As Elijah, the Lord spoke to me in the whispering wind - the unexplainable feelings in prayer, in other people.

At first, He whispered "Serve My poor". And so I did, being with the poor of the cities and the poor of the mountains.

Then, I heard "Be a Sister".
"Certainly, I imagined this," I thought, but the whisper came again and I realized it was God. This time I spoke. I spoke of my unworthiness. Perhaps He made a mistake and meant to call someone with more faith, with more gifts. But God persisted, so I asked "When? Where? How? Show me a sign!"

I searched and searched, never finding a definite sign. I remained faithful to serving His poor, but this call was more troubling, more impossible.

While serving His poor in Itocta (Bolivia), I saw the sign - a community I laughed with, a community I loved. I followed His call and joined them, but I soon realized it was no sign at all. Instead of increasing in holiness, I was increasing in unhappiness. A Sister begged me to plead for a sign from the Lord - surely, He would tell me to stay. I was tired of signs. I didn't understand them. But out of holy obedience, I asked. No sign came and I left, pretending I had never heard that first whisper.

But soon He returned with that same whisper: "Be a Sister..."
"Don't You see? Look what happened! No, Lord, You're mistaken" I replied and began to ignore His voice.

But the whisper became louder and louder. I then wrote the Daughters of Charity, an old address from years ago. "If they don't respond, I'll take it as a sign," I thought. They responded but still I wasn't convinced.

I was cautious until one night, in prayer before His presence, I heard Him say 'Give Your heart to me and to the poor'.

And so I did, finding my sign - the two calls intertwining in beauty.

And now I hear a different whisper: "Love. Always Love.", adding "See, they were all signs because I used it all to form who you are. Your story, already written, is being played out and, in it, I hope you see My love for You...and pass that Love to all the world."

                                                                                                                 - October 2013

One of my favorite things is to discover poems and prayers that I've written that I have long since forgotten about. This essay, titled "From the Book of Amanda", was one of them, written just ten months after entering Seminary. It was a homework assignment - "write a Scripture account of your call" for one of our classes on "calling".

It amazes me how much it all, especially the last paragraph, still sticks. Finding the Daughters wasn't the end of my call or the end of my story. My 2013 self knew that, even if I couldn't quite express it further. I had no idea that, in a few years, God would be leading me somewhere else.

Now, four years later, I have to take a deep breath and remind myself that:
    All those paths have made me who I am.
    My story is still being played out.
    And my mission is still Love.

It's (Not) The End

After a year and a half of writing about my formation journey with the Daughters of Charity, I'll be ending this blog.

Well, sort of.
Actually, I'll be suspending it - "ending" just sounded more dramatic and hopefully urged you to keep reading on to figure out why.

I won't be posting at all during my time in Seminary, which will be the next 18-24 months. I realize that will be a long time to wait until my next blog entry, but I hope you all will keep me on your reading lists despite the long period of inactivity.

So why am I not posting during Seminary? Seminary is a time for prayer and reflection, for study and for quiet. (In that way, it's similar to novitiates in other communities). Many Sisters have referred to it as "the most cloistered you'll ever be as a Daughter of Charity". This doesn't mean we can't leave the house or that we're not allowed to do anything ever, but rather that the focus is different in Seminary.

The blog started out as a way for me to express myself. When it started, I still hadn't been accepted as a pre-postulant with the Daughters yet. As time went by, blog writing slowly became a second ministry for me. The Daughters of Charity have been incredibly supportive of it, including our leadership. I've met several discerners and other Sisters from other communities who read my blog, which inspired me to write more.

Yet Seminary is a time to leave ministries and focus on yourself, on the community and on God.
Not writing in the blog will allow me to immerse myself in the quiet and to focus on my studies and prayer to form myself as a Daughter of Charity. It will allow me to spend more time in personal private writing (ie: my journal), which I have sadly been neglecting lately.

That doesn't mean I'll never be on the computer. I will still be available via email and Facebook, though my time will be much more limited than it is now. Please feel free to keep in touch, though my response may be delayed.

Please pray for me and my companion Whitney as we become Daughters of Charity on January 20th. We, in the United States, are blessed that, behind Whitney and I, are five young women in formation to become Daughters of Charity. Please pray for them as well.

In love of Jesus Crucified,
Soon-to-be Sister Amanda, DC

Letter Writing: A Long Lost Ministry of Words

Nobody uses snail mail anymore. That's a generally accepted fact here in the United States and probably around the world. USPS is declining in business, we get more than a handful of emails a day but all the snail mail we get is junk mail, and we're more likely to send birthday cards with just a signature and some cash rather than a letter of more than two sentences.

It's true for almost everybody. That is, except me.

Here I sit, in south Texas, writing letter after letter. I've must have sent out more than twenty letters since I've gotten here. Is it a desperate attempt to keep in touch with others, now that I'm thousands of miles away but still in the same country? Maybe. Is it because I love to write? Maybe.

Dorothy Day wrote “Writing is an act of community...
 It is part of our human association with each other.
It is an expression of our love and concern for each other.”

But there's something else about it. When I pick out the perfect card to write in for this specific friend (it's a process - I don't pick just any card), when I put the pen (black, never blue) in my hand to begin to write, something happens. It's more than just me asking how they've been, giving updates on myself, etc. With each sentence I write, I think more about the person and subsequently pray for them. It makes me feel a spiritual connection with them despite the distance, and in some cases, despite the fact we haven't seen each other in a year or more. My letter actually becomes a form of prayer.

I don't write anything profound in the letters - they're really fluff compared to the letters of St Paul, St Therese, Dorothy Day, Henri Nouwen or Ita Ford (all of which I've read and loved) - yet I find it an extension of my prayer life. It makes me think outside of me and my own little world, outside of my local community, outside of my ministry in Brownsville, outside Texas and even outside the country. It increases my gratitude for all that I've experienced and all the people I've encountered in my life.

Outside of the benefits to my own life, it's also my own way of showing love (and such, showing God's love). When I send a letter, I send it with the hope that it brings a smile to someone's face and lets them know that someone cares. Someone cares enough to console them, to congratulate them, to encourage them or even to simply say hello from miles away. And when someone cares, it's a sign that God cares. Letter writing allows me to a be a daughter of charity from miles away, states away, even countries away.

It's a long lost ministry. Not many even think of it any more. But slowly, I've realized that writing is part of my vocation, its own separate type of ministry. And the wonderful thing about that (and also maybe the demanding) is that it comes in many different forms - journal entries, blog posting, letter writing. And as long as I continue to listen to this voice compelling me to write, the long lost ministry of letter writing won't die (and USPS and greeting card companies will continue to love me because of my business)

Have You Thanked Your Teacher Lately?

We never know the impact we have on others.

But this isn't a story about me. But rather someone else and the impact they probably didn't know they had on me.

A few weeks ago, I had the sudden inspiration to write my eighth-grade English teacher. I wanted to tell her that it is she who sparked my interest in writing and to thank her for her both her high standards but also her approachability to a young awkward eighth grader who didn't know where she fit in the world.

But there was one small problem. I hadn't talked to her since my brother graduated middle school two years after me. I had no idea where she worked or lived. But this is where my investigative journalism skills come in...or rather, my Googling skills. Through Google, I eventually found out that she retired from the school system a few years back and I thought "well, there goes that idea.", yet I kept searching and I eventually found her picture and name on a membership of a charity in the Midwest. So I sent the letter there, in the hope that she would somehow get it. But I wasn't expecting much.

I definitely wasn't expecting a reply. But a reply did come today, just a few weeks later. A three page letter, in fact (long letters are the best kind of letters!)

Her first line resonates with me:
"Many of a teacher's most wonderful moments come after the teacher leaves the classroom. So it was when I received your letter!"


She impacted my life dearly, though she was only my teacher for eighth grade, though it was thirteen years ago now. And it was wonderful to read her reply and to write her again.

Her comment along with the bishop's comment got me thinking.....who else out there deserves our thanks but hasn't received it? which teacher - in elementary, middle or high school, college or grad school - changed our lives and doesn't know it?

I invite you to write them as I did with her. Write out of a deep gratitude, write to reconnect with a part of you that stems from your past, write out of love.

I think when we do that - when we reflect on those who have impacted us by sharing our gratitude - we can more easily see God's hand in our journey and how He sends us just the right people at the right time. Yet, we can also smile knowing  at one point, maybe God has worked through us to be one of those "right people at the right time" for someone else...though we may never know it.

My Hope as a Writer

St Francis de Sales is the patron saint of writers, a category that over these months I've slowly realized I am part of. In honor of his feast day, I'll use someone else's words to justify my own in this blog:

I am content that these pages show me to be what I am - noisy, full of the racket of my imperfections and passions, and the wide open wounds left by my sins. Full of my own emptiness. Yet, ruined as my house is, You live there! (Thomas Merton, Sign of Jonas)

Thomas Merton wrote that of his own journals of Sign of Jonas and I easily say the same for this blog. I hope that these posts show to all who I am - not in the superficial sense of being a postulant of the Daughters of Charity, but on the deeper level of someone made whole with the love of God, yet still broken from sin and imperfection. I long to always be authentic and that, with that authenticity, I desire to witness to God's amazing love for all in perhaps one of the strangest ways: strokes of keys that merge together to form joys, sorrows, and prayer.

St Francis de Sales, pray for us writers!