Showing posts with label Motherhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Motherhood. Show all posts
When someone learns that our daughter is a Sister, he or she typically responds in one of two ways.  Most people, especially other moms, relate to the difficulty of being separated from their daughter.  They say something like, “Wow!  That must be so hard.  I don’t know if I could do that!”  The second response, which I hear less often, goes something like this, “Wow!  That must be such a blessing for your family!”

To be honest, it is both of those:  incredibly painful and difficult at times, but always, even in that loss, an indescribable blessing.   And as such, I have often pondered how my life as the mother of a Sister might draw me closer to the heart of Mother Mary, and how my life might even reflect hers in some ways, if by the grace of God, I can do this well. 

I begin by thinking about the Annunciation (Luke 1: 26-38). Our Lady’s life was completely changed with her fiat when her life as the Mother of her Savior and ours began.  She was already holy, full of grace.  That was not quite true of me, but I was hungering for God in my own way. Newly married and fairly new to the Church, my life truly began with the conception and birth of our first child, Sarah.  I began to fall in love with God as I beheld our tiny child.  As she loved me unconditionally, I felt God’s love as never before.  As I loved and nurtured her, God healed me of many wounds, and I grew in awe of Him.  With her birth came the true birth of my faith.  Wanting to be the best mom I could be, I wanted her to know, love and serve the Lord.  Thus, I grew in the knowledge of my faith as I began to teach her.  God continued to bless us with six more beautiful children, and the journey continued. 

Now to focus on the Finding of Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2: 41-52):  I relate to this story as well.  When Jesus was twelve years old, his parents had lost him on the way back from Jerusalem.  They found him after three days.  He was in the temple teaching, and everyone was amazed by his words.  But he went back to Nazareth, and was obedient to his parents.    Perhaps Jesus was already very capable of beginning his work.  But it wasn’t time.    How difficult it must have been for him to wait to begin his public ministry. And from this time, Mary held all this in her heart. 

Like Jesus, my daughter had to be in her Father’s house.  She loved the Lord from a very young age and began serving him in many ways.  By the time she was eleven, I knew in my heart that our Lord was calling her to a religious vocation.  As soon as she visited the Franciscan Sisters T.O.R. for a young girls’ day, she knew.  She said she felt like she was “home.”  I, like Mother Mary, had to hold all this in my heart.  She didn’t talk about it often, and didn’t tell people outside the family, but she knew.  And as her mother, I knew as well.  Occasionally I thought about what this might mean to me personally, the losses I would have to suffer.  But mostly I was filled with awe that God was calling one of our daughters to this very special and important vocation. I know it was hard for Sarah to wait.  She prayed about when she should apply, and if she should attend Franciscan University for all four years.  After much prayer, she was obedient to what she believed the Father wanted. And as difficult as it was at times, she waited until after her college graduation. 

At the Wedding Feast at Cana (John 2: 1 -11), we see our Blessed Mother’s influence on the beginning of Christ’s public ministry. From my own perspective as a mother, I see this as a mother’s little nudge. To me, it is as if she was saying to him, “It’s time.  I believe in you. You can do this.”  Jesus knows all and didn’t really need that nudge, but perhaps Mother Mary needed to give it.  Perhaps it was a gift from God to Mary to help prepare her heart for what was to come. She had to begin to let go of that life they had been living together, the quiet life of the Holy Family.  It was the beginning of a different way of life for both of them. So it was for us.  Mary told them to do whatever Jesus asks of them.  She tells us the same thing.  Do whatever Jesus asks.  The application process, the appointments, the packing, everything that had to be done in preparation for entering candidacy:  we were preparing our hearts for everything to change.  We were preparing for our daughter to do whatever God was asking of her. 

Like Jesus, our daughter had lived at home.  She had commuted to Franciscan.  This was not always easy for her, but she did it for us because we could not afford for her to live away.  And although she had studied abroad in Austria, and had been away for mission trips and summer work, she had been part of our home, our family life, and was truly leaving for the first time when she entered the Monastery. 

I will always remember the day Sarah entered the Franciscan Sisters T.O.R.  It was one of the happiest and yet most sorrowful days of my life.  If I may compare it to Good Friday, it was truly something like that for me.  I had to let go of my daughter so that she could go fulfill the Father’s will for her life, so that she could go serve him in complete and total abandonment of the world.  Of course, none of us dare compare our sacrifices to what our Lord has done for us, and we never could come close.  But since he called us to take up our cross and follow him daily, I do dare make some analogy here.  I felt like I lost my daughter that day. I felt like I stood with Mother Mary at the foot of the cross.   I truly mourned like never before.  No actual death that I had ever experienced came close to the grief I felt when we returned home that day without our daughter.  I sat at the kitchen table completely lost.  I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I cried easily for days, weeks, even months. I was lost. There is no other word to describe it besides grief. 

And then the joy of the Resurrection:  Christ lives!  My daughter lives.  Yes, she has a new life.  Our little family will never be the same as it was before.  But now I can honestly say, it is not only different but better.  One and a half years after our daughter entered as Sarah Kilonsky, we were waiting for the phone call to hear that she had been accepted as a novice and had been given her new name.  I waited as an expectant mother.  I waited like I had waited the first time: to meet my daughter.  Who would this new person be?  What would God name her?  And we got the call: Sr. Agnes Maria.


 I praise and thank the Almighty God for he has done good things to me. 
-Shirley Kilonsky (mother of Sr. Agnes Maria)
             
Some sisters like to say that our simple way of life makes us easy to entertain. It's another way of saying that our simplicity makes us childlike. It opens our eyes to the miracles that are of the everyday variety - like Chesterton's God who cries, "Do it again!" before each new sunrise.

Birds hatch all the time. But that doesn't make it any less of a miracle, especially when we come close and can see it with our own eyes!

This is our second year witnessing the growth of a killdeer family at our motherhouse. Last year, a killdeer couple decided to build their nest near our driveway. This year, they were a little more prudent and built it a little further from traffic - in the grass behind the professed house.

Now, one of the things about killdeer is that they build nests on the ground. Yes, on the ground. It sounds pretty vulnerable ... until you learn the other thing about killdeer. They have a system of defense that is nearly incomparable in the birdie class. The mother guards the nest (with a rather threatening and ear-splitting cry) while the father distracts all predators away with an elaborate "hurt wing" show. This is really quite entertaining in and of itself (It would also be admirable if it were not for the fact that the bird is not virtuous and performs this self-sacrificing act merely out of instinct).


This being the second year, some of the especially enthusiastic sisters attempted to predict when the four little killdeer eggs in the nest would hatch, based on last year's numbers, and were often found checking the nest as the climax approached.

That brings us to the evening of Mothers' Day, a few days ago. I was out planting the kitchen garden with Sr. Della Marie. We decided to move a particular bean plant to a place that faced the east and would get more sunlight. Sr. Della Marie moved it and happened to glance over at the killdeer nest (she being one of the aforementioned enthusiastic sisters). Her intuition told her something was afoot, er, a-cracking.

She called to me: "The eggs hatched!" I echoed her call to two nearby studious novices. I regret to say my temptation was a welcome one to them : ), and we all soon joined Sr. Della Marie in oohing and aahing at the 3 baby killdeer who were quickly morphing from wet, ugly aliens to cute fuzzballs with little dinosaur feet. The fourth stubbornly remained in its shell, and night prayer called us into the chapel.

But the next morning, as soon as we finished morning prayer (we have no more than 15 minutes' break between morning prayer and Mass), sisters went to the nest, summoned alike by that childlike wonder and desire to see. This time the crowd had grown, since news of the hatching had spread like wildfire at the motherhouse (I regret to add, some spread just before or during grand silence : ) ).

And it was just at that moment that the fourth killdeer chose to emerge. Well, since we know the birds are driven by instinct and not by choice, I must say our heavenly Father chose to grant His daughters a wonderful gift: witnessing a bird break freely into this strange, beautiful world.

It was a surreal experience. I felt privileged to see what seemed to me such a sacred thing. It spoke volumes of the awesome gift of life we share with all God's creatures - even more of the new spiritual life we have in Christ. It was really something to ponder. And you should have seen the joy we sisters shared in that 15 minutes!

I do have another regret ... we frightened the parents out of their wits (or lack of). But no harm was done; we went to Mass and they instinctively returned to the nest.

I wish I could say, "Do it again!" Maybe next year?

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





A few months before I entered community, I received a list of things that I could bring with me to the monastery as well as a list of our policies. My roommate at the time was discerning marriage and she and I were looking at this list together.

She began to "canonize" me as she stared in awe at the paper and all that I would be giving up.  I thought I was pretty holy myself and accepted the canonization graciously with what I thought at the time was humility : ).

There were three things that I specifically remember her “canonizing” me for. The first is that she couldn’t get over the fact that I had to wake up at 5AM every morning (We both loved sleep!). That was quite heroic and worthy of a martyr’s crown!

She also mentioned to me how hard it would be to not have the freedom to just hop into a car and go wherever you want (a prisoner for Jesus!).

Lastly she came to the realization that I will lose the freedom of winding down at dinner with a glass of wine or drinking a beer while watching football.  (Of course there would be no football to watch in the monastery either).

Under the pretense of humility I listened, nodding my head and saying to myself, “I really am a martyr.  … Bring on the canonization!”

Four or five years later, my old roommate and I were talking on the phone during one of my home visits.  She had gotten married and had two or more children at that time.  We were mutually sharing the joys and struggles of our vocations.

She began to recall the day that she canonized me and all that she had said. She laughingly began to take back her canonization as she said, “Do you realize that I now wake up not just at 5 AM, but at midnight, at 2AM, and at 4AM?  I never get a full night’s sleep since I have had children.”  She went on, “And I never get to leave my house because I have three little ones that I have to dress and bring with me.  There are days when my patience won’t allow it.”  She topped it all off by saying, “And do you realize that I haven’t had a glass of wine since my honeymoon because I have either been nursing or pregnant?”
my college roommate and her family

Oh, the beauty of motherhood! What we both had in common was our motherhood and it was beautiful to see! I had always wondered why most men’s religious communities had more freedoms than women’s.  Many are allowed access to alcoholic beverages more than three times a year and they very often sleep later than we do. 

Men are not mothers.  They are fathers.  Their fatherhood requires different sacrifices.  

I made a striking realization: Every time I wake up early it is to nurse spiritual life into the souls He has given me.

Every time I feel the sacrifice of not getting to hop into the car and go where I want to go whenever I want, I am making a home for my spiritual children.

Every time I feel the pinch of not having a glass of wine at dinner or a cup of coffee in the morning, I become aware that I am pregnant with my spiritual children or am nursing them.  

That conversation called me on in our life of penance and sacrifice to be the mother I am called to be and not neglect my spiritual children. I recognized in a deeper way how the penances we voluntarily take on are intrinsically linked to our call to spiritual motherhood. 

He called us from the beginning of time to cooperate with Him in giving birth to spiritual life in the souls of His children. St. Thérèse said:

“While in the world I used on waking to think of all the pleasant or unpleasant things which might happen throughout the day, and if I foresaw nothing but worries I got up with a heavy heart.  Now it is the other way around. I think of the pains and the sufferings awaiting me, and I rise, feeling all the more courageous in proportion to the opportunities I foresee of proving my love for the Lord, and of gaining, mother of souls as I am, my children’s livelihood.”

Edith Stein says that “It is the destiny of every woman to be bride and mother,” whether that be manifested physically or spiritually.

 It has been a beautiful experience to have a twin sister who has embraced the vocation of  physical motherhood.  She continually manifests the selflessness necessary in mothering. It calls me on in my own vocation. Whenever I am tempted to believe that the grass is greener on the other side I call her, and she is quick to remind me either by holding up the phone to a crying child or sharing her own experience that this isn't true.
my twin sister's family and I- another wonderful model for me of motherhood!

Our culture today does not esteem motherhood precisely because it requires selflessness.  It requires putting someone else’s needs before your own.  It is hard! 

What culture esteems today as the model woman is the seductive woman. Seduction is the opposite of motherhood. It is putting oneself at the center. Seduction can dangerously suck the life out of motherhood and lead to its destruction. 

Contraception was born out of a self-centered ideology and a seductive culture.  As a woman religious I have come to realize that selfishness is a type of spiritual contraception.  

When I put my needs before others in a disordered way I am blocking the gift of myself from being fully given.  When I am not embracing the penances I have voluntarily taken on, I am saying no to the most beautiful gift God has given me in my femininity: my motherhood.

So on this Mother's Day we shall drink our Franciscan tea (hot water instead of tea) after dinner knowing that our life of penance is united to all physical mothers and that through it we are conceiving eternal life for the world and pumping His Blood into the children He has entrusted to us. 

Thank you physical mothers for your witness and your daily yes that call us on in our own vocation!
 -Sr. Therese Marie Iglesias, TOR


Sr.Mary Gemma as Katie (far left) before
she entered community
I can still taste the café au lait and the crusty bread. I can walk the cobblestones at dusk and hear the friendly “bonsoir”s that sent me home each night. In my mind’s eye, I can sit on my windowsill at Maison Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul and watch the mist roll off the Pyrenees and hear the morning bells toll from the basilica spire.

The rush of the Gave in springtime, the endless lines of blue wheelchairs, the sea of tiny flames every night in Rosary Square … all impressions of Lourdes that remain with me even now, nearly six years later.

They say that if you’ve been there once, you can always return to the Grotto in your heart.

But how often I forget! How often I let life become burdensome; I grow weary from the daily struggle, from the busyness of it all. How far away Lourdes can seem- an unreachable distance!

But today, the Lord wants me to remember. “Come to Me, all you who labor and are burdened …” I return to this place, a place so blanketed with peace. Yes, there were crowds and shops and plenty of to and fro, but it was all pervaded with a sense of rest, of safety. The Grotto itself is a refuge where the thirsty are literally refreshed.

As I waited in line for the piscines, the baths, women from around the world took turns gently singing Marian hymns. I remember I felt no fear as I walked through the curtains. The women volunteers didn’t speak my language, but we understood one another. They pointed to the little statue of Our Lady at the foot of the bath and somehow communicated that I should say a prayer. I had no power to resist- the tears came and the women embraced me as if I was their own daughter. Immediately my heart was flooded with relief and love.

I plunged in and gasped at the cold of the water. I kissed the little Mary and soon was out of the water and dressed, miraculously dry just as everyone said.

Sometimes all we need is a Mother’s healing love. That day I felt it tangibly, holding me tightly, running like water on my skin. Today I make an act of faith to return to her arms.

“Kindly come,” the Lady said to little Bernadette. Today she says it to me, too. Could it be so easy to go back? One act of trust and all can be made new again. The tears can be wiped away- even sickness can be healed. We have a Mother whose love stretches over every imaginable human fragility and suffering. There she stands in the lonely caves of our hearts, unafraid to be with us in the places no one else will touch. Who would not have the courage to run to her?

the grotto at Lourdes, France where
Mary appeared to St. Bernadette and many
 miraculous healings have taken place
“Go to her, you who are crushed by material misery, defenseless against the hardships of life and the indifference of men. Go to her, you who are assailed by sorrows and moral trials. Go to her, beloved invalids and infirm, you who are sincerely welcomed and honoured at Lourdes as the suffering members of our Lord. Go to her and receive peace of heart, strength for your daily duties, joy for the sacrifice you offer.” 
~Pope Pius XII
“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.





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