SEEK 2015

SEEK and you shall find …

It was a great gift for me to attend SEEK 2015, a conference for Catholic young adults presented by FOCUS, a group of missionaries that serves on college campuses throughout the country. I tagged along with Sr. Elizabeth, our vocations coordinator, to be a witness to religious life for the young people. But I also went hoping the Lord had something in store for me.

I suppose I’m admitting I went to SEEK hoping for a mountaintop experience, hoping for something new and exciting. And He did not disappoint.

There’s nothing wrong with expecting God to do great things—that’s called faith. It’s when we limit God to acting only in extraordinary situations that there’s a problem.

We began our trip on New Year’s Day by boarding a bus of students from Franciscan University and University of Pittsburgh. More than 500 miles and a few bathroom breaks later, we arrived in Nashville at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center (an overwhelming name for an overwhelming place). The Lord didn’t wait very long to show us His work. We unloaded our buses and made our way through a maze of people and hallways to check in. Within the first few minutes, Sr. Elizabeth and I both ran into friends—seminarians, priests, students—we had never guessed would be at the conference. How easy could it be to find each other in such a crowd? Only with the Lord …

It only got better. The conference speakers turned out to be amazing—people like Chris Stefanick, Fr. Mike Schmitz, Sr. Mary Gabriel, S.V., Helen Alvare, Edward Sri, Jennifer Fulwiler, and holy bishops like Archbishop Charles Chaput and Bishop William Lori. There were so many inspiring words for the young adults that set all our hearts aflame for Christ and His Church. There was Jesus in the Eucharist each day at Mass and in Adoration. There were hundreds and hundreds of young people in lines for confession, singing “Lord, Prepare Me.”

Then there were the conversations. We had a table with vocations materials for the attendees, and we met a number of women who were discerning religious life there. Soon after beginning to open up about the call they felt in their hearts, some would begin to tear up, relieved to speak of their desire for more. One evening we went to a vocations event on the schedule, thinking there would be a few religious speaking at a microphone. We found a room full of tables and chairs and frank conversations about the challenges and joys of religious life. We stayed for two hours, sharing our own stories over and over to small groups of women.

And we kept running into people we knew! Each time it was a new miracle. We started losing track of all the people who asked us to say “Hi” to Sister So-and-so for them. It was encouraging to hear so many stories from people who are planting seeds of goodness, truth and beauty in the world and watching them grow. God is certainly alive!

There was one damper. Most of the conference, I was trying to ward off a threatening cold. Some nights I had to choose extra sleep over more adventures and interactions, and some nights the Lord multiplied the little sleep I got. There is nothing like walking the edge of need with the Lord and standing back and watching Him provide.

He even provided our meals! He fed us dinner each night through a number of spiritual fathers. And the one night Sr. Elizabeth and I went to dinner alone, a man at the restaurant handed us $20, just a few cents short of our bill!

But of course, He always provides for us. Why should I be surprised? I guess sometimes we have to leave our ordinary situations to see what we take for granted every day.

Dorothy of Kansas said it best: “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again,

I won’t look any further than my own backyard.” Was she ever right! I knew God was my Father, my Provider, the Arranger of my time and the trustworthy Guide on my path. But I needed to hear it again. I think the Lord sometimes plucks us out of our routine and puts us into unfamiliar territory to show us in a new way something we knew all along. I just don’t know why it had to be in a crowd of 9,000 people! =)

The conference ended after a round of encouraging “Go Forth!” talks from some of the keynote speakers and a beautiful Mass. After another 10-hour journey, a deck of cards and some Word Jumbles, Sr. Elizabeth and I and the students arrived safely in Steubenville.

There’s no place like home.

-Sr. Mary Gemma, T.O.R.

Waiting for the Sun to Rise

This New Year’s Day, I was in the mood for a little adventure. I was visiting with my parents in New Hampshire and I decided that watching the sun rise from the old fire tower on Hyland Hill would be a fitting way to greet the new year. 

It was a brisk 10* Fahrenheit when I set out at 6:15 toward the trail with my parents’ dog, Dozer, and my Dad’s cell phone (safety precautions against bears and such). It was also very dark, but I had the foresight to bring a small flashlight. That was the only foresight I had. It had been at least a year since I’d hiked this trail, and I had probably only done it three or four times altogether. Only when I got to the first crossroads did I remember that a whole network of trails crisscross through the hilly woods in my parents’ “neighborhood”.  But I just followed my gut and trusted that all would turn out well in the end.

One bruised hip (there was ice on the trail!), many misgivings, and a few moments of questioning the sanity of my venture later, I arrived at the tower, ready for the sunrise. By this time, it was quite light out, so I assumed that the minute I reached the top “flight” of the tower, the sun would obligingly peek out from behind Mount Monadnock. I climbed up to the top, wound up with excitement and adrenaline. I took a few pictures of the clear dawn with my Dad’s phone, marveling at the beauty all around me.

But the sun did not appear.

I paced a little and swung my arms, trying not to think about the sweat that was now freezing all over me. I called down to Dozer, who happily waved his tail back. I tried to think about what time the sun had actually risen earlier in the week.

Still, the sun did not appear.

I hopped up and down, burrowing further in my coat and I began to wonder – will the sun ever rise? What if there’s something freaky going on and it takes another hour? This has been a really nice experience already – surely I won’t miss much if I leave now.  After all, how much more beautiful can this panorama get? What difference will the sun make, really?

Into all these doubts and questions, a firm resolve was forming in my gut. “You will not leave until you see the sun rise,” it said. “This is the whole point of the trip.” Suddenly, as I listened to this (very calm) voice instead of the frantic ones I had been entertaining, my body and my heart became very still. I planted myself facing east and waited for the sun.

Contrary to my suspicions, the sun did rise in just a few minutes – and it was more glorious than I could have thought. Now, I have seen the sun rise before, but it was just so clear, so brilliant, and so obviously remote from all the rest of the world I was looking at that it really blew me away. 

I was taken aback, thinking that I had nearly left just a few minutes before. What had made me think of that? Yes, the view had been lovely before the sun came, but now it was totally sidelined by the transcendent beauty of the rising sun, whose golden light transformed everything it touched.

I think that something similar can happen to all of us in our walk with the Lord. So much of it is spent in darkness, isn’t it? It can be hard to hold out for Christ alone when there are so many good and beautiful things all around us in the world. But what my early-morning adventure reminded me of is this: it is worth waiting for Christ, just as it is worth waiting for the sun to rise. It is worth bearing discomfort for Him. It is worth feeling like a fool. It is worth the uneasy questions that will come and pester us, tempting us to descend the mountain and give up. He is worth everything, in fact. So let us spend this new year with our faces set to the east, awaiting the Rising Sun who is the true Light of the world.

- Sr. Agnes Thérèse Davis, T.O.R.

The Light of Bethlehem, an Austrian tradition...

"The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world."

~John 1:9

The tradition of the Light of Bethlehem started after the Two World Wars of the 20th century in order to remind the world that true peace comes from CHRIST, not from politics.

Each year since it's inception after WWII, one Austrian child is given an award for virtue and peacekeeping and is thereby chosen to fly to Bethlehem to get the flame from a candle from the Church of the Nativity, which marks the place where Jesus was born.

That child flies back to Vienna where emissaries from different parliaments receive the light and a complicated chain forms and goes to churches and shrines throughout Austria and even into other neighboring countries - and from family to family on horseback throughout the valleys and villages. 

People gather at their town churches and cemeteries, carrying their own candles or lanterns to receive and pass along the flame from the lantern that is brought to them on horseback.

Then, the light bearer reads a proclamation about Jesus being the true source of peace.

Afterwards, each family takes their lantern back to their home for the Christmas octave. Many in the town of Gaming put theirs by their front doors, and every grave in the local cemetery also has a lantern lit from the light of Bethlehem. 

We sisters put ours in our chapel next to baby Jesus in the manger under our altar and light the vigil candle next to the tabernacle from it.

We pray that these last few days of the Christmas season are blessed for each of you!
- Sr. Joan Paule Portenlanger, T.O.R.

How is God calling me to be a mother?

“And she pondered all these things…”

This time of year offers us so many beautiful images and virtues to contemplate – many of which, I would say, are easy to miss or take for granted, as they are lost under the glitter and tinsel of ‘the season.’ 

One of my favorite truths to contemplate, especially recently, is the beautiful reality of motherhood. 

Obviously, this time of year tends to get us thinking about it a bit more than usual as for the past few months we've seen the Madonna and Child displayed everywhere before our eyes, so it seems.  And I love this!  

For me, I've also been thinking a lot about one of my sisters, Melanie, who is currently pregnant with her second child.  Mel and her husband Paul were married just over three years ago, close to the the time I entered community, and since then, as we've spent the years growing into and learning about our respective vocations, she has consistently been teaching me about my own vocation.   

What? 

Yes, my married sister is teaching me how to be (God-willing) a more faithful religious sister. 

I could go into a whole host of reasons for this, but I will cite only one example that is particularly imprinted on my mind.  A few months after she gave birth to her first child, Dominic (who I maintain, in a completely unbiased way, is the most adorable child to walk the face of the earth), Mel was able to come down to our Motherhouse, where I was living at the time, for a visit.  Besides this being my first time meeting my nephew, this was also the first time I got to observe Mel being a mom.  It was awesome, and moved me deeply in a way that I was not expecting (I was partially just concerned about not making the baby cry when I held him for the first time…first impressions are important!).  

At the end of our visit that evening, I remember walking back to my room, mesmerized by the almost surreal images playing through my mind of watching Mel interact with her son.  And the simple phrase ran through my head: 

“She would give her life for him.  She would die for him.” 

  It was one of those ‘I know this to be true at the depths of my soul’ truths.  And it moved me profoundly. 

This truth did not strike me because of anything she necessarily said or even did.  Just the simple reality of watching her interact with him communicated to me that she had a connection to this new, tiny human being that was unlike her connection to any of the rest of us.  

His life will always be bound to hers in a SINGULAR ANDN PARTICULAR way, and her life will never be the same, because of him.  This tiny person, not because of anything he did, but because of his very existence, had radically changed my sister. 

And so it brought the question to my own mind – am I allowing myself to be radically changed like this?  

Obviously, as a religious sister, I take a vow of celibate chastity, and so offer to the Lord the good of having biological children of my own, for the greater good of undivided devotion to the Lord as my Spouse, and the spiritual children He desires to give me.  And so I was challenged to ask myself: am I open to the new life the Lord desires to give to me – and would I lay down my life for them?  It’s a question I continue to ask myself on a consistent basis. 

This question taps into a truth that is applicable to every woman, regardless of her particular vocation. Each woman,  regardless of where she is now, and whatever vocation she is in, or discerning, or feeling called to at this particular moment, she is always called to be receptive to new life that the Lord desires to give to her, and to nurture it – this is inherent to who she is as a woman.  John Paul II tells us that:

“The moral and spiritual strength of a woman is joined to her awareness that God entrusts the human being to her in a special way. Of course, God entrusts every human being to each and every other human being. But this entrusting concerns women in a special way - precisely by reason of their femininity - and this in a particular way determines their vocation.”  (Mulieris Dignitatem 30)

This encapsulates the challenge I felt the Lord speak to me in the encounter I witnessed between my sister and her son.  I pray that it continues to challenge me and every woman who has ears to hear and eyes to see, as they are opened by the Holy Spirit. 

It is every woman’s vocation to guard and nurture the lives of those around her.  The question of vocation should not be if God is calling me to be a mother, but how God is calling me to be a mother.  Speaking to each of my sisters in Christ, I invite you to remember that each of you has a beautiful call that the Lord has placed on your life, and He’s calling you to live out this dimension of your femininity right now – with the people around you in class, with those at your work, with those you pass on the street and sit next to on public transportation, with those in your family. 

John Paul II goes on to tell us that it’s precisely this awareness of how others are entrusted to us that makes us who we are:

“A woman is strong because of her awareness of this entrusting, strong because of the fact that God "entrusts the human being to her", always and in every way…this awareness and this fundamental vocation speak to women of the dignity which they receive from God himself, and this makes them "strong" and strengthens their vocation.” (Mulieris Dignitatem 30)

We are strong by the very fact that the Lord has deigned to entrust others to us.  This is not often the definition that the world gives us of the word ‘strong,’ and certainly not of a “strong woman.”  But this is how the Lord desires us to be strong: by receiving from Him those He desires to entrust to us, and by making a gift of self to them in return.  This is real empowerment. 

So as we conclude the Christmas Octave and begin this new year, I encourage you to not let the image of the Christ Child with His Mother fall victim to over-sentimentality and to be put away with the rest of the decorations. 

May you live each day with a heightened awareness of your own dignity in the gift the Lord has given you in your femininity. Consider specifically how the Lord has entrusted others to you, and you to others.  We were not made to live in isolation, but in communion with one another.  Like I said earlier, I am consistently challenged by the example of Mel, and her husband Paul, and the self-sacrifice that they live out in their lives.  It’s through the ordinary, mundane ‘dying’ to self that I see the desire to give the fullness of one’s life for the other – the self-gift that we are all called to, regardless of our particular vocation.  

May each of us embrace our call to be that complete gift of self for the other, and to be the mothers that the Lord has called us to be. 
-Sr. Anna Rose Ciarrone, T.O.R.