Today is a very historic day. Today, I leave for pre-postulancy. Even though, since I'm driving down to Georgia, I won't be arriving until Monday. In fact, I'm literally in the car driving right now (if all is going according to schedule). I wrote this blog post ahead of time and scheduled it to be posted now.

But it's not just a historic day for me. It's also a historic day for the Daughters of Charity - and no, not because I'm entering the community. (Did you really think I thought I was THAT important?)

Vincent de Paul, our founder, sends the first Sisters on mission.
Images from Vincentian Image Archive

Today, four provinces in the United States become one, named the Province of St. Louise. Sr. Denise has a great blog post about it here. It covers all the East of the United States, from St. Louis east and as north as Canada and as south as Florida. This may seem like no big deal....okay, some provinces are merging, so what? Well, it heightens the mission - to serve those in poverty - and allows the Sisters to be even more mobile, to expand the mission even further. It allows for lots of unity between the Sisters in the United States, which I say is pretty darn awesome. I obviously know most Sisters in the Emmitsburg province but I can easily count on one hand the Sisters I've met from the Northeast (Albany, NY) province and I've never met any from the Evansville, IN province or the St. Louis, MO province. To know that today we'll all be together again is amazing!

And the new province already has a new mission! Yes, the Sisters are going to Greensboro, NC to serve in a parish. And some Sisters are already being moved around to places that used to be a part of another province. One I personally know is going to Niagara Falls to be a physician's assistant at a clinic.

The new province now includes over 500 Sisters and I can only imagine the celebration they're having in Baltimore right now! Even the leadership is there - meaning the Superioress General from Paris and the Superior General of the Vincentians from Rome (who is also our superior) is also there! Speaking of the Superior General, he's a native Baltimorean and is staying with his family some five minutes away from my house. I was hoping to run into him at the grocery store or something but, alas, it never happened ;)

Back to a more selfish note, I myself am really wrapped up in this historic province. I was the last of those in formation to be accepted by the Emmitsburg province and I am the very first (and I mean first - I move in the day after the province is formed!) in formation under the new province. Well, this might just be too much pressure for some, personally I think that's pretty cool!

Please, if you can, pray for me and pray for this new great province of the Daughters of Charity!

So, I'm Not a Saint...: A Post about Being Nervous

In the course of my life, I've read St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Don Bosco, St. Mary Mazzarello, St. Louise de Marillac, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Therese, St. Teresa of Avila and a handful of other saints who I'm forgetting now.

A convent door in Bolivia. Granted, the
DCs aren't nuns and their houses
are not called "convents" but still.
(That to be explained in another post.) 

But nowhere have I seen, written or otherwise, that they were nervous about entering the seminary/convent.

Which frustrates me because I won't deny that, despite my excitement, I am.
I'm walking into pre-postulancy with a LOT of excitement but also a slightly nervous wreck.

And just yesterday, I did something I very rarely do - I missed an appointment with someone because I slept in. I'm very German in the fact that I hate being late to anything and the fact that I had to postpone an appointment, even though it was only postponed for a few hours and the person I was meeting had no problem doing that...it drove me up the wall. I know part of it was my nerves, wondering about Monday, the day I will move into my new house in Macon.

A blog post by a Salesian Sister comforted me a bit, although I had heard the same thing from Sr. Denise and various other Sisters. She wrote about a Sister entering in 1873 and how she was nervous entering. The Sister added "And again, those of you worried about entering - her heart was pounding, the doors to the convent opened, and she was nervous - and it's OKAY!"

Breathe in, breathe out.

And truthfully, I don't even know why I'm nervous. I know the Sisters I'll live with are great. I know the house is great. The community around us is great. I know we have the amazing advantage of going to Mass every day. But I still have butterflies still flying around in my stomach.

I wasn't going to post that I was nervous. After all, it is a very private thing...or at least for me, it is. And even embarrassing. I have no problem showing my excitement and joy in finding my vocation. But something "bad" like nerves? Nuh-uh. But that blog post by the Salesian Sister inspired me to say something. Why? Because I don't want anyone else reading this, who may be discerning or who may be entering a religious community soon, to think that it's not normal to be nervous - every Sister I've come in counter with has told me that. Or to think I must be some saint because I'm not nervous at all. Neither one of those is true.

So I swallowed my pride and posted this. Because while this blog is a way for me to keep in contact with friends and family while I'm now a pre-postulant living states away from home, more than anything, I want to reach out for those discerning. Why? Not because I want them to be Daughters of Charity (although that would be pretty cool) But because truth is, there's not much out there for us discerners. Sure, there's much more out there than when I was initially discerning - things like the VISION magazine and blogs by religious (like Sister Denise's) - but it's still hard to find others that are discerning. You may feel lonely. Or weird. Or confused. I write, bearing my soul, to let others know that they're not alone...and that, while you're radically breaking against everything society is telling you to do just by thinking about religious life, you're still normal.

And apparently, it's normal to be nervous too. So, I take a deep breath and continue on with a smile on my face, knowing that despite the nervousness, I'll be okay.

"You Just Know"....Part II: Some Advisories

(to read part one, click here)

About a week ago, I wrote that "you just know" is the most true yet least helpful discernment advice. Yet "you just know" is more complicated than it seems. I know that, everyone else who's had that feeling knows that, but perhaps you don't. Perhaps you're still searching, still waiting to experience that "you just know" feeling.

If you are, allow me to dispel some "advisories" about this "I just knew" feeling, based on my own experience....

• It's not instantaneous. God gives you His plan in His own sweet time. I first met the Daughters of Charity in March of 2004. And here I am, in August of 2011, joining them seven years later. It took a good while for God to finally reveal where I belonged.
• It's not magical. Well, yes, it is but what I mean is that unless you're really special, God is not going to start talking to you in a burning bush. It's more like Elijah and hearing God in the whispering wind. (Notice the word "whispering" - it usually takes a long time to really hear Him and then you realize that He's been talking to you for awhile now and you, like a dummy, didn't even know it)
• It doesn't come without prayer. There's lots of prayer involved. Lots. Because you wonder "is this really what I think it is?" At least, for me, it took a lot of convincing myself to believe that yes, this really is it. I finally realized that it wasn't pure coincidence that I felt so at home, with the Daughters of Charity and with the charism and everything. It felt different than with my past Salesian community but I didn't want to repeat a "mistake". And it took a lot of prayer and reflection to reach the point of saying "Yes, this is it, it has to be. I just know."
• It's not without work on your part. If you're thinking about joining a specific community - visit, read, talk with someone, visit some more. Heck, even if you're simply thinking about religious life as an option, do the same - visit a community, read about religious life, talk with someone about it, visit another community if you can. Put it all in God's hands but know that you can't get that "you just know" feeling unless you allow it to happen. And you can't know without experiencing.
• It's not always what exactly you have planned. Sometimes God's plan isn't our plan....actually, almost all the time, God's plan isn't ours. But believe me, He knows us better than we know ourselves and He has a more amazing plan for us than we could ever imagine.

So, please don't get frustrated if you have no idea where you're going.
Don't get frustrated if you've been searching for years and still don't know.
Don't get frustrated if everyone else you know seems to have the magical answer for their life, as if God plopped down in front of them and said "Okay, here's the deal. This is what I want you to do for the rest of your life...." (has that happened to anyone here? 'cause it sure didn't happen to me) Keep those "advisories" in mind and enjoy the journey.

Vincentian Quote of the Week: Mother Suzanne Guillemin & Vows

Just as Christ gave Himself up for us without reserve that night He was betrayed, so we must live in the same way day after day, without taking anything back. We must know that poverty is hard, in face of our instictive love to possess, that chastity is hard because of the isolation of heart it requires, but God expects us to be faithful. We must realize that service of the poor is hard; it is hard for us to do what we have not chosen, but this also is part of that giving up of ourselves. (Mother Suzanne Guillemin)

(The text of the image reads "Lord, behold her who has sacrified herself for you. Come, good and faithful servant; enter in the joy of your Master." and lists the four vows the Daughters of Charity take: Poverty, Chastity, Obedience, and Charity [service of the poor]. The image can be found here)

Community Living: A Wonderful Mess

While on the beach recently, I read a book called "New Monasticism" by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. It was an easy and quick read, yet it seemed like almost every page led me to reflect. "New Monasticism" is essentially a ecumenical movement to revive monasticism in a modern context - that is, without deserting the world, without vows, and without habits. It's an interesting and really, wonderful, concept. And to me, it's especially exciting to see Protestants rediscover the wonderfulness that is community life. I feel like it's something us Catholics have known and used for centuries, although it's constantly been reformed to fit with the times (and to fix issues), through women and men religious communities. Thousands of Catholic religious communities exist, with different charisms, for men and women who have the wish to live a religious life with others. And some, like the Daughters, have existed for hundreds of years. But, to many Protestants, the concept is something new, or rather better fitting: "so old it seems new". Now, ecumenical communities such as Rutba House and A Simple Way exist in large cities, where Christians of all denominations live together, pray together and live a modern monastic life together.

Unlike some entering religious life, I've already lived in community. I, more or less, have been for the past 8 years. Not in a "new monastic" community but in different ways. From living with suitemates in college to living with ten Sisters in the convent to living with fifty elementary to high school girls (sixteen of which in the same room). I've had the lucky chance of experiencing community life.

But community life isn't all "smiles and sunshine", just as religious life isn't "daisies and Jesus". You live with people you don't necessarily get along with (we are human, after all) or maybe you live with people you do like but don't like to live with, for one reason or another. Community life isn't easy. Sometimes it can be downright frustrating. It's a tug-and-pull of having patience through prayer, learning more about yourself and helping others and yourself become better people.

But that sounds incredibly secular. And religious community life is anything but. Living in community challenges you to become a better Christian, as you learn to let go of yourself, your wants, and your needs and put your Christian community above all else. It's certainly not an easy thing, but we can all agree it's worth it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote "The more genuine and deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us." (Life Together, 26). We must remember the real reason we're together in the first place - for Jesus. And from my personal experience, simply by being together in prayer, our community life deepens. With the Sisters in the convent and with the girls in the orphanage, both in Bolivia, we prayed together. I've done the same with the Daughters, the many times I lived with them during short visits. Many times, I looked around and saw my fellow community members in prayer. I mean, really saw them. I saw their brokenness by living with them (and I saw mine too, by the way) but by watching them pray, I saw their faith and their trust in a loving God. By saying the same words along with them, I felt more united with them in prayer than I would simply by living with them.

Community life isn't for everyone. But I can say, from experience, it is for me. During those eight years, for a short time, I lived by myself. I originally thought it would be great to be on my own, to do what I wanted instead of worrying about the common good for the community. I hated it. I missed the support of those same people that drove me crazy sometimes. I missed constantly learning about faith and about myself from them. I missed the accountability of doing the right thing - outside community, I could do what I wanted without someone there to be affected by my actions, whether they were right or wrong. I missed the connection I felt with others in prayer. My sadness over lacking community life is one of the things that led me back to religious life.

For those already living in community life, what do you love about it? What in community life challenges you?

"You Just Know": The Least Helpful but Most True Discernment Advice

Last week, I spent a few days at FIAT, a retreat sponsored by the Diocese of Arlington for high-schoolers interested in religious life. Along with the Daughters of Charity, the other religious communities present included the Little Sisters of the Poor, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, and the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará.

A phrase repeated during the vocations stories of all of them (including myself) and the later Q&A, especially in regards to choosing a community, was "I just knew". Even Father commented on how he knows the advice "you just know" isn't helpful at all to discerners but yet it's so completely true.

How did I know the Salesians weren't for me? I just knew. The Sisters were great and some continue to be some of my best friends. I loved working in the orphanage with them. But I just knew somehow that it wasn't for me. After leaving the Salesians, the idea of religious life was still in the back of my mind but I ignored it until last summer, when I spent a good month visiting my Salesians in Latin America and somehow, upon returning, I just knew that religious life could just be for me and I needed to do something about it. I could have picked a variety of different religious communities to get in contact with. But I knew I had to contact the Daughters of Charity. Why? I just knew. Why did I ultimately decide that they were THE community for me? I could cite all the things I love about the Daughters - their mission, their founders, the Sisters, their ministries - but really, it was that I just knew. I just knew that this was THE ONE. I just knew that this was where I belonged all my life.

We can never explain the things God does for us - neither the how or why. And finding your vocation is one of those inexplicable miracles of God. I remember on discernment retreats as a college student hearing vocation stories, which never quite satisfied me. All of them seemed to skip that part where they ultimately realized this was for them - you know that big sign where they knew that THIS was it. I remember asking (or allowing someone else to ask) "Well, how did you know?" And the answer was always a frustrating "I just knew." Now that I've matured (or maybe because I've myself experienced that 'I just knew' moment), I love hearing vocation stories.

So if you're discerning religious life, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is "you just know" is probably the most frustrating advice you want to hear on this journey. The good news is that it's true and that God loves us so much and is so good to us that it's beyond explanation. So, keep journeying and you'll find that, as hard as this journey may be, one day you'll just know.

Vincentian Quote of the Week: St Vincent & Materialism

Those who become detached from the desire of worldly goods...enjoy perfect freedom...they are people who are free, who know no law, who fly, who go left and right, who fly still more. No one can hold them back. (St. Vincent de Paul)