Dedicated to God (5 page)

I read
Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska
. She wasn’t a saint at that time; she wasn’t even blessed at that time. There was a community that she felt our Lord was asking her to start. It was a cloistered community. The order that Saint Faustina was asked to found, our Lord said, “Your purpose, and that of your companions, is to unite yourselves as closely as possible. Through love, you will reconcile earth with heaven and soften the just anger of God.” I liked that idea. I thought that sounded great—a great purpose! I tried to find out if the Divine Mercy movement existed; it didn’t exist. I got into contact with some other girls that were interested in starting the community mentioned in the diary, but we went through years and years of seeing if it would work. We would get together and there would be times where some of us would live together for a while, but it never worked out. We found we didn’t really seem to have the same call.

But I still felt called, and I had spiritual directors that thought I really was called to do this. I really needed authentic religious training. I was reading this book,
The Spiritual Legacy of Sister Mary of the Holy Trinity
, about a Poor Clare. In the front and back of the book, there were pictures of
this
monastery with little description of the life. I said, “Gee, that really sounds like Saint Faustina’s way of life.” I thought it would be a very good place to go for
training. It was funny. In about six weeks, I was here. I came here for a visit for a week. I couldn’t go in the cloister, but I got to pray the Divine Office. I was in the sacristy and they were in the choir, and I heard that Divine Office being sung and I wanted to get through that grate and get in there and I couldn’t! It was the chanting of the Divine Office. I just wanted to get in there and pray with them! I think there were other things, too. I had been feeling in my heart, before I came, a drive to be with community. I really needed to be with community. I couldn’t be living alone anymore. I went away for two weeks to think about it, and I was so completely miserable. All I wanted to do was get back here.

I went to another place, a religious-oriented place. I thought maybe I’m called to be there for a while. But it wasn’t centered around the Divine Office. I needed my life centered around the Divine Office. We prayed the Divine Office some—once or twice a day together in a group—but I wanted to pray all seven hours of this Divine Office. In order to have the solemn vows, you’re supposed to be bound to pray the Divine Office in community; that’s a mark of the contemplative cloistered life. I could not stand not to have my life revolving around the Divine Office. And you can see that’s mostly a lot of what made me want to get through that grate. Of course, I could get to Mass every day, that wasn’t a problem. But if you’re doing work, there are other schedules you have to accommodate; I was fitting in the Divine Office in all these odd ways and places. If I was in the back of a truck, I would pray the Divine Office. If I was walking from Point A to Point B, I would be praying the Divine Office. Maybe I wouldn’t finish and maybe I would have to pick it up later. And if it was a work period, I couldn’t pray it. It would have to wait until later.

So my spiritual director made arrangements for me to come back here for more religious training. The community also had to meet to decide whether or not they would allow this because it was very special if they would allow me to come in. And, of course, I had to have the permission of the bishop to come in for this training, being I wasn’t asking to be a member of this community. They decided to let me try for a year. I really liked that and I asked for more time. And they said, “We’ll only give you a year. You need to get your vocation going.” I was here not the whole year, and I was getting this feeling inside I needed to go away and find my true home. So I left. And I was so completely miserable that in not much over three months, I was back
here as a postulant. All I could think about was getting back here. I could pray the Divine Office, but praying it by myself wasn’t enough.

In a cloister, a nun is dedicated to our Lord in a special way. An active sister has a postulate outside, but here 100 percent of our time is supposed to be with our spouse and we are allowed, because of the life we live in here, to spend more time in prayer. It’s like a different tool. If you want to do very fine needlework, you’re going to need a very fine, little needle. If you have a needle that’s too heavy, maybe a very good seamstress could do this wonderful work, but it’s easier with the fine needle. This is kind of the purpose of this life—that we are supposed to be dedicated 100 percent to Christ and to being His spouse. Here, we have an opportunity for silence. An active sister has to do a lot of talking with a lot of other people. Here, if you would like to get to know our Lord, it’s going to be in silence and it’s going to be with Him in quiet. There are a lot of different kinds of noise inside and outside of you. But the silence—there is where you’re uncluttered and there is where you’re free for God.

For a while, I regretted exploring the Divine Mercy Movement; I thought it was a waste. But maybe it did form me and form my spirituality. And it did form me as a person, too. And I learned more and more about my faith. God has a purpose. I find even here there is so much room for growth in me still. If I hadn’t had all of that time being formed, I might not be even as good as I am now. And I really have a lot of room for improvement! God knows what He’s doing. And maybe I was deaf and maybe He was trying to tell me a long time ago. But you know, He put that book in front of me, and it wasn’t that long after I had that book, that here I was.

The words in the diary of Saint Faustina, it doesn’t appear she knew anything about the Franciscans, but our Lord had said to her, “Your life is to be modeled on mine from the crib to the cross.” Well, that’s very, very Franciscan, very, very Franciscan. And the authorities have many theories about whether Faustina was being asked to start a community; there are a lot of theories on that. And I don’t know. It doesn’t appear that I’m called to be in that. But I’m called to live what she wrote and I can do that here: “Your purpose and that of your companions is to come into as close of union with me as possible.” And that’s what we’re supposed to do here. It’s interesting because the rule that Saint Faustina wrote is very similar to ours: “Through love, you will unite earth with heaven and soften the just anger of God.” And, really, that’s the job of everyone in the Church: Through love, we will
reconcile earth with heaven the more we love and show mercy. My life and really the lives of everyone here and especially contemplative cloistered nuns, we are supposed to be intercessors. We are supposed to mediate.

My family always knew my dedication to wanting to be a sister. They all, in their hearts, kind of thought of me as a sister even before I got here. They knew how badly I wanted this. And they wanted it so badly for me, too. It was so interesting when I received the black veil; my aunt and uncle and my mom said the black veil looked better because they all said, “Now you look like a real Poor Clare.” You know they all thought of me as this, and so I guess they’re happy to see me becoming what I wanted to be, and what they saw me as. They knew what my desires were. They’ve read the lives of the saints. They know the needs in the world.

My father died about a year before I came and one of the last things he said was, “Go for it.” And I know he thought prayer was the only answer. Yes, it’s a sacrifice, but they know why I’m here. And they know that I’m happy here. They want to support that happiness, and they understand this need. The world has a need for this. It was so touching, and I know it’s happened more than once since I’ve gotten here. My aunt Marilyn asked me specially, she was crying and she said, “After I die, pray for me.” So few people are prayed for after they die. She knows the need we have for that prayer, and she is counting on me that I will be praying for her.

My family only comes once a year. It’s a long way, and my mom is older. It’s a sacrifice for them, for assuredly it is. But I am blessed in that my family knows what I’m doing and why I’m doing it, and that’s a great blessing; that’s a great, great blessing. They, too, saw all the struggles and sufferings I went through with the Divine Mercy thing. They are so happy to see that I’m settled. I’m settled. I’m safe.

They know that I really am the Lord’s spouse. And if I have made the promise to give up all I have—I have made these vows to God—can God give me less than He did before, or is He going to give me more? He’s got to give me more because I gave more. And so I have opened myself to this relationship and said, “Okay, I am giving up my obedience, my will, my chastity, meaning I am your spouse. I am reserved completely for you. I don’t have the freedom, nor do I choose it, to make any other choices. Poverty—I am going to live poor.” If I am going to give Him all this and say, “I want to be your spouse,” what’s He going to do? He’s going to have to reciprocate. And
of course, He’s the one that originated the desire in my heart in the first place. I couldn’t have done it without Him. They understand the spousal relationship.

When I was first looking to do this, I was concerned about the family, but I did ask for the family, that the family could receive blessings, too. And there have been blessings to our family. They really believe in that power of prayer. I do, too. If I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, then God will bless those in the world and those I’m praying for more than if I was doing something else that might be more direct, hands-on, because I have to be where God wants me to be. We all do. If I’m not where God wants me to be, or doing what He wants me to do, then how can His grace be there?

If I have a person that I love especially, and if I deny myself and deny them our interaction and my presence, is God in justice going to bless that person more or less for that sacrifice that person had to give? He couldn’t do anything but bless that person more. I know that they’ll get more blessings from God if I’m doing what He wants me to do, even though it might seem less effective, and less gratifying even.

The biggest thing you give up? Your will. Obedience. That’s the hardest of all—not to be able to choose what you want to do when you want to be able to do it. It’s every day. It’s all the time. We have a schedule. And sometimes maybe you’re working on a project, and you’re supposed to be doing it, but suddenly before you’re finished with it they say, “No, stop doing that. We need something else done.” That can be hard. You would like to get that thing finished and get it off your shelf. But, no, they said this. In so many little things, the hardest thing is that sacrifice of your will, and this is where your union with God comes in. If you want union with God, you need union with His will.

I need to be doing what I’m supposed to be doing, but not only that, I need to be like Jesus and Mary. Our Lord accepted the will of the Father, not as you like it, not as I like it, and He came to a complete peace with that, no matter what the suffering it entailed—and not to fight the will of God. And the Blessed Mother, you think about how she could be united with the will of God, watching her son die on the cross and not be fighting it inside herself. How united with God’s will would she have to have been? And if I can take what I’m supposed to be doing in life and do it, and accept all that comes to me from God’s hand with love—because He is all-powerful; everything that happens, he’s allowing it to happen—therefore, I have to say,
“Okay, God, take it as Jesus.” I should take it as Jesus would. Take it as love from your hand, and give it back as love and use it for what you want to use it for. If I’m united with the will of God, I need to always do what pleases Him and I will have union with God. So what else is there to worry about or to think about? But there it is. It’s that will. So I know if I keep working on this will, and if I were ever to get to where I really was united in my will with God, I would have union with God. The closer I am united to the will of God, the more effective I am for me and everybody. The truth is, the more you are united with the will of God, the more you are going to have joy.

They say that the vows crucify you. Yes, they do. It’s a crucifixion. Obedience is. If it doesn’t cost anything, you know, it doesn’t make a very good story, anyway! You want to watch the stories in the movies where someone had to struggle and work hard. If he just went and did everything without any effort, it would be kind of boring. He’d be an unreal Superman! Even Jesus, being God, He didn’t show us that way. And it’s a good thing He didn’t because then we’d never be able to do it. He took our weaknesses and He worked with that human weakness and showed us how to do it. And God will help us to do it. Perfect joy is in receiving bad undeserved treatment with an interior disposition of love and abandonment to God’s will, which permits it to happen. And the more I keep trusting in that and His mercy, the more I should be able to receive that mercy, as long as I am able to admit where I’m failing. That’s the big thing—admit where I’m failing—because I can’t get mercy that I don’t think I need. I have to admit that I need mercy. “I’m not obedient, Lord. I’m not obedient.” I need to work here. And the less I’m blind and the more I see myself, the more mercy. And I must trust God. See, that’s the Divine Mercy message.

I’m doing what I want to do. I think the material things are so much easier to give up than that self-will. You know, the self-will is terribly hard to give up.

Maybe it would have surprised me years ago, before I thought about doing it, because it was hard, because obviously when I was younger it was the complete opposite. I started really realizing where the values were and where the worth was. The horses are wonderful creatures, and they’re beautiful. They really are gorgeous creatures, but you know, what’s really important and what’s really going to help people? Really, let’s help people get to heaven. And if you look at that, nothing else is really that important. What is it, whether you train horses, or have horses? It gets to be kind of empty;
if God wanted me to work with horses, that would be the way that I could help bring souls, but even then, Saint Paul talks about using the world as if you’re not using it. And then at that point, I would have to have that same detachment of “I’m not here for the horses, I’m here for God, and I’m here for the people, and I’m here to help bring souls to Him and I’ll try to be faithful and be a good horse trainer.” But there’s a detachment. I’m not here for the horses.