Dedicated to God (32 page)

You know, to tell you the truth, I really didn’t know what to expect. I was just trusting that this is where God wants me. There was a mixed feeling: It’s kind of exciting because this is all I wanted all my life and I feel I’ve been
called since I was little, and then still there’s kind of pain because I hurt my family and still felt the uncertainty—is this really for me?

I struggle being away from family and the culture. Even when I was working in New York, we ate Filipino food, but here I have to eat regular food—mashed potatoes and other things, which we never had there. We always ate rice. They won’t eat the fish with the head here; the way we cooked fish is different than the way we cook here. That’s the way I grew up. We fried the fish with the head and tail and everything. We cleaned the insides but left the skin on. And the language—it was hard for the sisters to understand me, at first, but I got slang, I got adapted to the way they speak. I’m not saying my English is perfect. I’m just saying I had to adjust so that they can understand me better.

You have different traditions here. Our Christmas is very simple, and here you have lots of decorations. And the climate—we don’t have snow in the Philippines. It’s always hot. It’s different, not to be able to talk to a Filipino. My Tagalog is kind of broken, and even now when I pray, I pray in English. I don’t pray in Tagalog anymore. It’s kind of hard to remember all of my Tagalog words.

I’m in charge of getting the applicants their books. I have felt so many of them were called, but they have to do this, they had to do that, and then they lost their call. They end up in different things. I mean, if she’s not called here, that’s fine; she could be called to another community, but what I mean is answering God’s call. All I know is sometimes I feel, I wish that young women would really open their hearts because I know that there are a lot of young women that are called to our life. It’s just they have to really trust in God, really trust in God’s call to them.

Some of the women I’ve talked to have told me, “Oh, yes, when I was a little girl I also wanted to be a nun. I felt like I was called.” But they got married. And they’re happily married. But it’s like, is it a real call for them, or not? Or is it like, “The nuns are so pretty, aren’t they, in their habit”? Maybe God was calling them, I don’t know what. But they mostly said, “Even when I was a little girl, I felt called, too.” Some are benefactors. They’re older now. They said that when they were younger, they thought that they were called to the religious life, but they got married. They found out it’s not really a call; they were called to get married.

Some women are called. I’m not saying that everybody is, but a lot of women, I think, are called to the religious life, but it’s kind of a struggle between themselves and God’s call. There’s so many things that influence them in choosing whether they want to follow God’s call, or they want to do what the world thinks they should be. The only thing I could advise them is to have a deep prayer life because whatever they choose in life depends so much on the salvation of their souls. I think if they could have a deeper prayer life, go on retreat, have prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, or go to Mass more often, to listen—because I think therein lies their strength in choosing what they should be. If they’re really for marriage life or single life, then that’s something that will give them health and strength; they will be light if it’s God’s will. Whatever is God’s will, that’s our salvation because that’s what God created us for, to do His will.

My main thing is I feel like God is calling me. My main thing is, I was thinking of myself being called here as a Poor Clare to a more deeper life of prayer, intimate prayer with our Lord, though with all my duties and all my distractions sometimes. … But that’s my main thing, I feel like an inner call within me, to deeper prayer life, communion with Jesus. You know, it’s like to enter that prayer life to draw people to it. Do you know what I mean by grateful prayer? Grateful for all that God has done for us and grateful for all the people that have supported our life. We owe so much for our friends and benefactors; they support our life and so I feel so much gratefulness for them. I feel like I really have to pray for them, remember them every day in my prayers for their needs, but also so they know God and grow closer to Him.

I can’t remember her words, but Saint Clare was so close to God, her heart was full of joy being close to God, and she wanted others to feel that, too. She wanted everybody to feel that joy and closeness to God. I feel like that’s kind of something that God wants me to do. Each sister is different. Some pray more for priests and religious; that’s more of their calling. Everybody’s different, you know.

We are all called to be holy, to holiness. Jesus said, “Be holy as my father is holy.” I think a lot of women thirst for that intimate union with God, but it seems that the world offers them more options to be happy. But real happiness really doesn’t consist of what you have, or what you do, if it’s not God’s will and it’s not for the sanctification of souls.

It isn’t a perfect life. We still have struggles like everybody else with temptations, personal difficulties—challenges that we should really continuously change our attitudes toward being a better person, being a better Christian, relationships with each other. We don’t have many temptations like in the world—cars to fight with, or dresses. We have the same habit. We don’t have to wear earrings. We don’t have all these things—temptations that the world could offer; we don’t have that here.

The spirit of our founder, the Holy Father Saint Francis and Saint Clare, is poverty, which is living in simplicity. I guess in here I just have more time for prayer and to reflect, to meditate, and in everything I do, in everything that happens, God is more present, more close.

I can feel the difference. When I was still with my family and during the part of my life before I entered, I could feel God taking care of me and He was with me. But now my entering is like a fulfillment. It’s closer now. Before, it was like a calling, a calling to be more intimate with Him. Now that I have answered the call, it’s more close with Him now. I still struggle with all my human weaknesses, you know, but God in our life provides me all the things. In this environment, we all strive for the same goal, closer union with God, and to answer His call for more closer intimacy. All our works—our prayer, everything we do—should grow us more closely to Him.

I think that before I used to do things just for the sake of doing, but now I’m doing everything for God and I always offer up everything I do for God. And when you do things for God and you love God, you do it with joy. There are things that are hard to do, but if you accept it as God’s will, then you know God transforms that and He gives you peace to carry it out.

It’s not just cloistered nuns who are called to holiness. Everybody is. You are. Your family. Your friends. All our benefactors’ families. All are called to holiness, whatever the vocation. It’s Monsignor’s homily, too, that whatever state of life we are in, we are all called to holiness; if all people of whatever religion only answer that call to live a holy life, to purify our hearts from all the hatred and revenge—the evil that’s in our heart—if we could only purify that and put God’s love in it, this world would be a better place. Everybody has their own perception of God, but one thing that’s true is God is a holy God. He is a pure God.

I still sometimes doubt. I still doubt sometimes. I guess it’s more of my human nature and my human weaknesses, that maybe this is hard and not for me. But always God’s grace triumphs. I always have to end prayer,
whatever God wants. Sometimes I say, “This is hard,” but then, “Whatever you want,” because I only want what His will is. That gives me strength.

Sometimes, you can feel it’s from the devil when you have trials, when you have a misunderstanding with a sister, or when you feel sick and all these things come up to you.

8
Erased from the Landscape

I think every vocation story is a love story of how God has really shown that soul His infinite love for her. He’s invited her to live in that love in a very special and intimate way. Just like all young girls who dream of love, you know, of a husband or something, some of us are blessed, through nothing that we’ve done on our own. But somehow God has given this divine invitation, this special look of love, and invited us to live with Him. And it’s beyond what we dream of, of finding the perfect husband or whatever in life—perfect happiness. It’s so much beyond what you can dream of when God shows you how much He loves you. It’s no question, “Absolutely, of course I’ll do it, God,” because He shows that love, and it’s just beyond anything.

Sister Maria Benedicta of Saint Joseph

The youngest nun in the Corpus Christi Monastery, Sister Maria Benedicta grew up—in her words—in “Secular, USA.” This assessment of her upbringing in a Catholic family that prayed daily together and never neglected Sunday Mass might be influenced by the stories she has collected in brief discussions with her new family members. Compared to her Novice Mistress, whose adolescence brought her into the company of the Pope, Sister Maria Benedicta’s experiences seem more conventional, if not secular. Her family did not say the rosary together, and because there was no Catholic school in the vicinity of her rural town, she attended a public school. Sister Maria Benedicta, still called Maria at that time, did not see a nun—in person, or on television—until the fourth grade.

When Maria finally did see a nun for the first time, the impression was indelible. Her youth group stayed overnight at a Benedictine abbey, a prelude
to their trip to an amusement park, and each child was paired to sit with a nun for the Divine Office; Sister Maria Benedicta says she was matched with “the cutest little old thing.” She did not understand what the sister was praying, or grasp the symbolism of what she was witnessing, but she thought the incense-stained atmosphere exotic and appealing. Sister Maria Benedicta says, “I remember looking at her and thinking, ‘She prays with God all day. She has the perfect life. Oh, I could really do that.’ And then it was reality: ‘That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever thought in my life. Forget it.’ And I really did forget about it. It wasn’t always in the back of my mind, ‘Oh, she has the perfect life. I should do that.’ No. I completely forgot about it until years later.”

Sister Maria Benedicta’s first contact with a nun could be described as a signpost. “God puts it in your heart,” Sister Maria Benedicta says. “Somehow He showed me the beauty of it, even though I was like, ‘What are we praying? Where are we going?’ But I remember thinking, ‘This is the house of God and this is the perfect life, living for the perfect God.’ ” Today, Sister Maria Benedicta enters, seven times a day for the Divine Office, a chapel similar to the one that awed her as a child. The prayer stall that seemed, to her grade-school eyes, straight out of a movie set, is now characteristic of her daily routine. From fourth grade through college, Sister Maria Benedicta says she did not reflect again on her first encounter with a nun; she did not see any other religious sisters. “How we can just push that out of our mind and not think about it? What’s real life about? That’s the true reality that lasts forever. But I forgot about it for years. It’s terrible. But God works, here and there; you can see how he’s planting the seeds.”

While some of the cloistered nuns struggle to recall memories during oral history interviews, sifting the decades to frame and share their experiences after a lifetime of anonymity and perpetual silence, Sister Maria Benedicta considers such retrospection a gift. A recent arrival to the monastery, her memories are still at attention; it is easy to pull emotionally charged strings to each phase of her former life, find the corresponding anecdotes and conversations, and connect themes to the events. “It’s a good principle in the spiritual, religious life, you know, when prayer is difficult or there are hard times or suffering in your life, to look back and see what God has done, look how He’s loved me, look how He’s shown me His love,” she says.

Calling memories to the surface of her consciousness reinforces the lessons of her life, and it reminds Sister Maria Benedicta how God has provided
for her. With hindsight, she sees now what she did not always discern at the time—the ways that God was directing her to a cloistered contemplative life. Looking back, Sister Maria Benedicta is surprised she did not recognize sooner that she was intended for this otherworldly realm, although she can pinpoint the moments when God opened up before her the path He wanted her to take, showing it to her step by step, at her own pace. “It’s not coincidences. He’s guiding everyone,” she says, “but we have to listen to Him to experience Him.”

Sister Maria Benedicta was a softball pitcher, coached through high school by her father and admitted to a Catholic college on a full softball scholarship, when she detected her life would evolve in a dramatically different way than she had dreamed about. There was a turning point: Before she signed away her only means of paying for college, before she accepted her religious calling, she was working at Wal-Mart. One ordinary day, Sister Maria Benedicta remembers, she was working the first of forty-five cash registers; the line to her register was backed up. An hour into a very busy, very trying day, it occurred to Sister Maria Benedicta for the first time ever to introduce her prayer life into her workplace. “I said, ‘Lord, help me. Just help me. I can’t do this,’ ” she says. “The next customer handed me this wooden cross. He said, ‘I want you to have this, and remember Jesus loves you.’ And I thought, ‘Oh my! God just answered my prayer.’ He could have handed that to anyone and it could have meant nothing.” Naturally attuned to serendipity, Sister Maria Benedicta became increasingly aware of the spiritual mysteries in her life. She believed that God was telling her, through the cross the stranger handed her, “I love you. I’m going to help you. I’m answering your prayer. I know you’re crying out for me. I’m going to help you through this day.” “That’s true mysticism,” she says, “seeing that God is there, even in Wal-Mart.”