Farewell

This will be my last post. I’m not planning on deleting this blog until I have to, but it won’t be updated anymore. I enter the Franciscan Sisters, T.O.R. of Penance of the Sorrowful Mother on Tuesday May 31st. If you want to follow me further check out their facebook page, website, or blog.

To those I love and those who love me,

Thank you. Thank you for walking with me on this journey we call life, for many years or just one, however long it’s been I am still so grateful for you. Thank you for sharing your life with me. Thank you for giving me a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold, a reason to smile or laugh until my stomach hurts. Thank you for teaching me new things. Thank you for encouraging me. Thank you for praying for me and with me. Thank you for pushing me to be better. Thank you for showing me what it looks like to be a good friend, a spiritual or physical mother or father, a holy priest, an authentic Christian, an authentic human being. Thank you for being yourself and for sharing your heart with me. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to know you and to love you.

Thank you also for loving me. For taking the time to get to know me. For allowing me to be myself. For dealing with my sarcasm. For accepting my introverted moments. Thank you for seeing my weaknesses and not walking away but embracing them as part of who I am. Thank you for giving me a glimpse of the Father’s unconditional awe-inspiring love.

Over the past weekend I spent the majority of my time saying goodbye. And in reflecting on those moments, I’ve realized just how loved I really am. Sometimes it’s hard for us to accept the love people give us. It’s much easier to love and give, at least for me, than to acknowledge the fact that others really and truly care about me. In the same way we often struggle to accept the Father’s love for us. But it’s there, just like your love for me and my love for you, you just have to become aware of it.

I’m sorry that my choice to leave everything behind and follow Christ means that you also have to suffer and sacrifice. One of the hardest parts of this decision is that fact that my decision impacts so many people. But a wise priest told me something today that I hope you’ll really consider. I might not be able to gift you with my presence all the time anymore, but this choice I’m making is to point you to something deeper. The love you have experienced in being my friend or my coworker or my cousin or my aunt or sister or brother is only a glimpse of the love of God. And His love, real, true, pure, authentic, love is all transforming. It is all consuming. I’m not saying I won’t still love you, because I will, but I’m saying this choice is meant to help you recognize the Lord.

Search for Him. Look for Him and you will find Him. And when you find Him your life will be filled with so much joy and love and peace. Yes there will be suffering and sacrifice, I am living proof of that, but in that suffering you will find joy. I promise you, friends, life in Christ is worth it. It is the only thing that will satisfy your heart.

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you.” St. John Paul II

I love you all so very much. My heart hurts so much. But I know it all will be worth it. I know that the Lord will take care of you all, whether you believe in Him or not. You will be in my prayers.

For my Catholic readers, I will meet you in the Eucharist.

For my non-Catholic readers, I pray we will meet again in Heaven if we don’t see each other before.

I love you all and please don’t forget that God loves you more.

I wish you the very best.

Erin

 

 

Rejoice in suffering

Lately, the number one question I get asked from friends and family or just about anyone who is talking to me about the fact that I’m entering the convent in 15 days is “How’re you feeling?” or “Are you excited?” Most of the time when people are asking this all they really want to hear is yes, I am excited. They aren’t looking for much more. I am excited, but my answer is a little more complicated than that.

In society today, we tend to glance over the tough stuff, the nitty gritty. We don’t do things we don’t want to. There is no standard for sticking to commitments, if something better comes along we do that. If someone is suffering, we want their suffering to end as quickly and easily as possible. If we can prevent people from suffering at all we think that is best. But here’s the thing, there is a purpose to suffering.

In St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians he says, “I rejoice in my suffering for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church.” (1:24) He’s basically saying that our suffering adds to Christ’s suffering. It allows us to unite ourselves with the sacrifice that Christ made and work alongside Christ in the act of redemption of souls. The catechism says, “Because in [Jesus’] incarnate divine person he has in some way united himself to every man, “the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery” is offered to all men.” (618)  My point is that we shouldn’t just disregard suffering or run away from it or think that it is worthless because it has a purpose. It not only draws us closer to God but it can help to bring others closer to Him as well.

I don’t want you to think that what I’m saying is that all I’m going to be doing when I enter the convent is suffering either, because that’s not the point of this post. The point is that with joy you also get suffering. While I surely am excited for my future, I am also currently experiencing a lot of pain in having to say goodbye to so many people I love. I know that it is all in God’s plan. I trust that it will bring good. I look forward to getting to know my community better, to the prayer and routine of daily life, to learning more about the history of the church and franciscans, and to everything else that I’ll experience.

To get to the point where I’ll be doing all of these things, I first have to say goodbye. And goodbyes hurt. Leaving behind people I love dearly is going to be really difficult. I’m starting to enter into the reality of this choice. When Jesus’ calls He doesn’t just ask us to follow Him, He asks us to pick up our cross, to leave everything behind, and then follow Him.

It’s time for me to pick up my cross, which right now is the pain of goodbyes, and continue following Him. I’m trying to learn how to rejoice in my suffering because there is a purpose and in it I can grow closer to the Lord. So, to answer the question that everyone is asking me, yes I am excited, but there is much more going on than just that. And to understand the full picture is to better understand what it truly means to follow Christ. It’s not going to be all rainbows and butterflies. It’s not going to be easy all the time, but I can promise you that it’s worth the struggle.

Losing my life

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life with lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” Matthew 17:24-26

I know that I’ve written about this passage before, but it’s still super relevant. I’m leaving for the convent in 19 days. By choosing to follow Christ in this specific way I am denying myself. I won’t be able to talk to my friends or family whenever I want to anymore. I’ll only be drinking water. I won’t choose what I’m going to eat for dinner because another sister will be in charge of the kitchen. I won’t even get to choose what I do on a daily basis. I will live according to a specific schedule of prayer and work according to what is assigned to me. I will fast two days a week from food except for bread and from talking. I won’t have access to social media or the television. In many ways you could say that I am losing my life. I am giving up all of the things that I’ve ever known, the only way of living I’ve experienced.

It may seem really drastic and unnecessary. But there is a purpose. I’m giving up my life to point to a deeper reality, that this life isn’t about stuff. It’s not about us. It’s about the next life, Heaven. “In the Church, which is like the sacrament – the sign and instrument – of God’s own life, the consecrated life is seen as a special sign of the mystery of redemption.” CCC 932

Why do I care so much about this you might ask, so much that I’m willing to pretty much give up any kind of life that the world says is desirable or going to make me happy? Because I am crazy in love with Jesus and when you’re in love you do crazy things. My heart’s desire is to bring other people to know Jesus. Then they will know love itself, mercy, they will know truth, they will know the way, they will have life. Not just any life, not the life that the world says will satisfy, but real life, life in abundance. They will have peace. And if I can bring that to just one person by making this choice to give up everything then it will have been worth it. If I can bring just one person into a closer relationship with Christ, if I can point someone to the deeper truth that this life is about more than just the here and now, it will have been worth it all.

All I want is to do the will of the Father, to love Him, and to love His, and to help others to come to know Him because once you meet Him, really meet Him, your life will never be dull again, it will be extraordinary. As St. John Paul II said, “Discovering Christ, always again and always more fully, is the most wonderful adventure of our life.”

To my Old Navy family

I thought it might be nice to continue this letter writing blog post thing I started. So you guys are up.

Dear shipment team, morning logistics people, leaders, and fellow coworkers,

I started at Old Navy last year after dreading this next year of working retail. I did not want to be there at all. I especially was not interested in getting to know anyone or investing. I went in for my shifts counting down the seconds until it was time to go home. And then something changed. I realized that there was a reason I was supposed to spend my year in this place and that if I kept moping around I wasn’t going to figure it out. So I started trying to change my perspective. I am so very grateful that I did because it meant that I got to really appreciate all of you and everything about working in the morning.

One of the best parts about working before the store opens is that we have so much time to hang out and get to know one another. I will never be able to express how blessed I feel to have been able to get to know each and every one of you. Thank you for sharing with me the basics about your lives, like where you’re going to school or what you’re majoring in. Thank you so much for going deeper than that though and for sharing your hearts. It has been amazing to be able to walk the journey of this last year with so many of you, through the ups and the downs.

Thank you for the support you gave me when my Grandma passed away. Thank you for being the smiling faces that motivated me to get out of bed in the morning when I didn’t want to do anything. Thank you for not just sharing your lives with me but for loving me, even if we didn’t use those words. Thank you for putting up with my shenanigans, especially when I would scream about the sunrise or yell at you to keep moving. Thank you also for putting up with me when I was less than encouraging or positive and for talking me down from having a break down more often than I’d like to admit.

Thank you for becoming more than coworkers. Thank you for being my friends. I will never be able to express how much it has meant to work with you all every day. Just this first day of being home while all of you were at the store reminded me just how much this transition is going to be hard. But it’s time for me to move on, good things have to end so better can come. And I know all of you have amazing things in store for you! I love you and will be praying for you as I continue my journey.

Love and blessings,

Erin AKA Grandma

To my CRHP sisters

As I’m starting to say my goodbyes I wanted to write a letter to some ladies who’ve had a significant impact on my life in the last couple years.

Dearest Sisters,

It has been an amazing journey. We started out as mere strangers all signing up for a weekend retreat, some of our own will and others because we were coerced or convinced. Some of us entered the weekend totally open while others were totally closed off. By the end of the weekend we were changed. We had encountered something and someone worth going deeper into. We spent a year together sharing and getting to know more about each other and our faith. We found Jesus and His church through this community. We became sisters. And then we shared our encounter, the love that Jesus has for each of us, with a new group of women. We didn’t stop there, though. We continued to journey on together, to pray for one another, to laugh, and to grow. It has truly been an amazing journey.

I have had my own ups and downs throughout the last two years of knowing all of you. No matter what though, you all were there, praying for me, and offering any type of support that I needed. I am incredibly blessed to have all of you in my life.

Thank you. Thank you for being yourselves, for being vulnerable, and for sharing your lives and struggles. Thank you for showing me what it really looks like to be a woman after the heart of the Lord, as mothers and wives in all different circumstances of life. Thank you for being my surrogate Grandmothers, Mothers, and sisters. Thank you for loving me unconditionally, through all the waves of this CRHP journey and the waves of life.

As I move on to the next stage of my life, I am so grateful to have known all of you and to have you praying for me and continuing to support me, if only from a distance. Know that you and your intentions will always be in my prayers. Meet you in the Eucharist.

With all my love, your dear sister,

Erin