Discerning Religious Life
Prayer
What is prayer? We might think we need to be all cleaned up and presentable in order to pray or for our prayer to be effective. Prayer, as explained by St. Teresa, is a heart-to-Heart conversation with One Whom we know loves us. We come as we are. When we know we are loved, we know that we are accepted as we are: with the parts that we want to keep hidden, in all the places we find ourselves lacking and with all that brings us joy, sorrow and blessing. It has nothing to do with merit or how we feel. It’s just coming as we are. As we are. In this moment. We place ourselves in His presence and rest in Him.
We can pray anywhere. Brother Lawrence found God among the pots and pans of his daily life of service in the kitchen. Prayer becomes the way you live life. It’s walking through all the moments with Jesus and entrusting to Him all that the day brings. It’s asking the Holy Spirit to guide you in seeing and following His promptings, it’s pausing to remember that God alone breathes life into us and that all come from the hands of a loving providential Father even if we might not feel it to be so. It not only becomes a part of your life, it also becomes how you live life.
To take quiet time daily to be with the Lord is an essential part of learning to discern the Lord’s Voice. Prayer is the foundation of our relationship with the Lord and is indispensable in coming to know who we are in Him. In this most intimate sharing of hearts which we call prayer, the Heart of God touches our hearts. In this communion and relationship, we are healed, set free, and strengthened in faith, hope, and burning love. It is in the context of this loving relationship with our Heavenly Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, that we discover our identity as a beloved daughter and then receive the unique and unrepeatable call through which we are invited to both give and receive love in the heart of the Church.
“Before His gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with Him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves… His gaze, the touch of His heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of His love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.” Pope Benedict XVI
“In prayer, the faithful God’s initiative of love always comes first; our own first step is always a response. As God gradually reveals Himself and reveals man to himself, prayer appears as a reciprocal call…” CCC 2567
“Mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him whom we know loves us.” – St. Teresa of Avila
Sacraments
Why would receiving the sacraments regularly be important? Receiving the sacraments of Holy Communion and Reconciliation fills us with sanctifying grace, which sustains and deepens our relationship with the Lord.
In receiving Holy Communion, we are uniting ourselves body, mind and soul with the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus. He lives in us and is providing us with food for life’s journey. We are nourished by the word: Scripture and the Word that was spoken into being. In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, heaven and earth come together and we are united with the saints and angels and united with the world in standing before our Heavenly Father with open hands and hearts. The sacrifice of the Mass re-presents Christ’s once-and-for-all sacrifice on the Cross. Remembering that Jesus died for you and me so that we might have life and have it to the full.
As the Catechism puts it, “The Eucharist is the heart and the summit of the Church’s life, for in it Christ associates his Church and all her members with his sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered once for all on the cross to his Father; by this sacrifice he pours out the graces of salvation on his Body which is the Church” (CCC, no. 1407).
Find a Church close by and as able, attend weekly Mass. Spend some time before Mass in silence, preparing your heart to receive Jesus and spend some time after Mass, resting in the reality that Jesus is dwelling within you.
In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, one comes into direct contact with the mercy of God. The mercy of God. How awesome is that? Our God is a God Who desires our good, suffers with us and sees the deepest darkest places of our heart. He says to us, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened and I will give you rest.” He desires to give us rest.
The life within our soul is often heavy with struggle, strife, doubt, confusion, frustration, insecurity, fear and anger. Life’s experiences, our own bad habits and wrong choices, moving from our places of woundedness cause these thick layers to build up and darken the light within us. Reconciliation is simply showing up as we are before God, placing before Him the layers that keep us from seeing Him clearly, asking forgiveness for the wrong we have done to Him, to ourselves and others and in so doing the clouded layers start to lift to let the light within us shine out. The life of the soul is our very life. We cannot see it and so we often live unaware. The sacrament of reconciliation allows the vibrancy of this space to breathe life within us in new ways which in turn breathes life and shares His light to all who come into contact with us.
We have all hopefully experienced and extended forgiveness and have also experienced the freedom and lightness that comes from this. Confession is experiencing the forgiveness and freedom that God wishes to extend upon us. He wipes away all our sins. All. What a grace and a mercy.
We, sisters, pray the examen prayer mid-day and in the evenings. This time of prayer is set aside so that we can place ourselves in His presence once again (as it is so very easy to move out of this space) and to pause. Pause to reflect upon the movements of God within, pause to recognize that we missed His promptings, pause to ask forgiveness, pause to re-commit and renew our desire to live our day in His presence. We invite you to pray the examen with us.
Silence
In a very general sense, silence is the absence of noise. We live in a world that is full of noise. Noise is not just outer sounds that hit our eardrums. Noise can also be very “quiet”. In our day and age, we hear a lot about brain fog. Noise is the figurative fog that fills the air all around us when we want to avoid life and its challenges, whatever that might be. Noise is what we allow to take over our lives: the internet, video games, movies, over-talking, reading mindlessly, skimming social media endlessly, one’s unrestrained negative thoughts, etc. There is so much “noise” filling the airwaves that nothing can penetrate through. For instance, if one is distracted while walking, one typically does not notice the beauty of one’s surroundings, the person walking by who shares a smile, the fresh air with the scent of orange blossoms. One is distracted. The noise within – in this case the all-encompassing thoughts – block the individual from seeing and experiencing all that is in the present moment. Often when there is a space, we feel impelled to fill it. Especially when it comes to silence. We feel more comfortable with noise.
There is something intrinsically wrong with allowing noise to drive how we live. When life is that packed, where every moment has something “filling it”, there is no space for seeing life as it is, in the present moment, in how God desires to show up. It slowly removes God from one’s life. It causes us to live life in a shallow manner, moving us into a place of constant busyness and frenzy, forming within us an inability to rest in the present moment. If we spend our days, weeks, months, years unable to delve deeply into the present moments of our lives, how will we be able to see, hear and recognize God?
Silence allows us to give God the space to make His presence known and felt. Giving God the space means living life fully. Giving God the space means growing in our love and knowledge of Him, seeing beauty in and all around us, seeing the needs of our neighbors, seeing His hand at work in our lives, responsive to His promptings. All of these moments prepare us for eternity when we shall see Him face-to-face. If we can’t recognize Him now, how are we preparing ourselves to recognize Him then?
Carmelite spirituality breathes the spirit of silence. It is intrinsic to every Carmelite vocation. To learn more, we invite you to read some of our sisters’ reflections on Carmelite spirituality and silence.
Spiritual Reading
Just as our bodies need nourishment so, too, do we need to feed our mind and soul, to nourish and form our mind and heart in the truth, beauty, and goodness of God. What you put in is ultimately what comes out. Whatever we allow in, starts to form us from within. We know that with food. If we eat junk food on a regular basis, our health goes downhill, we gain weight and we feel awful. If we eat healthy food jam packed with nourishment, the good kind, we have a healthy weight, we feel more energy, our overall health improves and we feel good about ourselves. It’s no different when it comes to spiritual food.
Spiritual reading is essential if we want to know God better, to learn different insights into the truths of our faith, broaden our perspective, grow in self-knowledge. Reading about the lives of holy men and women who have gone before us and have epitomized what it means to live life whole-heartedly for God inspires us to do the same.
Many of us are not blessed to have spiritual directors. However, spiritual guidance is readily available through the saints who have gone before us, spiritual authors who were inspired by the Holy Spirit, who experienced the full gamut of life and wrote their insights and reflections to share with others. How many times have we been inspired by the words of others. We quote people from all walks of life all the time.
Intentional spiritual reading is opening another door for God to communicate with us, to share His love with us. “When we pray we speak to God; when we read, God speaks to us.” St. Jerome.
Service
When one desires to live life whole-heartedly, to love God unreservedly, one cannot help but become aware of one’s neighbor. Love impels us out of ourselves. We learn to see others and situations as God sees them. When we see suffering, we want to walk alongside and provide comfort, when we see a need we want to give a helping hand, when we see darkness we want to light a candle.
Pope St. John Paul II reminded us in Gaudium et Spes that “Man cannot fully find himself, except through a sincere gift of himself.” Love of God, true love of self, true love of neighbor. We’ve heard this expressed in many ways, when we give, we in turn receive. When giving to others in love, one is never left with empty hands. The hundred-fold that God promises becomes a reality. The hundred-fold is experienced within us. When giving selflessly, we come to deeper places of self-knowledge, growth, love, interior freedom. In giving the gift of ourselves, we come to realize that we become the receivers.
Service does not always mean helping the poorest of the poor in poverty-stricken areas. Service could mean simply helping someone whom you do not want to help with any simple mundane task (homework, going grocery shopping, tutoring, etc.). Service can mean giving up your Saturday to volunteer at the church. Service can mean helping your mom clean the house when you typically don’t offer. Service can mean spending time with your siblings, especially reaching out to the one who is struggling the most. The need for service is all around us. You do not have to go far. Be attentive to how God might be asking you to be of service to Him and to His people. Both in small and big ways, every act of love somehow impacts our world in making the light of Christ burn a bit more brightly. Loving service makes God’s face visible in our world today.
Regular Spiritual Direction
To have support in discerning and discovering the voice of God in prayer through spiritual direction would be ideal. However, is not readily available due to a shortage of priests, religious or trained laity being available to serve in this way. We are including a few helpful notes that may be of assistance to you.
- Please see the section on spiritual reading as the spiritual authors, who were masters in the interior life, can guide us through their writings and reflections.
- If there is a priest, sister, trained lay person available, it is important that you discern whether or not the individual is a good fit for you. You may ask to meet with them a few times before you formally ask them to help guide you in your spiritual life.
- Spiritual guidance can also be provided during confession. This is dependent on the confessor, time and place. For instance, if there are long lines, providing spiritual guidance may not be feasible due to the number of penitents.
We must never forget that God provides for all our needs. He does. It doesn’t always look the way we’d like it to and the support we get on life’s journey might not be as clear, but if we approach all circumstances as opportunities to learn and see all moments as God revealing Himself to us, we will soon be surprised at how much He teaches and guides us directly.
Community
None of us are called to walk our journey alone. Surrounding ourselves with those who are also seeking to live holiness can be an important and life-giving support in our faith life. Individuals who inspire us, mentors who can help guide us, friends who will support us and reflect to us the unvarnished truth and not what we’d want to hear. Friends should call us upwards and onwards. Our base of support may not be expansive but to have others whom we can reach out to and journey with is an essential element to living life fully. Shared faith often helps deepen our faith.
On a natural level, friendships/relationships also challenge us to grow simply by the fact that no two people are alike. To have friends who challenge us, who help us move out of our comfort zones is a blessing beyond words. To have friends from different walks of life (age, nationality, etc.) help us to broaden our perspectives of life. All these experiences help make life richer. And when life becomes fuller in this way, we come to see and know different aspects of God Who is communion.