Suores Vitae Part I

It is wednesday, sitting in my hotel room in Midtown Manhattan and I can finally start detailing my adventure with the Sisters of Life.

It began on the 17th of November. I arrived at on a chilly New York evening, dropped my bags off their Convent on W 51st Street and then headed to meet them at St Patrick's Cathedral. They were doing Night Fever. It was huge, the doors of St Patrick's were thrown open, with Eucharistic Adoration going on and confession too. The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFRs) were doing music and more CFRs and sisters of life were inviting people in to pray and light a candle. It was a good way to begin the next 17 days. 

I settled into my room at the postulant house in the Bronx. Not the dodgy part of the Bronx... The really nice part!

Saturday it was up early to go out to Villa Maria Guadalupe in Stamford, Conneticut for the Coworker Formation Day. What a full on day! Communication skills, talks by the sisters, food... 60 people from all over the place to help out the sisters. 

The talk that had the biggest impact on me was Mother Agnes' Delighting in Her talk. It essentially boiled down to this...

We can only truly will the good for someone else (i.e. Love them) when we perceive and receive their intrinsic goodness first. Otherwise we are not working for their good, we are working because we are good. 

Kinda makes you rethink your whole interpersonal relations ever. I got a lot out of that day. But alas, it was only a day and we made our way back to the Bronx in the evening for dinner and sleep. It was then up for a regular week. Up at 5 am, morning prayer, meditation and mass followed by breakfast in silence (silence till midday usually). It was then off to the days activites. 

Tuesdays it was off to the Mother House about 30 minutes upstate for philosophy classes with a brilliant Jesuit and Sr Mary Gabriel. A rousing game of soccer, ultimate frizbee or football in between, this week it was soccer. 

Wednesday was apostolic day where the postulants were split up and sent to what ever tasks needed doing. I was sent to the Apostolic Centre in Manhattan to help sort out a huge load of donations that came in. Mostly clothes. Friday was a day of silence and prayer.

I also had a whole library of spiritual reading and at Sr Antoniana's recommendation, I dived into Fr Timothy Gallagher's Discernment of Spirits and Ignatian spirituality. 

I was busy. Which was a good thing, considering I spent the entire freaking week in the throughs of spiritual desolation. It was not fun. At all. The whole week was numb and blah, going through the motions. 

It was not fun. It was frustrating and discouraging. Being caught in a cycle of despondency is really not fun. I have no idea how Mother Teresa lived and was productive for decades in that state. Thank God for Sr Antoniana. Thursday afternoon she says "Kiara, how do you feel about going on the Young Adult Retreat we were talking about? I've signed you up!" 

So Friday afternoon, Sr Virginia Joy drives me out to Villa Maria again for a retreat with 40 other young people. The retreat began in the evenin with dinner a conference and vocation story from Sr Filumena, the first kiwi Novice. Following that was a Eucharistic Healing service where the monstrance is bought down and you can get close and touch it.

That was my lowest point. I went up and knelt before Jesus and felt nothing, just blah. Confession was going on so I went and the wisdom of the young priest was just what I needed. I was still in desolation, but I came to grips with it and was able to move to a place where I could resist it.

The Saturday was a much better day. It was a silent day so I walked the grounds and read, there were a couple of conferences and spent every opportunity in the Chapel. I was still feeling the desolation but I had better sense of what this was and perhaps why I was suffering it. 

Saturday night was party time! We had an All Saints costume party. Complete with Purgatory, the place you go to 'clothe yourself in sainthood' if you didn't bring a costume. I dressed up as GK Chesterton. It was hilarious. No his technically not a saint, but his cause is open for canonisation.

There you have it! We also had Irish dancing going on in the basement and the we make a fire. Unfortunately we only had green wood so Sr May Karen and I split it into matchsticks to make it burn. No, I don't have a photo of Sr Mary Karen and an axe. 

Sunday was the final conferences finishing with Sr Mary Loretta. This little lady from Brooklyn has the most phenomenal charism for evangelism I have ever seen. No matter who you are, she can talk about Jesus to you. I left that retreat with a shot in the arm spiritually but I was not quite out of the woods yet. 

Stay tuned for part II in a couple of days!

Suores Vitae Part II

Sunday night at Villa Maria, I was picked and brought back to the Bronx for a beginning of a new week. That retreat was the shot in the arm I needed.

So I was back for dinner in the Bronx and it was nice to get back to some ordinary time with the postulants. So Monday was the usual, but we got a sleep in! Except I couldn't get up... I was held hostage by a vivid dream of a deformed cow following me around ringing a bell and reciting Shakespeare... No joke. It was weird. I have no idea what it may mean but I promise I'm not consuming any kind of hallucinogens. We caught up with all the news from the Sister's visiting day on Sunday over meals and got stuck into the various chores around the place.

Tuesday I headed back up to Villa Maria Guadalupe with Sr Filumena the Kiwi novice and a load of food for the Come and See Retreat and it was snowing! The first snow of the season and I was very excited! Look!

I spent the day helping Sr Josemaria fold laundry... lots of laundry. Like, 60 loads of sheets and towels. In between the usual prayer routine of the Sisters. Wednesday was much the same, running around with the postulants, cleaning, making beds getting the retreat wing ready for the retreat. I was absolutely wasted by the end of the day. But before everyone arrived it was baking time! 700 chocolate chip cookies and raspberry thumbprint cookies... They were for the Advent celebration and I exercised the utmost self control not to attack the dough and eat it. Sr Loretta was making Mexican wedding cookies too. The smells were amazing.

Thursday was retreat day! The postulants and sisters banned me from doing anything. So I relaxed and got prepared for the retreats. For the last few days I had been recording the spiritual movements to discern any patterns, Ignatian style. Honestly, Fr Timothy Gallagher's books were the most useful things I have read this entire time. I highly recommend anyone trying to make sense of God's will grab those books.

By dinner time about 40 of us retreatants had arrived and were getting settled in. After evening prayers and dinner, we had a vocations talk from Sr Mary Karen, my favourite Sister of Life, the most hilarious and sarcastic Virginian nun you will ever come across. It was hilarious and awesome and it was the first time she had ever shared this. We then had an introductory conference from Sr Antoniana and we were away!

Friday was a huge day, after morning prayer, meditation, mass and breakfast we were away to the Bronx to pray outside an abortion clinic for an hour. We prayed the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet and sang a few hymns in a rough part of the Bronx. It was then on to St Patrick's Cathedral to visit Cardinal O'Connor's tomb under the main altar. That was awesome. Fulton Sheen was buried there too as well as Pierre Tousset a Haitian slave who became the hairdresser to the upper classes of New York and almost completely funded the building of Old St Pats as well as diving into Typhoid outbreaks to assist the sick and giving away everything he earned.

After that we headed over to Sacred heart which is their house of Holy Respite. i.e. Pregnant women come and live with the Sisters about 7 of them at once until about 6 months after the birth of their baby. We had lunch and listened to one of the women who had formerly lived with them. She was incredible! A year and half ago, she was pregnant, alone in NYC and had no where else to go. Now she has a beautiful daughter, has a full time job in Public Policy a nice apartment and whole-heartedly embraced her faith (She is a 7th Day Adventist).

We then headed back to Stamford after a tour of the house and an afternoon chatting with the sisters there and some of the residents there and their little babies. We were pretty wiped. It had been a long day. But we were not done yet! And God certainly wasn't done with me either. After dinner we had a Eucharist Healing service like last Friday.

This was my moment. I was in a space of consolation. I just simply prayed, "I'm here. I'm listening. I've discerned this, but I'm yours. I will do what ever you ask. How about that neon sign?" I went up to the altar rail, the monstrance was before me. I felt a great weight lift off my shoulders, an overwhelming sense of peace. I went back to the pew. I felt a voice well up from within. (I'm not nuts I'm not hearing voices!) It was not my own voice, but a deeper one. It simply said, "he's waiting for you."

That was it. I had my answer. I am not called to be a sister, I am called to marriage. I wanted to run around singing at the top of my lungs. But of course, we had begun our 24 hour silent part of the retreat. I had this awesome grace and I can't tell anyone! But that was ok! It was bed time after holy hour and evening prayer and I got the best sleep and woke up to a beautiful, clear and warm winter day.

After breakfast and morning prayer we had a conference and then the rest of the day was free for our own personal prayer and reflection as well as meetings with Sr Antoniana, Sr Virginia Joy or Sr Mary Gabriel. All morning it was little confirmations. The scripture meditations I was following weren't doing it for me. So I reopened my bible and it fell open to the marriage of Tobias and Sarah. I wandered over to the Cardinal O'Connor table and found the only thing he wrote on the vocation of marriage.

I had a meeting with Sr Virginia Joy scheduled for after lunch and as soon as that door closed I was out with it! She was so happy too! We had a good laugh and after I went for a hike through the near by woods, had a nap, then talking ended after dinner and we played a team-charades relay game which was friggin hysterical. We then had Q&A on slips of paper with Sr Antoniana, Sr Virginia Joy, Sr Mary Gabriel and Sr Talitha. Also a lot of fun, especially with the last question. Some smart-arse asked if Sisters shave. It got a drum roll and had all the sisters in stitches.

Sunday rolled around and it was my last day. I was feeling a bit lost and I didn't want to leave! But it was time. I got to hug everyone and drove into the city. I felt at peace. I finally had my answer and it was time for me to go out on my own. I did get a photo with my all time favourite Sister, Sr Mary Karen.

There you have it! I'm not called to be a sister! I'm home soon, but not after a week in NYC, my Birthday and Thanksgiving and hopefully some more snow before heading back on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!