Sharing my conversion story with a new little sister here from France - little sister Martine... I was reminded so powerfully, that although my call to religious life and the reason that I did not hesitate in the least but charged ahead with great enthusiasm into becoming Catholic 40 years ago... did not happen for me. Yet, I now have a daughter, who is called, and answering that call with great abandon! Also every now and then I am blessed with some "nun time" in the midst of my life!
The beautiful 3 days in the midst of the Community of the Lamb here in the U.S.... I was so greatly blessed with powerful deep times of prayer and wonderful quiet restful recovering to health naps after sharing wonderful "tea parties" at every meal...
Some neighbors had given them recipes for "cinnamon tea" for curing colds and illness with bay leaves and lemon and cinnamon... then after each meal the tea would be poured into our glasses and we would sit and share and visit and laugh and called these times our "tea party."
Two days we bundled up and went to a church for wonderful noon mass...then return for lunch and nap. The final day there was the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes and we had mass in the chapel first thing followed by a special birthday breakfast for Fr Harry! He had just been to Lourdes and St Pierre in October, and Hallel had shown him around.
I am still in such a deep place that the words are not easily found, but in reading the meditation for the day and the words of Elizabeth Leseur (1914)... they speak so eloqently of the experiences of the last few days, and the gratitude that I feel to the Lord for allowing me to have the gift of the life I thought I could be possibly called to in my early Catholic days - religious life as a sister...
"Finally, inner depths, where we come in communion, wonderfully uniting himself to us, making himself our guest, our friend, our spiritual food, living on in us spiritually after the actual presence has ceased;
"this is the tabernacle of his heart, the place of his delights, his repose, his joy. Oh, how I long to be for him at the same time a heaven, a tabernacle, and this appearance under which he comes to me! From beneath this veil where my Savior hides, I will let him shine forth, drawing those he wants to save."
Jesus, I fall at your feet and thank you with all that I have within me. My heart is filled to overflowing within the deepest place within me. I am totally filled with peace, love and joy and the knowledge that you love me, and call me to be only yours! I give my all to you, and ask that I can always find that deep inner place in the midst of all that pulls at me in this life. Jesus, we trust in you! Amen and Halleluia!Bless-bless, Barb
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