Second Sunday of Lent: Oh. Dear. Lord.

Well... Here I was thinking that last week was bad. Wagon was completely totalled this week. Life got hugely busy and heading down to the farm with no interwebs didn't help. I was still recording none-the-less! I had a full on weekend but it was spent in good company. So instead of celebrating the solemnity of St Patrick, I'm typing all these up.

Today then, I am so grateful for Sunday Mass. That weekly anchor, a reminder what the whole point of life is. 

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 8

Today I am grateful for that lovely silky smooth feeling the day after you get your legs waxed. Over sharing? Perhaps but you know... It is awesome. 

Day 8... Very, very late.

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 7

Today I am grateful for the anticipation of someone special coming to visit. The excitement, attempt to fill time, the little butterflies. All of it is wonderful.

Day seven... Still haven't completely fallen off the bandwagon.

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 6

Today, I am grateful for my walks home from work. For the time I get to think and imagine.

Day six...

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 5

Today, I am grateful for raspberries, or sweet dew drops from the garden of paradise. Getting home hot and sweaty and then having these with a glass of ice cold water. It was a delicious moment.

Day 5...

First Sunday of Lent: CatholicFAIL

So I'm a little bit behind… but not too far only a day! Who'd a thunk that this would be so damn difficult. Aside from needing to go to bed earlier, I am really struggling to be attentive to things that I can be grateful for.

So often I'm finding myself struggling tiredly at the end of the day to record something that I am grateful for. It's more than just acknowledging it. It should be an offering of prayer to the one who gave it to me. 

So there you have it. First Sunday of Lent is a tale of Kiara and her fairly epic Catholic FAIL. Seriously. The only thing that is more difficult is giving up chocolate. Having said that, it's okay to fail. It's okay to stuff it, to do it imperfectly. If it is one thing that I learned during my discernment, it is that when you start feeling like crap and it's not working and you're about to throw in the towel, that is precisely the time when you are growing the most. Paradoxically, the times when we feel like God has abandoned us, are the times when he is closest to us.

So I persevere and I make my struggles an offering to him. I name the graces I need: attentiveness and fortitude. I open my heart to the Spirit to fill me with wonder and awe to find him.

So this Sunday, I am grateful for all my failings. I am also grateful for my mother who set the tone for Lent with an epic Catholic FAIL on Ash Wednesday.

Me: "Is that [shredded pork shoulder] for dinner?"

Mum: "Yep."

Me: "It's Ash Wednesday."

Mum: "Oh, S***! And I sent the kids to school with ham sandwiches!"

Yep, should have ashed our selves with FAIL in reparation for that dozy. I also managed to serve myself leftover lamb in an omelette on friday… oops!

1st Sunday...

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 4

So, I've been out enjoying life a little too much so this post is late… again. I'm not giving up just yet.


Today, I am grateful for this awesome resource from Christopher West. TOB has been a huge part of my journey back home to Catholicism and Christopher was my first introduction to this mind-blowing theology.

Day 4...

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 3

Whoops... This is late, but I'm not giving up yet!

To(Yester)day I am(was) grateful for the awesome friendship I share with Box. He totally made my day with inappropriate humor and his experience of a hazelnut hot chocolate...

Day 3....

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 2

Today, I am grateful for my glasses. Who would have thought that a right shaped piece of glass would restore poor eyesight and be stylish at the same time?

Day two...

Lenten Gratitude Challenge: Day 1

Today I am grateful for the storm today. I got soaked, but it was cleansing, cooling and a mighty show of lightning.

Though it came and went, it was beautiful, awe-inspiring. It came, it soaked, it conquered. 

Day one...

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!

Oh Ma Gawd I'm in Bawston!

*As a note for the future; I will try and post things week by week now instead of everyday. Much more achievable on my part!

Now I arrive in Boston reasonably refreshed having napped in the Miami airport and my God was I greatful for a Daddy who loves me and was willing to go halvsies on a nice hotel. I had a bed and a working shower and I had to be shocked out of half-arseing Portugese too but it was glorious!

I wake up feeling on top of the world and head out to explore. Boston is just simply beautiful!

Every little corner hides something beautiful. Its a place that has seen many people and has a real sense of its history and its place in it. And this evening I am introduced to Barbara, the most beautifully hospitable person I have met (barring my Mardi). We had dinner in the North End, which is the home of the Italian migrant community that dates back to the 1850s.

I had spent plenty of that week exploring the north end on foot. There was an Italian feast on at the same time and it was awesome. Barbra and I went in one afternoon after a pedicab tour of the South End given by her hilarious son Christian. Barbara also introduced me to baseball and the Red Sox. She managed to get us last minute tickets in seriously awesome seats. We were so close we could practically spit on the players!

Barbara and I had some lovely adventures and talks. We also went to the beautiful coast on Maine with her 20 year old grand daughter Amanda. It was fantastic day with lobster (very reasonably priced lobster) sorbet and candy!

The coastal walk that we did in Ogunquit (yes that is it's name) was lined with primroses just growing. The scent was just heady, with the salt and this sweet and slightly musky perfume from these happily blooming roses!

So In summary, my week in Boston. It was a wonderful time of rest and recuperation from the hecticness of WYD. But the best thing about it was Barbara. She showed me such hospitality and looked after me as well as if I was family. I know Americans are hospitable, but she blew me away! To give you some context, Barbara's husband of fifty years passed away three months ago and in the midst of her having to deal with the grief she just gave with such generosity! I want to be like her when I grow up!

I had many little adventures which are too numerous to catalogue here, but the overwhelming sense of my time in Boston has been one of profound gratitude. Just when I thought God was done with the surprises, I am surprised yet again! Surprised by the generosity of complete strangers and the beauty of everything around me. This 'little' church became my friend in Boston.

St Leonard's was the first Catholic Church in New England built by the Italian migrant community in 1873. It is was a great quite place just off the main road in the North End. I spent quite a bit of time there and it was a really good time for me to reflect on what had been happening over the last three weeks, to be thankful and to gather the memories.

But finally of all an apology! No that I am finally on my way to being settled, I will get much more regular with these blog posts.

I finish with a massive Thank you to Barbara for her hospitality and generosity! (She is also going to hate me if she sees this photo... Well I promise I will replace it as soon as I am able to get a better photo! (If it helps, I'm not looking all that crash hot either)). I am definitely returning to Boston as soon as I am able. Thank you Barbara for making my experience of this beautiful city so unique and joyful! Love ya lots!