Sisters of Life experience

Silence on The Friday of the retreat:

Dear God,

Help me to find you love today I dont understand. I know that you are there but your love I dont. Show me your love. Help me to surrender to your Holy Will.

Im scared to tell you everything I think and feel. I know that you wont judge me being vulnerable to your love scares me. I would like to know what I want to do with my life and I like to have control over my life. I know I choose to do whats right or wrong. I need you as a guide. I need you as my light. I dont know how to surrender to your love. Help me to earse all expectations of my mind and help me to just be in your presence. Your presence is all I need. With my sins I turn away from your face. I dont want to turn from your love which I dont completely understand. I sit in the front I phys.. (all I wrote).

AFter Silence at the Bus statation:

I feel Christ moving within me. I dont completely understand it. I have this surge of energy within me. I feel I need to proclaim to the world that Christ loves them . The Lord was shown to me through the Sisters of Life. I saw such passion in their eyes to want to serve the Lord. For the past few years I have struggled with Gods unconditional love and mercy. This weekend something changed in me. Being in Adoration, going to mass with the sisters, and listening to them speak was the works of the Holy Spirit. Last night after the healing service I was so energized to know that God was their for me. Sister Mary Gabriel suggested I lay prostrate before the blessed sacrament. She suggested it to me before the retreat and I did it once before. But at that time I still had fear of what people might thing about me if I was laying in front of Jesus. This time after the healing service their was a fear but it was smaller than my wanting. So I layed prostrate in front of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not caring what anything/ or what anyone would say I surrendered. It wasnt like a big "O my goodness" JEsus love me moment but little tiring throught the weekend or these things are big with the Lord(doesnt make sense but this is what I wrote). I felt God's greace increase in me throughout the weekend. I have a passion and deeper passion to go before the blessed sacrament wherever it is. MAke a spiritual communion and increase my faith, trust and compassion for him. Because of my passion I am writing this at a pbus station right after I prayed the chaplet of the divine mercy with the book that Sister. G gave to me as a gift. THe Lord is Love. His GRACE IS ENOUGH!!!!

PLEASE LORD SPEED UP

Somedays I wished that Gods will sped up!! Like TODAY!. I love the SISTERS OF LIFE NO QUESTIONS THERE. Todays was one of those days that I had where I just wanted to be with JEsus!! I just want all my homework and school work to disappear. I was able to eat with my friends today which was great. This evening I was able to pray before the lord in our little chapel. For some reason I felt uneasy afterwards. ONly becasue I was trying to pick Gods will randomly. What I did was I put the two orders that I have visiting along with two blank pieces of paper. I put them on the altar, prayed for a bit and then I chose one of them. During my prayer time I also prayed the Rosary and I became very excited. I am excited and scared at the same time to do Gods will. THe funny thing is it never picked what I beleive in MY HEART IS GODS WILL. When I was visiting the Sisters of Life one of the girl discussed how many thing led her to join the Sisters. A lot of the things that I have experienced has fit what I feel CAlled to do. When I went to Visit the DAughters they help me learn to be open and honest with Christ. Thats one big lesson I will never Forget. Then I visiting the Sisters of ST. Benedict in Ferdinand Indiana I cleaned the Fatimas statues, including their sheep, and even though I was face to face talking with my vocation director I was REALLY Talking to MARY Who was watching us speak. The later I went to Visit the Benedictine Nuns and their I happen to clean their Fatima statues, and the sheep!! The later I visited the Salesians and they pray a lot to MARy. They prayed the Angelus, and the Rosary!! Then REcently I went to Visit the SIsters of Life and they ARE BIG ON MARY.. WE also played a Saints game. The zasaint that we had was the saint that picked us for the weekend. MY st was eliZABeth and on the Sisters of Life website they discuss Elizabeth~(quite tired Ill elaborate later). Everything seems to fit the Sisters of Life! I REALLY Do like the Sisters of Life because they are deep in prayer a lot of their day. I feeel called to do a lot of praying but just not 24 hrs. I have had a few sisters ask me if I was called to contemplative . I want to pray soo much and minister to people. I know some may say Im going soo fast but Im not entering tommorow. I applied to be part of the Lamp Ministry. They minister in NYC And help the disadvantaged find Christ. During my ministry I hope to start possibly applying for the SISTERS OF LIFE. I feeL God is calling me to this service so I can learn more about community life and about myself. I defintely will enjoy it and look forward to wearing the HABIT!! I think HABITS ARE COOL!!! I feel The SISTERS OF LIFE ARE THOSE PEOPLE! I KNow I need to wait patiently for the LORD!! Hopefully I can talk to SISTER G. about a possible silent retreat with them to unwind and to pray with Jesus FOR A WHILE!!! I know I will have my struggles but I willing to keep REPENTING AND FULLY RENOUNCE!!!!!!!!!!

Where does God want me to go?

Have you ever felt that Jesus was pulling you in many directions? Have you ever felt confused about your self and what inside your heart. Ever since the beginning of my junior I have been struggling with self gratification, and my sexuality. For a while I was really frustrating why I was attracted to woman and probably still I am but I havent really discussed that iwth anyone in a while except Christ. Becuse of my cofnusion with myself I was asked to go to counseling to have soeone basically help me to understand myself and to love myself. Well I started counseling at the beginning of the semester, I found a counselor on campus who I knew that was catholic and knew some of my friends. The first meeting it only took me a few mintues to become comfortable talking with her. At the first meeting I revealed a lot of my struggles with my sexuality, with me not loving myself becaue I sin and because I sinned I didnt think that Christ should love me. I told her I was also afraid to be vulnerable and give up everything to himm. The counseling was going well!1 One of the first activities she had me do was write all my negativity down on a ball to show myself how negative I was about myself. I also started an affirmation envelope which has quotes and varous of positive things in it. In therapy we also duscussed the attachment I had to one of my friends. Al ot of the time I talked about him and honestly wanted to be like him . I comapred myself a lot to him and I guess I thought I was attracted to him. During therapy my sexuality and self gratification was also brought up. as my therapy went on I started to decrease my self gratification and I told that to my counselor. She reacted with the response "Why". She went on to explain that was good way to embrace my sexuality was to "get to know myself". AS my therapy went on she also told me that I was hiding behind my faith. HOW AM I HIDING BEHIND it when Im going to my faith for answers and praying in front of JESUS for them. AFter that session I WAS ANNOYED. I was kind of glad she had two weeks off!!! In that two weeks the Sisters of Life were giving a weekend womans retreat. A while back I filled out a Vocation inquiry form to the sisters. Not to long after I recieved an emails saying they liked my responses and wanted to talk with me on the phone. Fora while we exchanged emails because of world youth day and school getting in the way. Fortuatnely a month before the retreat I had the coipportunity to talk with Sister Mary GAbriel the vocation director to the Sisters of Life. When I starting talking to her I immediately felt JESUS(which is crazy because I never knew JESUS Could use a phone). Anyways, I felt the need to be immediately open to her annd asked her about entering into the order with the feeligns of same sex attraction. I talked to her about my campus minister telling me about how to embrace my sexuality, and how the newman center is not very convervative and not very catholic at that. I told her I was not able to go to daily mass. She told me of a volunteer program in the city, the lamp ministries. She said they would be a good opportuhnity for me to be in the city, helping people, and learnign about myself in the process. After that little tidbit she shaid their was a womans retreat and she said that I should attend if I could get away from school. Fortuantely I found out I was able to attend the retreat. I would just miss a day of classes OH WELL!!!! :) Anways, the weekned of the fifteenth I arrived in Stanford Connecticut for the retreat. The first evening I started to get to know some of girls at a surface level. however we had silence next day. I was scared of silence because I still had doubts that God loved with all the sins of impurity. Throughtout the day being with JEsus was hard. All day I asked him questions and just talked. Fortunately later in the day at 4:40 I was able to speak with the vocation director Sister Mary Gabriel. Being an open person I told her I was frustrated about the day. i told her I was afraid to be vulnerable to Gods love and I didnt want to be in the place where he might deny me. She gave me advice to go in front of JEsus and open my heart up to him. She also mentioned to me I was like a television. MY mind is always running and its just not listening. She gave me encouragement and told me their was goign to be a healing mass in the evening and to pray hard to JESUS. After my meeting I felt at peace and I had courage in me that I could give it all to Jesus. We had evening prayer, and we could break the silence. At dinner I told someone it was my birthday. AFter that all the sisters sang happy birthday to me!! Quite cool!! After we had an hours so we played board games for a bit. Followed was a talk. The talk was powerful. But after the talk I was able to Confess my sins to my birthday present!!! I was able to see a Priest friend I have seen once before!!! I see Christ in him and he is a good confessor!!!! Then followed the healing service. When the healing mass happened it was powerful. I felt JESUS I SAW JESUS AND I LET JESUS IN!!!!! I didnt want to leave him because I knew it was safe in his arms. I felt rejuvenation with the feeling of love of JESUS CHIRST IN ME!!!! After the service I felt the Holy SPirit energized in me!!! Afterwards we had an opportunity for adoration all night. During the night with the suggestion of Sister G. I prostrated myself in front of JEsus was vulnerable. I NEED THAT and WANT ADORATION FOREVER. At times I go back and forth with what God wants me to do but I Know in MY HEART IT WILL BE THE SISTERS OF LIFE!! I just dont want to let of GO of the Daughters. But God has the Sisters of Life in store for me!! I honestly feel myself there!!!!

Following the Lord

I just want to follow the Lord. I want to live my life as a prayer. Sometimes is so hard to do that. Its difficult to balance your prayer life with your school work. Honestly I would rather go prayer and focus on the Lords will rather than school work Being active in the drama club in high school I thought thats what I wanted to do with my life. So, I applied to Oswego State and Genesee Community College. Well, I didnt get into oswego the first time but I was accepted to Genesee Community College. When I first arrived I was petrified because I didnt know anyone, nor did I know where anything was. Even though the school was very small, I didnt know where some of my classes were. Which makes me laugh because now I am at a school that is a zillion times bigger than GCC. Anyways, for the first few weeks I became acquainted with the theatre department. The first show that we partipated in was "The Importance of Being Earnest". Because I only participated in crew I only had to be there a week before the show. The first time I went to rehersal I met the director. The directors name was Steve Vaughn. O goodness I guess you could say I had a bit of a crush on his personality. For the first few rehersals I learned was I was supposed to be doing, which was move a wall for the first act and the second act.

Part 3 The Seed

After the trip I filled out a few cards and started to recieve mail from various religious orders.. Because my faith is very important to me, and becuase of my intersted in religious life I wanted to use Holy week as at time to reflect on the Lords will... (To be continued)...