Withdrawal

     I was a smoker on and off from the age of fourteen, and between the ages of 30 and 43 smoking was a full-blown daily habit. Mind you, I was never a four-pack-a-day-er, but one pack a day was certainly something to sneeze (or cough) at. Stress was my excuse, and smoking, so I chose to believe, relieved stress.

     When I accepted God's invitation to religious life, I gave up smoking -- just like that. The fact that I didn't experience any of those terrible withdrawal symptoms I'd always read about, told me I was never really addicted to cigarettes; I was just inexplicably stupid for a very long time. I have never even slightly craved a cigarette since.

     Once in the cloister, I gave up another habit perforce: sodas. My drink of choice for years in secular life was Coke, then, when it came out, Cherry Coke. I drank far more Coke than water or anything else. But in monastic life, soda is a treat reserved for big feast days and picnic days; it is drunk on fewer than ten days out of the year. Did I miss it? At first, yes. But now I'm happy to say that my time in the cloister cured me forever of my soda habit. Now I only drink it in fast food joints, which is to say, not often at all.

     During my recent two-week holiday with family, I was totally without a computer the first week. Did I miss it? Yes, but not sorely. I suspect that, were I deprived altogether of a computer of my own, and in times of necessity had to use someone else's, I wouldn't lament for long, but would adapt quite quickly and relatively painlessly. I would still want to write this blog and check my Facebook and Twitter accounts once or twice a week, but I really wouldn't miss surfing the net for long hours, or playing Word Drop, or doing crosswords online. There are, as my readers know, too many books on my shelves and too many unwritten poems buried somewhere in my mud-and-dry-leaf-encrusted depths, for me to suffer from the want of ways to occupy my mind.

     There was one thing, however, that I did very sorely feel the lack of during my holiday: Frasier. Or, more accurately, the brilliance of David Hyde Pierce. Now that, for me, is a true addiction, and I'm sure I would suffer deep and agonizing withdrawal, were I ever (God forbid) forced to give it up! 

Blogging A to Z: "L" is for Liturgy of the Hours

One day shortly after the renewal of my faith in 2002, I paid my twice-monthly visit to my favorite Houston antiquarian bookstore, Detering Book Gallery. They were having their big annual sale that weekend, 30% off all regular stock. Browsing in the Philosophy/Religion room, I espied four volumes, each a different color, perched atop a random pile on a table. They looked, at first glance, like Bibles, but looking closely at the spines, I saw the words "Liturgy of the Hours."

Until my return to the faith I had no idea what the Liturgy of the Hours was; I had been so long away from the Church, having "left" it while still a teenager, and even before then, I was ignorant of many things, including this beautiful and universal prayer, the official prayer of the Church. I finally became aware of the Liturgy of the Hours, or the Divine Office, as it is frequently called, when I began discerning a vocation to religious life. I learned that the primary apostolate of contemplative nuns was prayer, and the Divine Office was their most important work; indeed, they are bound by pain of sin to pray the Divine Office, in full, every single day of their lives, a duty which they share with the clergy. However, laity are also encouraged to pray the Office, or at least a part of it, every day, in addition to attending Mass faithfully. It is an extension of the Mass.

When I stumbled upon the four-volume Liturgy of the Hours at Detering that day, I felt it was more than mere coincidence. God was gently steering me toward a life of prayer; whether as a religious or as a lay person, he wanted me to pray the Office. And the fact that those usually costly volumes were priced 30% off an already "used book" price clinched the deal for me!

The problem I then faced was: how do I pray the Office? Looking through the books, called breviaries, I was completely mystified, even after I read the copious introductory material in the first volume, and the Ordinary, which is found in all four volumes. Finally, I went online and found a website that explained the Office very simply and clearly, step by complicated step. With a hardcopy of those instructions close by and my breviary in hand, I began what has now become one of the most important habits of my daily life.

By praying the Office, the liturgical year with all its glories unfolds day by day, not just Sunday by Sunday. Morning, midmorning, midday, midafternoon, evening, and night -- with each of these "hours" of the Office, I am not only sanctifying the day, but am sanctifying it with the whole Church in praise and through the contemplation of God's word. The reciting of the entire cycle of Psalms over a four week period, along with the other Scripture readings, provides a constant source of inspiration, strength, and revelation; more importantly, it serves to strengthen and unify God's Church on earth. When I open my breviary, I am aware that millions of Christians throughout the world are opening theirs, too, and together as one body, we are worshipping the God who created us.

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. . . .