Sisters of Saint Joseph - River of fire: my spiritual journey

What its always been about for me is the spiritual energy, the power that flows through us, lights us up, and enlivens whatever we touch. For me, that energy has always been connected to God. Call it Mystery. Call it Grace. Call it the luminous center we touch sometimes and dont know what to call it, but we know that being in its presence fills us with confidence and peace.

I learned as a child that I was created to love God with my whole heart and mind and soul and to love my neighbor as myself, and Jesus, Gods Son, would show me how to do it. And the goal of it all: to make it through this life so I could be happy with God forever in heaven. Getting to heaven was really, really big. Catholics call it the Beatific Vision. Seeing God face-to-face.

Wouldnt it be wonderful to love God so much that I wouldnt be selfish ever again, or obsess about myself and what I need and what I want and what I feel? Wouldnt it be drop-dead wonderful (a requirement, actuallythe dropping dead) to be so free of ego? Just imagine being so on fire with love for God that I could be a martyr and sing and make jokes even while they were torturing me. Like St. Lawrence on the gridiron being roasted to death and quipping to his executioners: I think Im done on this side. Time to turn me over.

Thats what I call spiritual power.

At the age of eighteen I chucked every worldly pleasure I knew to pursue it. I entered the convent to become a nun.

Needless to say, convent life in the late 1950s was a very different kind of world. How different? Maybe this description of our life back then can help ease you in:

A young woman entering a Roman Catholic religious congregation expected that most things would remain the same for the rest of her life. Once she chose a nuns vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience she would have very few decisions to makeever againabout her lifestyle and work. Upon arising each morning she would put on a long and flowing black, brown, or white dress and the medieval-style head wrap and veil that the members of her order had donned for generations. She would eat meals in silence, with the sisters seated in order of rank. Standardized prayers would be recited at the convent at specific times throughout the day. She would be assigned work as a nurse or a teacher in a Catholic hospital or school, but other activities outside the convent, including family visits, would be rare and highly regulated. Contact with lay persons would be restricted to workplaces and medical visits. Superiors could open and review the letters she received and wrote. The sister would be required to ask her superior, in ritualized fashion, for permission to use objects such as soap, stationery, and thread. Exclusive (particular) friendships with other sisters would be discouraged for fear that they would undermine community harmony.