I have great reason to say, in truth, that it has been Divine Providence alone at work. Going there, I had no knowledge of what there was to do. I can say that I saw what was being done only when it was completed. In encounters where I could have met with obstacles, the same Divine Providence provided, totally unexpectedly, persons who could help me . . .. It also seemed to me that I was doing what I was meant to do without knowing how. May God be forever blessed for it! - St Louise de Marillac (L. 159)

Hna Paula and aspirant me
meeting an American Daughter of Charity

Five years ago today, I rolled in my suitcase through the front doors of the Divino Niño Convent. By doing so, I started my first day as a member of a Salesian religious community. I was very nervous. In fact, I spent the night before crying (which, in hindsight, I should have considered a sign...) A few weeks later, I would receive the aspirant habit and start my second job as a third-grade religion teacher soon after that.

The doubts started pretty soon after that first day. For many different reasons, I was unhappy there. And about six months later, I finally decided and got up the courage to tell the Sisters I was leaving the community. I don't like talking about the details of those months in that community because I find those experiences and emotions to be very private for me. However, I will say one thing....

...I know now it was all part of a plan of Divine Providence. Like St Louise said, I was doing what I was meant to do without even knowing it.

And it led me here five years later, in late 2012, in the final months of my postulancy with the Daughters of Charity. And I can't imagine myself anywhere else but with the Daughters. I had no idea that my journey would be like this, that a relative "mistake" would bring me to what I was always meant to be - a Daughter of Charity.

Almost four centuries ago, our foundress Saint Louise wrote to a Sister that was leaving for Poland, one of the first foreign missions of the Daughters of Charity. She wrote this, showing her dear affection for the Sister that she quite possibly would never see again. Yet, quite egotistically perhaps, as I read it, it's as if Saint Louise is talking straight to me and I can feel her comfort and love.

With all my heart I wish you the joy and interior consolation of a soul that is lovingly submissive to the most holy will of God . . . Oh, what an excellent way of life, hard on nature but sweet and easy for souls enlightened by eternal truths and by the awareness of the joy to be found in pleasing God and in allowing Him full mastery over their wills! This, it seems to me, . . . is the road that God wills you to travel to reach Him, however difficult it may appear. Enter upon it, then, wholeheartedly as would a vessel that will carry you where you must go. - St Louise de Marillac (L.448)

I pray that I may always lovingly submit to Divine Providence and remember where He has already taken me....and I wish the same for you, readers, wherever you may be on the journey.

Coincidence? I think not.

I read somewhere “a coincidence is just God's way of performing a miracle anonymously” I then posted it on my FB because it just seemed to fit perfectly in my discernment journey.

For the record, this has always bothered me
about alien movies...
(And no, this isn't the same type of coincidence
I'm talking about)

June Council, where the Daughters decide on my case, is only 18 days away. And I can't help but reflect on what's led me to here because, a year ago, I would have never imagined myself here.

So what has led me here? 

Coincidences.

I'm completely serious. I've known the Daughters since 2004, but since I went to college in the same town as their Provincial House, that's really no coincidence. The coincidences would happen much later. A year after finishing college, I entered a Salesian community (I won't say their name so they keep their privacy but they were a member of the Salesian family) About a month in, I started to feel as if maybe I had made a mistake. I started having major doubts. As I scribbled these feelings down furiously in my journal, I wrote once “Maybe this isn't for me. Maybe this aspirancy is actually preparation for another. Maybe I should join the Daughters of Charity. I've always liked them” But I stayed and continued to deal with these rough feelings of doubt and confusion.

A few months after writing that sentence in my journal, I met a Daughter of Charity...almost completely by accident. Us aspirants mainly stayed in the convent and the only other Sisters outside of our community that we would meet would be other Sisters in the Salesian family. But Sr. Mary Elko, a Daughter of Charity, just showed up at the door of the convent one day to drop off two girls for the orphanage but also visit with the Sisters. At first, I wondered what community she was from - her beige (missionary) habit threw me off because all Daughters I knew wore blue. But soon, once she told me she was a Daughter of Charity, we had long enthusiastic conversations about Emmitsburg and Sisters we maybe both knew.

Looking back, it just seems like a coincidence that Sr Mary Elko would show up at our door, precisely at the rough time of my vocation crisis, as I had fleeting thoughts about joining her community.

The other coincidence would be years later. After leaving the aspirancy, thoughts of being a religious came and went again and again. As I lived in Bolivia for another year, thoughts of being a religious would come back every now and then, never quite leaving me alone. I never saw Sr Mary Elko again simply because life was too busy to do so. I moved back to the United States after two years of living in Bolivia. It wasn't until I visited Bolivia a year later after the move, this past summer, that the second big coincidence happened.

After coming back from my visit, I felt an immense tug to start investigating religious life again. I knew I couldn't ignore it anymore. And, even though I hadn't talked to them in years, I knew I had to get in contact with the Daughters of Charity. I had no desire to contact any other community. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was scared to because I had no idea how they would react to me formerly being an aspirant of another community. Problem is so many years had passed that I had no idea who the vocation director was. So I, who throws nothing away, searched my Gmail and found an email from Sr. Denise, introducing herself as the new vocation director. An email from 2007. And this was July 2010. But I thought “well, why not?” so I replied to it.

Not only was Sr. Denise shocked that I had replied to an email from 2007 but she shared with me that I had perfect timing...because, for the past year, she had been in Chicago studying...and she had literally just now returned to vocation work. (On another note, we later found out that Sr Denise was actually one of the first Daughters I ever met...she was one of the Sisters on my first discernment retreat) And that is where the story that led me to applying for pre-postulancy begins - visits to different houses, retreats,  etc. 

I often wonder that if Sr. Denise were no longer the vocation director, would I have had the guts to "try again" and email whoever was the current vocations director? 

If I hadn't met Sr Mary Elko in Bolivia, would I still have been haunted by the thought of being a Daughter of Charity or would I have eventually forgotten about it?

I like to think that these "coincidences" were actually God working "anonymously", showing His immense love by trying to lead me to find His will for me, find my ultimate joy and where I'm free to be myself, where I'm meant to be. 

Obviously, some coincidences are just unimportant coincidences, but I invite to look back in your life and reflect..."which coincidences were actually God working anonymously for me?" And I'm sure you'll find more than a few.