On Stregth...

My mother. My mother is great. My mother is a great woman, she is the fullness of constancy and sturdiness. My mother is a woman, with all the ties of strength, cleverness, self-sacrifice and many times "bluntness" the word woman can take. She is a powerful thing for her small frame and stature.  She is vibrant and joyful, she is beautiful and reminds ME of what youthfulness, of what happiness is when my sometimes shy, careful, pensive and worried personality impeads this.

Sometimes, particularly back home, I would wonder who again was in her late teens.She has a huge expectation and enthusiasm for things. I am CERTAIN she enjoys a good party/dance (yes, think more like salsa) more than I. I miss her, I miss her greatly.

Her strength amazes me and puts me to shame. In moments I feel so broken and lonely, particularly since the move she is a "commander-like" figure that, in blunt words (she is a sour-sweet mixture), tells me how ungrateful I am being with God, how little I believe in myself and Him while still being humble enough to share her own pains and sadness as an example. Like I said, her strength puts me to shame. Even when I've shared with her dark and sad moments the next day her smile completely lights up the room, never hinting at the turmoil she may have just underwent.

I find a great consolation in the humility that I can learn much from her, and indeed do. I also find consolation in throwing all these worries and weaknesses unto God and Him picking me up as His beloved daughter, well aware of my lack of faith,sadness and fears. None of it matters really.

These two quotes, I believe, do a great job at expressing this sentiment:

Consider all the past as nothing, and say, like David: Now I begin to love my God.
-Saint Francis de Sales

 If we are, in fact, now occupied in good deeds, we should not attribute the strength with which we are doing them to ourselves. We must not count on ourselves, because even if we know what kind of person we are today, we do not know what we will be tomorrow.
-Saint Gregory the Great

Mom and part of the family in a 2009 Chicago Trip-see, look at that smile!

Until Soon! Peace of Christ,

Fears

“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.”- Thomas Merton


I have been a great fan of Merton for years now. I have read a book of his and his autobiography sits enticingly in my bookshelf in my room (as many other other wonderful books, many are gifts from dear folks! Mm.. maybe blog worthy for later). These past few days a few long term fears (and not so long terms fears) have been presented and even now I sit and wonder without many answers. Partly due to the busy-ness of the week, and long long journeys by bus to school (car broke down), limiting how much or how attentive I have been during prayer.

I could ramble on and on about the specifics but whoever, if there there is indeed audience, wouldn't want to read about that! In summary, in short-term plans I am fear of not seeing my family this Christmas. I am fearful I won't get to speak to a few people (in person) that I have been longing to do for months back. And then, in summary, I am fearful perhaps in all of it I still find a big part of my heart in a place that's so far away and the simple thought I won't get to at least touch/feel/kiss this part of my "heart", even if only for a short visit,brings such pain.

I also fear what this quote is demanding, mainly because I am not entirely certain on what the specifics (or even the basic outline) of what "fully" living would be in the future. What am I living for? How will this be manifested in the future? Surely, I am certain I am living to become Love, and to be best loved by the Beloved and to bring others to that. But this is close a parallel in saying organic molecules have carbon. It doesn't much tell you anything except they're organic and viable to become life. They could be a lipid or a nucleic acid for all I know, extremely different in their purpose and structure but all have carbon. Anyhow, for now, I hope you invisible readers can perhaps find a bit more to the quote than a definition of Organic Chemistry. Until Soon!

Peace of Christ,

A Small Blurb About Meeting the Trinitarians of Mary

Monastery Facade in Guadalajara

The simple entrance above would not hint at a monastery to me, and in fact did not. My meeting with this amazing group of religious was certainly not accidental and yet somehow God-sent. I'll try to be brief as to how I met this group to have a fair amount of time to ramble about how great they are.

Well, it all started with a blog... yes, a blog! Their blog? Nope! I've been a fairly avid blog reader since a few years ago and I came across a blog (that no longer exists) about a woman discerning religious life in California. In one of the many posts this woman posted about another young lady, of only 18, who was entering the Nashville Dominicans (U.S. Congregation) from her parish later that year. I then contacted this young woman, through e-mail and facebook. Her vocation story was really quite lovely and the correspondence in the few months prior to entering was absolutely enriching, and so we continued our correspondence, now through letters to the convent, during my time in St. Louis. Earlier this year, during my participation in the Washington D.C. Pro-life march in an absolutely amazing circumstance (I won't write that story now since it would only make this longer!) I was able to meet her, after months of correspondence, for the first time.

This postulant (now novice I assume) had met the sisters near her hometown in California and in great joy and enthusiasm told me about the community that was also in Mexico, near the border. I kindly told her that Guadalajara was really far away from the border. Returning from D.C. I looked up these sisters and saw that besides the community near the border these sisters just so happened to be located exactly in the heart of Guadalajara. That's it, just two locations in all of Mexico and coincidentally I was traveling to them. The rest is history and to be saved for later! I must however mentioned how incredibly hospitable they are, in my first visit the whole gang gathered around for conversation for an hour and would not let me leave until they brought dinner to me!

Alas, that's bit of the Trinitarians of Mary. Their site is here (although for the past day or so it has been having a few troubles fyi) but rest assured I shall be blogging of them soon enough!

Peace of Christ,

Love and Responsibility

 

Yes, I know i haven't been around lately. I do apologize! School was little crazy this past week!  However, for fun news before I finish up a few blog drafts (yes, I had been writing in the week! Like a true blogger.... well, almost) is the acquisition of this book-->Pope John Paul the II's Love and Responsibility I do thank the Trinitarians of Mary (more on them on later posts) for the lend and look forward to the read!

Until Soon! 

Peace of Christ,

A Change of Pace

Driving home today from school I noticed how different the mere fact I was driving home at night was. It hit me that I was in a city completely different than one I had known for most of my life and that coming "home" to the apartment no one would really be there expecting me (my brother, my apartment-mate, tends to be a busy guy). It was odd, odd to think so relatively quickly I had gone from walking to my high school, of having my parents around every day, of cooking dinner for the family, of Cross-Country meets, of a greater accountability and sense of responsibility, of greater "strings"/attachments, a time of a fairly good amount of structure.


Driving home, and perhaps it was those bright stop lights and some traffic on the way, reminded me ever more of this pilgrimage. I had no idea how this young girl, scared to death of change, was now coming home, just a dark apartment waiting for her (and maybe some ready-to make rice). It felt extremely out of place from what had been before, of what had been always, and ever more lonely and independent than that I would have ever planned or expected.

"God approaches our minds by receding from them. We can never fully know Him if we think of Him as an object of capture, to be fenced in by the enclosure of our own ideas. We know Him better after our minds have let Him go. 


The Lord travels in all directions at once. The Lord arrives from all directions at once. Wherever we are, we find that He has just departed. Wherever we go, we discover that He has just arrived before us.


Our rest can be neither in the beginning of this pursuit, nor in the pursuit itself, nor in its apparent end. For the true end, which is Heaven, is an end without end. It is a totally new dimension, in which we come to rest in the secret that He must arrive at the moment of His departure; His arrival is at every moment and His departure is not fixed in time." 


-Thomas Merton No Man is an Island

Peace of Christ,