In a few weeks, I'll have lived here for ten months.

Ten months of sweet tea, ten months of pecans and peaches, ten months of laughs and some tears, ten months of "escapes" to Barnes and Noble or Starbucks, ten months of intimate daily Mass downstairs, ten months of car duty and recess duty in the extreme humidity to the freezing cold, ten months of thirteen Hispanic teens and Confirmation class in Spanglish, ten months of a 100 third through eighth graders and Spanish class in English, and Church history and Hebrew Scriptures.

But now, Confirmation is in a little over three weeks, eighth grade graduation the week after and ending with the last day of school on May 25th. Things are ending.

As is my time here.  

On June 16, a little over a year since I found out I had been accepted as a prepostulant, I'll be driving west in my old Ford Taurus, with the back seat and trunk full of boxes. I'll be driving southwest, to be exact. To Harlingen, Texas. (Man, I hope my car makes it...)

I am very excited, yes. But as the news spreads across Macon (and Facebook), I don't know how to feel. It's the same feeling I got when I announced I was leaving Bolivia. It's a strange joy, it's knowledge that God is pulling me in the next direction, but it's also sadness, as if everything ended way too soon. There have been rough times here in Macon, times I thought "can I really do this?", but yet this confusing feeling of joy and sadness invades me.

The same Someone who brought me here is now pulling me somewhere else. And sometimes I want to whine to Him - "But God, can't You see that I've finally found my niche here? Now I know everyone by name, now I feel comfortable being myself around everyone here! I've even found workable rhythms and patterns for my classes at school!" (And sometimes I think to myself "Darn it, Amanda....why did it take you so long to find your niche?!") I have about a dozen promises from different people to meet for coffee, lunch, etc before I move to Texas - half of those people I never imagined I would be good friends with, half of those people I barely knew months ago.

God does listen to my whining but He's also written a new chapter for me in Texas. I'll be living with three Sisters I've never met before, working at a community center called Proyecto Juan Diego, a stone's throw away from the Mexican border.

I was telling a friend here that I think I'll really bloom in Texas.
They said "but oh, I think you already are...."


And maybe they're right. Maybe I did my own kind of blooming here in Macon. That could be why I feel like a different person than I arrived here in August. And that could be why this feeling lingers, that could be why it won't be too easy to leave this small city in middle Georgia.

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.

God is Nothing but Mercy and Love.....and He Asks You to Be Yourself!

A little more than one hundred years ago, a young French woman asked to join the Daughters of Charity. She was absolutely sure this was her vocation but she was mysteriously turned down. We don't know the circumstances but we do know that she was told that maybe marriage was her vocation instead. Was she heartbroken? Did she swallow what the Sisters told her as if it were a bitter pill or did it lead to a deeper discernment of that piece of her vocation?

We don't know all that but we do know the Sisters turned out to be right. Because that French woman was Zelie Guerin....soon to be Zelie Martin. That name ring a bell? It could be because she's a Blessed in the Church or maybe because she was the mother of St. Therese of Lisieux.

I have been reading a lot about St Therese lately and you would think that the Daughters of Charity or the Vincentian spirituality would have nothing to do with this cloistered Carmelite saint. At least that's what I thought...but I was wrong. Zelie was turned down by the Daughters but Louis, her husband, was active in the St Vincent de Paul Society . The two of them would bring their daughters along when they would visit the poor...there's no way of knowing but these visits to the poor may have come from these exposures to Vincentian spirituality.

A recent conversation with a friend led me to reflect that exposure and love of the Vincentian spirituality doesn't mean that a person is called to be a Vincentian priest or a Daughter of Charity.  I think St Vincent called for his spirituality to be for everyone...and even if God doesn't call us to those specific communities, if we have a love for his spirituality, we will practice it in our everyday lives - whether we're married, single or a Carmelite. Even St Therese admits that her parents were a huge part of her religious formation and led to her entering the Carmelite convent. So I think Therese carried with her a small part of Vincentian spirituality as well.

But that connection to Vincentian spirituality isn't why I wrote this, although it was an interesting find. I wrote this because as I read more and more about St Therese's "Little Way" spirituality, I realize that it is one specifically pertinent to those of us in formation. "The Little Way", as best described in the book Maurice and Therese, is not just accepting who we are, but wanting to be who we are, gifts, faults and all. For those of us in formation, it's important to remember that we are being formed but we're still who we are and we should remain so....and that's okay. In fact, it's more than okay. It's wonderful, even beautiful. Because if we don't stay true to ourselves, not only will it be painful but no good changes would come about in the community, no new gifts found, no new ways of thinking. Granted, that doesn't mean we can't improve ourselves, but, as I wrote before, part of "vocation" is fully being who you are. And more than a hundred years ago, a cloistered Carmelite nun preached that simply by being who she was.

And I think we - those who aren't Carmelites, who aren't cloistered, those who aren't even nuns - have a lot to learn from this great saint. She showed us that God isn't asking us to be perfect - He's asking us to be ourselves because we are a wonderful creation of His. Be yourself and don't be ashamed of it!

We have been trained in the habit of looking at our dark side, our ugliness, and not at the purifying Sun, Light of Light, which He is, who changes the dust that we are into pure gold. We think about examining ourselves, yet we do not think, before the examination, during the examination, and after the examination, to plunge ourselves, with all our miseries, into the consuming and transforming furnace of His Heart, which is open to us through a humble act of confidence.  

- St Therese of Lisieux

"What is Vocation?": A Postulant's Personal Answer....

Back in July, on the day before I was to move to Macon and become a prepostulant, I headed to a church in Baltimore to listen to a famous Catholic author speak. And I did something totally uncharacteristic of me - after he was done, I raised my hand, stood up and asked a question...in front of a very crowded church.

That author was Father James Martin SJ and the question was "what advice do you have for those entering religious life?" It was an egotistical question since I'm pretty sure no one else was joining the convent the very next day and as I asked the question, I even added that I was joining religious life the next day. A selfish decision on my part (and one that later embarrassed me) since I knew that in an audience of faithful Catholics, I'd get applause and maybe even the admiration of Fr. Jim.

Fr Jim, in his wisdom, gave me three snippets of advice. I put them in the back of my mind but soon forgot them. Since then, I've lived out eight months in the convent - six as a prepostulant, two as a postulant - and have learned so much about myself, about others, and religious life than I ever did in my six months in my former community. And today, as I was driving down the highway back to the convent, my mind was taken back to that Baltimore church and his voice told me once again those three pieces of advice.

See, in these past few months, what has been challenged is my definition of the word "vocation". I used to think of "vocation" as categories, as if God was sorting us in piles like laundry. My mom when she did our laundry always sorted them into rows and piles so maybe that's where the image comes from. I imagined "religious" in one pile, "married" in another, "single" in another, etc. And then there were piles for occupations too - teachers, nurses, social workers, etc. For the past few months, I've been trying to figure out which pile I belong to.

But eventually, I've learned vocation is a lot deeper than that and that God knows nothing of categories (in fact, He's not a big fan of them) Vocation is not linear, it's more like a tangled piece of string. Vocation is more than your marital status, vocation is more than your occupation. Vocation is a calling to be who you truly are. That means each person's vocation is different - doesn't matter if they're both Sisters or if they're both teachers. God is calling them to be different people and truly live out who they are - their faults, their gifts, their personality, what makes them laugh, what makes them cry. I know I've mentioned "everyone has their own personal vocation" on this blog before, but only recently have I "gotten it".

A lot of people have said that vocation is becoming who God wants you to be. I don't think it's becoming anything. I think vocation is a deeper awareness of who you already are. I think that's our vocation. If you become a priest, if you become a Sister, if you get married, it's because there's something in who you are that comes alive. But it's not simply that. Our vocation is not just a category - if it were, we'd be stretched out in a million different categories. Our vocation is realizing that we are a unique gift of God and those things that set our heart afire, those things that make us feel more alive are parts of that vocation. It's more than a martial status, it's more than a career, it's everything. It's not only accepting who I am, it's wanting to be who I am because I am made in His image.

So what was Fr Jim's advice? 1) Be joyful, 2) remember no one's perfect (including those Sisters you live with) and 3) don't forget to live your own personal vocation.
Thank you, Fr Jim. I finally got it....eight months later.

Feast of the Annunciation and the Renewal of Vows for the Daughters of Charity

Today, all over the world, about 19,000 women who have pledged their lives as Daughters of Charity renew their vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and service of the poor. On the feast of the Annunication, the feast of Mary's "yes", women are saying their own "yes" to God's call.

It's almost as if it's a wave - starting with our sisters in Australia, in Asia (Cambodia, Jordan, China, Kazakhstan, Eastern Russia, Korea, India, Laos, Lebanon, Indonesia, Phillipines, Iran, Syria, Israel, Thailand, Japan and Vietnam), in Europe (Albania, Poland, Austria, Belarus, Belguim, Portugal, Croatia, France, Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Germany, Great Britian, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland, Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine and the Netherlands)  in Africa (Algeria, Kenya, Angola, Libya, Burundi, Madagascar, Cameroon, Mauritania, Chad, Morocco, Congo, Mozambique, Egypt, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, Eritrea, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Tunisia and Ghana), in Latin America (Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti and Puerto Rico), and then in the United States. (By the way, that's an average of 208 Sisters per country!)

Sr. Denise LaRock, the vocations director for the Daughters of Charity, wrote a beautiful blog post about the renewal of vows today. You can find it here - http://srdenisedc.blogspot.com/2012/03/feast-of-annunciation-and-renewal-of.html. Definitely worth the read!

Thirty-two years ago today....

A shot was heard, its sound's echo eventually reaching all the ends of the earth. As a Salvadoran archbishop prepared the gifts of bread and wine at the offertory after the homily, a shot went through his chest. He grabbed unto the altar cloth to steady himself but fell backwards, with the communion hosts now scattered on the floor, and died.

It was a shot that would eventually ring in the whole world's ears. His name was Oscar Romero. He had only been archbishop of San Salvador, the capital, for three years - certainly a short term and maybe not enough to make a real impact. But a real impact he did make.

El Salvador was at the start of a horrible bloody civil war - the military-led government against leftist guerrilla groups, a civil war that would continue for 12 more years after Romero's martyrdom. People were disappearing, people were being murdered daily, some streets littered with blood. The Church was being persecuted, as the government thought priests and nuns who worked with the poor were subversives, egging on the poor against the government. I know several Sisters that lived during that time period in El Salvador and they recall that they've never been more scared in their life. One Sister, a young girl at the time, was walking to school when she saw a young naked body lying face down on the sidewalk surrounded by military soldiers. She held her books more tightly, lowered her eyes to her feet so no one would notice her and switched to the other sidewalk. Another Sister remembers bombs going off near the convent. The novice mistress ordered them to hide wherever they could and they scattered. She hid in a closet, where she stayed for hours afraid to move even after the explosions stopped. Meanwhile, the novice mistress assumed her dead because she couldn't find her.

The time was tense and everyone who spoke out was soon killed or mysteriously disappeared. But Archbishop Romero chose not to care about that. He knew he might be killed - he even said so. It was a radical act of courage to speak up for those who were gone every day, to denounce the violence in his publicly-heard homilies over the radio. He refused to attend government functions he was invited to "until the repression stops". He wrote a letter to US President Jimmy Carter, begging him to stop sending arms to El Salvador.

But Romero wasn't radical for radical's sake. He probably never saw his ideas as "radical" and I won't even say his ideas were radical. Everything he said was said out of love. The same love of neighbor Jesus Christ called for. The same love cloistered nun St. Therese called for in his "Little Way". The same love St. Vincent de Paul called for in his love for the poor. In fact, something Romero said in February 1980 could well have been something Saint Vincent de Paul would have said some 300 years earlier: "We believe that from the transcendence of the Gospel, we can assess what the life of the poor consists of and we also believe that placing ourselves on the side of the poor and attempting to give them life we will know what the eternal truth of the Gospel consists of."

Monseñor Oscar Romero is the "unofficial" saint of Latin America, a region I feel a deep affinity for, starting in high school and continuing until now, an affinity that led me to live in Bolivia for two years and visit a number of Latin American countries throughout the years. But that is not the reason I remember him today.

I remember him today as an outstanding example of what I, as a believer in Jesus Christ and follower of the spirituality of Saint Vincent de Paul, should be. I'm not called to be an archbishop, probably not called to be a martyr, probably not called to speak out against injustice publicly despite fear of death, but I am called to love all, most especially love the poor as St Vincent, St Louise, St Elizabeth Ann and Monseñor Romero did....for that is where Christ is and that is where the gritty work of the Gospel lies. Love is what will win, love is what Christ tells us to do more than anything else.

“Let us not tire of preaching love; it is the force that will overcome the world. Let us not tire of preaching love. Though we see that waves of violence succeed in drowning the fire of Christian love. Love must win out; it is the only thing that can." - Archbishop Oscar Romero (1917 - 1980)

Who is one of your personal heroes? Why do you remember them?

An Ode to Sister Anne

Spiritual writer and Dutch priest Henri Nouwen wrote, in his book “Letters to Marc About Jesus”, “it is very important for you to realize that perhaps the greater part of God's work in this world may go unnoticed”

Sr. Anne Higgins, with her quiet reflective demeanor, fades into the background – wandering the former Provincial House in Emmitsburg, tending her garden, writing poems, watching the birds eat from her birdfeeder – yet I count her as one of the most influential Sisters in my life. When I think of that quote by Henri Nouwen, I think of Sr. Anne and how God truly worked (and works) through her in practical obscurity.

I first met Sr. Anne in August of 2003. I was a soon-to-be college freshman on a retreat given by my future alma mater, Mount St. Mary's College. Despite my adventurous self, I was nervous to be attending a college where I knew no one. Sr. Anne, an English professor at the college, was one of those giving the retreat, along with others in Campus Ministry. I don't remember much about that retreat, but I do remember how truly approachable and friendly she was. While older, it seemed like she fit right in with the college students. Yet, even more than “fitting in”, she seemed to understand them.

Just a few months later, she invited me to my first discernment retreat – which turned out, perhaps to the surprise of Sr. Anne but mostly myself, to be my first step in my discernment journey with the Daughters of Charity. I wouldn't have Sr. Anne as a professor until a few years later for one of her few non-English courses, Christian Spirituality. We read everything from St. John of the Cross to the poet Rilke. It would turn out to be one of my favorite courses at the Mount. Somehow, Sr. Anne made the readings come alive and led me into understanding the significance of these writings in my own life. Without her even knowing, she held my hand through a rough spiritual patch and walked with me on the journey to discover my own personal spiritual charism. Many of those books I never gave away, including my copy of “Dark Night of the Soul”, which is still full of highlighted passages and notes in the margins.

“May you never take the attitude of merely getting the task done. You must show them affection; serving them from the heart; inquiring of them what they might need; speaking to them gently and compassionately; procuring necessary help for them” (St Louise, A.85) Although St. Louise was speaking of caring for the sick, one of the first ministries of the Daughters of Charity, I feel her advice exemplifies Sr. Anne's attitude in her ministry as a college professor.

Sr. Anne takes her job of teaching English seriously and she takes her second unofficial job of being a published poet seriously as well, but most of all, she puts charity for the students above all else. When I say “charity”, I don't mean this in the superficial academic sense – deadline extensions, excused tardies, etc - but rather charity in what the Daughters of Charity believe it to be and practice – love, love you would give Christ Himself. Sr Anne listens to the students, not just about their academics but about their lives. Former students, even from her days when she was a lay teacher at Seton High, remember her with affection and most still stay in contact with her. More than any other professor, it was Sr Anne who made time to teach me guitar or have coffee chats with me, a good almost-five years since my graduation.

Sr. Anne's own poem, “Elizabeth Seton: Light and Grace” (found in her book “Digging for God: Praying with Poetry”) reminds me of her physical example as a continuation of Mother Seton's dedication to her students. The last stanza reads:

Her words to a student far away:

“My heart has gone home with you”

Home with us, with

light to know,

grace to do.

While Sr Anne may not have intended it that way, I like to think of the “us” as the Daughters of Charity – always with the heart of Mother Seton, with the light of faith to know deeper every day, with grace to do through their works of charity. Perhaps I feel an even deeper connection with Sr. Anne because we basically have the same personalities (INFJs) and we are both teachers and writers (though I am admittedly not a good poet!) but mostly it is because she was the first Daughter of Charity I ever met and it was her who introduced me to the approachability and compassion of the Daughters, not by inviting me to a discernment retreat, but rather by her own personal demeanor of charity.

Because of her quiet nature and her simplicity, Sr. Anne usually blends into the woodwork. After all, teaching English and writing poems isn't as “glamorous” as founding a homeless shelter or being a social worker in an inner-city hospital, but her work is amazing all the same. While her ministry isn't the norm for the Daughters, it has done a wonder for me, vocations to religious life, and all Mount students throughout the ten years she's taught there. And for that, I think St. Vincent de Paul, St. Louise, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and all those before her would be proud.