Living in the Desert

I'm not sure why, but I'm a little surprised by the spiritual dryness that I have been going through while I've been home. The thing is I know that part of it is my fault. I'm not putting the time into prayer like I should. I don't take time to foster an interior silence. When I'm alone in my room the music is on. When I'm driving to work the radio is blaring and at work I don my headset and listen to people talk for 8 hours.
The Carmelite Sisters in Covington said that they felt the Lord calling me "to be your own superior for a while, finding the will to be faithful to prayer in myself (=in Christ of course!) before you find yourself under obedience." This came from a conversation we had while I was visiting them in March. When I didn't feel like I was doing enough for God since I was getting Morning and Evening prayer in some days. Now I find myself struggling to meet the basic 10 minutes a day. I can't make it to mass and get enough sleep and the books written by saints which were once my comfort I now only stare at longingly, but picking them up even to thumb through a few pages is like pushing against a brick wall and often when I pick them up the prayer continues to be dry and empty.
This doesn't mean I don't think I'm called to the religious life. I know that this is just spiritual dryness at it's finest but I feel like I'm not doing enough to take care of it. I'm not sticking to my guns. I'm not giving Him enough time. I feel like I'm my own worse enemy.
Looking back on what I'm saying I can tell that it's time for me to brush up on my Ignatius rules of discernment. Paying close attentions to rule 6-9 which focus on surviving desolation. And thank God for rule 10 which gave me the preparation and strength I needed knowing that I would be entering desolation a long desolation before my entry into the religious life.
At this point it's a matter of saying. I can do this. I'm supposed to do this and my God and my Love is very real and very active. Even now. Especially now.

http://www.cfpeople.org/Books/Exercise/EXERCISEp15.htm

An interesting day

So today I received a call today from one of those "Hello Ms. Stockton we want to help you pay off your debt" agencies. Based on my current situation I thought it might be a good idea to listen to them and see what they had to offer. So after about a 10 minute conversation the woman decided that I didn't qualify for their assistance since the payments I was making were too large. Think about it. I started fundraising, working and saving to pay off my loans in June pretty much, and I've paid of 9000 that's 3000 a month. She told me she could make the loans go away in 3 years. I laughed. "Honey, I need this take care of by August. If you can help with that I'm interested. Other wise I think this is a good place to part ways." That was the point she decided that I wasn't just throwing numbers at her and she needed to move on to her next call. I was a little disappointed. I was hoping she would be able to offer some kind of assistance, but I guess I'm not worth the measly amount of interest that they could get by August.

My mom and I went shopping with some of the ladies from the church and I did well until I was left to my own devices. Which brought me to the shoe store. I needed a pair of shoes. The ones on my feet were quite literally falling apart...



... Case point... However what I ended up replacing them with was not exactly in the financially scruple department. (to make excuses for myself I've been saving that money from my allotted eat out money) Don't get me wrong I'm really happy with the purchase.



It just leaves one question... Can sisters wear converse?

End of the month joy!

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The Raffle was a a huge success thanks to all of those who sold tickets, purchased or slipped a few extra dollars in to pot on their way out of mass. The loving support of the members of Our Lady of Victory is more than I could have ever wished for. I added the $2,292 and another $2000 of my own.

The girls who were accepted to enter this year all convened at the mother house a week ago on the 22nd. Which means that God willing it's less than a year until I will be joining the sisters in Connecticut. I could actually start counting days and not have to tack that tacky "one year and" before. In the mean time though life is moving on quite wonderfully.

Fr. John, my parents and I gave a vocation's panel to the youth this past Wednesday and it went very well. We each had a short amount of time to explain a little bit about our journey's none of the kids fell asleep which I'm going to take as a sign that it wasn't horrible. From my point of view it was really good. Being able to share my story helps me to pull out what's important and assures me of why I'm doing this. It also makes the discernment more real. As I tell people I realize that this isn't just a mental musing in the chapel anymore. I've really applied and been accepted. Listening to my parents share their journey was also touching. The beauty of a faithful and caste marriage is something that can't be dwarfed by media and a world with no respect for the word. I'm certain that I won't be able to strive in the vocation of the religious life without a good respect and understanding for the married life.
I have to give Fr. John credit. He's got flair. He was the last to go and he managed to keep the kids attention while giving an informative speech about vocations and discernment and explaining his own journey. It was reassuring to hear him repeat a lot of the same things as me. (He had to come late and missed my talk. busy being a pastor and all). So I'm willing to say that the night was a personal success and I have to thank Fr. John and Fr. Chris they were both extremely helpful if not essential to the making of that evening.

Raffle

The week stay at a condo at Maravilla Beach is well on it's way. Next week is the drawing. After the 10:30 mass will be the drawing so if you want tickets stop by Our Lady of Victory office or purchase them before and after the 5:00pm vigil, 8:30 mass and before the the 10:30 mass. Thank you for everyone's generous support, love and prayers.

And as some of you may know I spoke at all of the masses this weekend, so also thank you to anyone who gave constructive criticism to help me improve from mass to mass and for those of you who prayed for God to ease my nerves. This has been a weekend full of graces and thanks. Thank you all.

In passing

These are just a few quotes I ran across while since I last wrote.
"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams." ~Dr. Seuss

Paraphrased from a priest on the young adults retreat- There are two reasons why we do something. We do it either out of fear or out of love. When we do something out of fear it won't last, but when we do something out of love suddenly we have the strength to do anything. Strength even to stay awake with Jesus in the Garden. (Some thing beautifully said and then horribly butchered)

"When we write from the center... when we write about what matters to us most, words will take us places we don't want to go. You begin to see that you will have to say things you don't want to say, that may even be dangerous to say, but are absolutely necessary." Kathleen Norris Amazing Grace. It was quoted in a different book I was reading.

Just little snippets that I though you might enjoy. I certainly did.

PS. Pray for me. I'm going to speaking at all of the masses this weekend.

Clarifying the monies

Some of you may be wondering why there's a difference between my payment tracker on my website and the one a couple of posts earlier on my Blog. As I explained I that was what I had in donations and what I had gained from working the one on my website is the money that has gone to my loans or has been set aside specifically for my first year. Which is included in the 20,000 dollars and why my loans are at 18,000 but I have an additional 2,000 within my goal. Th reason I'm not setting anything into a don't touch fund yet is because I've got a long year ahead of me and I know I need to have a certain amount set aside in case of an emergency in this up coming year.

Future and Fortune

So much has been going on since I last posted a week ago. I’ve paid off one of my loans in its entirety, and I put another $1000 down on another loan paying off the interest and a little bit of principal. I finally posted my web site. I’m trying to link these together. I want this to be where people can go and get updates while the website remains an in depth profile. The church has agreed to give me 700 dollars a month until December and the Knights of Columbus are raffling off a week vacation at a beach condo any time during the months of September and October, and the Youth will be doing a little bit of fundraising for me at the parish picnic. I can’t tell you how much the support of my home parish touches me. Thank you all.

Earlier this week I wrote the sister’s letting them know that I would not be able to pay off all of my loans in time to enter this August. Giving both me and the sister’s the freedom to move forward and make plans for the future. Deciding on if I should email them then or wait until they contacted me at the end of the month was where I was last week when I made those first few posts. My heart was definitely dragging. I knew that I wasn’t going to be entering this August and it hurt so much that it was affecting everything. Even the way I viewed myself, no doubt a casualty of this type of discernment. (The Devil is always looking for an opening.) But as I moved through the motions I began to realize how necessary this break between college and the convent was, the amount of spiritual growth that was going to happen.

I must say I love how God works. I’ve been shuffling my feet worried that I was giving up to soon, worried that I wasn’t holding up my end of the bargain, scared that maybe I hadn’t done enough to raise the money necessary. Then I sitting down for dinner at a Chinese restaurant and the fortune cookies were handed out. Do you like where I’m going with this? I open mine and laughed. “:-) It is not in your character to give up :-)” You would have laughed too.

Things are still really busy around here, but I’m making it a point to update at least once a week. Let everyone know what’s going on in my life. No promise though I already put in the disclaimer that I’m horrible at keeping up with these and a year is a really long time.

For now…Peace Friend