06 September 2011

On My "Reversion" and Religious Vocation

     Some of my friends have asked me to recount how I received my religious vocation and the journey I took from there to entering the cloister. Though many books and articles have been written specifically about "the call" and how different people experience it and respond to it, I can't think it's an easy thing for anyone to discuss. It certainly isn't for me, mainly because it was such a complicated thing that happened in two stages. The first stage unfolded so subtly and over such a long period of time—the course of many years—that I was hardly aware it was happening. The second stage was more like the proverbial thunderbolt, or, to use a more contemporary vernacular, a boot in the rear.
     I can only say that an ever-growing restlessness and dissatisfaction with life as I was living it in the 1980s and '90s prompted me to re-examine the need for a spiritual center, which I once had as a child and adolescent, but in my late teens had pushed down and buried deep inside me while I pursued my musical career. In the beginning of that career, my talent was not to me "a gift from God"; it was simply something I was born with, and I developed it with a purely selfish, vain ambition and ruthless competitiveness. I loved my talent because it was mine (so I believed), and I loved that others admired and respected me for it. I found success and did indeed have a good career in opera, but eventually selfishness and competitiveness led, as it always does, to dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction led to anxiety; anxiety led to the search for, as I defined it then, "something stronger than myself."
     Once I acknowledged there was something stronger than myself and my ambition, something that I couldn't control but could rely on always, then, and only then, was I open to the gift of faith. I was given the grace to question, to explore, and to learn. I was given the grace to see beyond myself and the ephemeral world I lived in. For this, and for my subsequent return to the Catholic Church, I must give some credit to my beloved mother, who prayed for me constantly during my years of faithlessness. She was my own personal Saint Monica, and I am forever grateful to her.
     In my quest to find a parish in Houston I felt at home in, providence led me to Holy Rosary, a parish run by friars of the Order of Preachers (commonly known as "Dominicans"). At the same time, I was also beginning to feel an inexplicable pull toward religious life. To this day, I have no idea specifically how or when it started, but suddenly—and this was the "boot in the rear"—I was reading everything I could lay my hands on about religious life.  I learned there are basically two kinds of religious orders: contemplative and active. Religious in active orders are sisters (technically not "nuns"). Their apostolate is teaching school or nursing, or doing some kind of charitable  or missionary work, and sometimes they live "in the world" while doing these things, or sometimes they live in convents. Mother Theresa's order, for example, is an active order. Religious in contemplative orders are nuns, but are addressed as "Sister" (or, for those who hold office, "Mother"). They live in monasteries called cloisters and their only apostolate is prayer and contemplating the word of God, which is why they are called "contemplatives." Nuns only venture outside the cloister for the most essential things, such as doctor's appointments or the death of their immediate family members, or for conferences and workshops. In the simplest terms, active sisters are "Martha"s and contemplative nuns are "Mary"s—and both are necessary to the Church and to the world.
     To say I was not bewildered and frightened by this pull toward religious life would be a lie. Frankly, I was scared out of my mind, and many were the times that I tried to convince myself it was just a passing fancy.  My life at that time was so settled into my work at the opera house; to give up everything for which I worked so hard for so many years and to which I had become so accustomed was unthinkable, akin to madness! Finally, I consulted both a therapist (who, thankfully, was a very faith-filled woman) and one of the priests at Holy Rosary. Both encouraged me to explore this mysterious and frightening thing that was happening to me, but they also cautioned me: "Take it slowly. Don't jump into anything without a lot of examination and (my priest told me) prayer."
     And so, I began my discernment in earnest. . . .

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