that happens, I will try to accept it, but for now, this is my path. It is more beautiful than anything else I could ever have imagined, and I am very grateful: to God, to my family, to the priests and
Sisters who have guided and prayed for me, and for all of you who have
prayed for me as well. God bless you all.
