Due to the Coordinator's husband having back surgery on Monday, January 26, the blogs will not be updated until mid-February.
Blessings,
Gemma
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Vocations Awareness Week
January 12-17 is Vocations Awareness Week. Only Divine Providence could arrange the entrance of a long-time Cloister Outreach discerner into her new-found home in her native land during this week.
HM came to us just after we published our website in 2002. She was a member of the "Tiber Swim Team," I forget the precise year. She had tried her vocation in an Anglican order before she 'swam the Tiber,' and still felt she had a calling as a Catholic. My first impression was Benedictine, but she said she absolutely did not feel called to that, and was pulled to Carmel.
Footnote for another post at another time--converts are often pulled to Carmel 'right off the bat.'
She had looked at our proposed Cloisterites, and was even counted among the aspirants for a time. However, when we tried to arrange flights for her to the U.S., we both started feeling like lead balloons were around our necks. I told her that that was a sign in and of itself, and to discern further.
The spiritual state of her nation--the U.K.--had always distressed her, and she was feeling led to become a victim soul for the country, which is also known as Mary's Dowry. My Salesian training came out, and I told her not to go looking for the cross, that it would find her. Then she said that if she was going to pray for her country, she needed to be IN her country. That helped focus the discernment greatly. She was also a member of our Cloister Outreach Vocations Incubator (COVI) yahoo group, and had the prayerful support of others in her situation.
How she came upon the monastery she entered is beyond me. I know she spent a lot of time on the internet with her searching. A lot of the links we have on the Cloister Outreach website's "International Cloisters" page for the U.K. are a result of her research. (Thanks, HM)!
She told me that when she did find the website, she felt like she didn't need to search any further. She shared with us on COVI that she felt like running through the monastery when she finally arrived. I wrote back and told her I could imagine her doing that with her arms extended in front of her. She responded that that was exactly what she had wanted to do!
So, now, after years of discernment, she seems to have finally arrived where God wants her. The monastery is down to three nuns, but there has been renewed interest in their balanced way of life, so there is always hope.
http://cloisters.tripod.com/uk_osb_oulton/
Blessings,
Gemma
HM came to us just after we published our website in 2002. She was a member of the "Tiber Swim Team," I forget the precise year. She had tried her vocation in an Anglican order before she 'swam the Tiber,' and still felt she had a calling as a Catholic. My first impression was Benedictine, but she said she absolutely did not feel called to that, and was pulled to Carmel.
Footnote for another post at another time--converts are often pulled to Carmel 'right off the bat.'
She had looked at our proposed Cloisterites, and was even counted among the aspirants for a time. However, when we tried to arrange flights for her to the U.S., we both started feeling like lead balloons were around our necks. I told her that that was a sign in and of itself, and to discern further.
The spiritual state of her nation--the U.K.--had always distressed her, and she was feeling led to become a victim soul for the country, which is also known as Mary's Dowry. My Salesian training came out, and I told her not to go looking for the cross, that it would find her. Then she said that if she was going to pray for her country, she needed to be IN her country. That helped focus the discernment greatly. She was also a member of our Cloister Outreach Vocations Incubator (COVI) yahoo group, and had the prayerful support of others in her situation.
How she came upon the monastery she entered is beyond me. I know she spent a lot of time on the internet with her searching. A lot of the links we have on the Cloister Outreach website's "International Cloisters" page for the U.K. are a result of her research. (Thanks, HM)!
She told me that when she did find the website, she felt like she didn't need to search any further. She shared with us on COVI that she felt like running through the monastery when she finally arrived. I wrote back and told her I could imagine her doing that with her arms extended in front of her. She responded that that was exactly what she had wanted to do!
So, now, after years of discernment, she seems to have finally arrived where God wants her. The monastery is down to three nuns, but there has been renewed interest in their balanced way of life, so there is always hope.
http://cloisters.tripod.com/uk_osb_oulton/
Blessings,
Gemma
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Some Topics Which Have Been Discussed Lately
By the title, I'm talking mostly about our yahoo groups. I have had some email interactions with discerners, also.
Delayed vocations--still at the top of the list. The only "advice" we ever offer is to get oneself a spiritual director; frequent the Sacraments; adoration; and making novenas for vocational assistance. Also, start listening to oneself. I've been really struggling with some older women who say that a convent has to have this, that, and the other thing before they'll consider it. To that I say, get quiet, get to listening. The Holy Ghost may not be leading one in that direction. He works on attraction, and grace builds on nature. Don't tell God what to do.
The stickiest of subjects has also arisen--Same-Sex Attraction (SSA). From my own personal experience with the subject, I feel that I can share some insights into this frame of mind.
First and foremost, do not go declaring oneself as having same-sex attraction if it has not led one to actual physical interaction with the same sex.
In this day and age where we have a great lack of spiritual directors--and not hearing about such things as "temptation" from the pulpit anymore (or so it seems)--those who are suffering from temptations toward the same sex seem to think themselves doomed to such a lifestyle.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Get a Green Scapular and a St. Benedict medal (such a medal being part of a rosary is greatly preferred), and get to praying. Go to Confession, tell the confessor that you're being tempted, and that you need the grace to get over it.
Another aspect of same-sex attraction: 99.9 percent of the time it happens to those who have been sexually abused--usually during childhood. This is why, in our membership requirements for our Cloisterite Hermits, we ban "homosexuals," and ask them to write their autobiography.
When I was dealing with SSA, I knew that what I was feeling was wrong. So, what did I do? I PRAYED!!! I asked the Holy Ghost to let me know why I was experiencing SSA, and one of the first things He pointed out to me was that it was a form of self-comfort. Secondly, it was acting out what was performed--children perform that which they are taught, do they not? Thirdly, Satan was exploiting the situation and was trying to make me sin. The Bible taught that it was a sin; the Church teaches it's a sin; and my father's name would be made rubbish if I acted on these tempations. I simply could not do that to my dad.
I told my spiritual director that I was having flashbacks (and I was), and he said, "Get help now!"
To this day, I am grateful I never acted on SSA. I refused to follow the path that my perp put me on. He wanted me to be hurt, but I refused to let him hurt me anymore. When psychologists tell those with SSA that it's okay to act on their temptations, they are perps themselves--they are not healers. Being totally cured of SSA means having meaninful relationships with the opposite sex--and I don't necessarily mean marriage, either.
And please pardon the next paragraph--it is quite blunt.
SSA came up again when my son and I were in the grocery the other day, and a notoriously SSA fellow student was there at the same time. I could tell by the way he walked that he had been sodomized. Once we were in the car, I had to give my son a checklist of things to be wary of when it came to SSAs making more of their own: Rape; fondling the front; or grabbing the rear. My son was reeling. I told him, "If you're feeling sick, how do you think God feels?"
I will always believe that anyone who encourages the SSA lifestyle is a perpetrator. We have no idea how the SSA person got that way, but we have a responsibility to help them recover their memories and put their perps behind bars (or liberate them from their memories). When I revisited the house in my hometown where the abuse happened, I heard within my soul, "I AM A HURT CHILD." I related this to my mom, and she contacted the perp's daughter (who disowned him legally, I might add). Upon her investigation, I was correct. He had been horribly abused as a child, and perpetuated not only undifferentiated pedophilia (boys and girls both), but adultery, as well.
We were put on this Earth to do a job that only we can do. We were born with the sex that we're supposed to be. Anything else is falsehood. Because of the abuse that I suffered, I wanted a sex change at one time. I read a magazine article a few years ago about transgender teens. Good God, my heart bled for them.
Just because perps do it to the victim does not mean that the victim has to follow that way of life. Period. I say take back your life from the one who stole it from you.
So, in a roundabout way, I am saying that those persons who are discerning a vocation, but also have experienced SSA, or are currently under such demonic assault, need to get their Sacraments and sacramentals in line. Humbling oneself before God, and presenting the injured inner child to Jesus for healing also works. That's what I did. (My psychologist was Jewish, too, so that went over like a lead balloon in session).
After one has reconciled their memories, then they should continue their discernment into religious life. Any convent (or path to eremitism under c.603) will require a psychological evaluation, so go ahead and do it now.
Blessings,
Gemma
Delayed vocations--still at the top of the list. The only "advice" we ever offer is to get oneself a spiritual director; frequent the Sacraments; adoration; and making novenas for vocational assistance. Also, start listening to oneself. I've been really struggling with some older women who say that a convent has to have this, that, and the other thing before they'll consider it. To that I say, get quiet, get to listening. The Holy Ghost may not be leading one in that direction. He works on attraction, and grace builds on nature. Don't tell God what to do.
The stickiest of subjects has also arisen--Same-Sex Attraction (SSA). From my own personal experience with the subject, I feel that I can share some insights into this frame of mind.
First and foremost, do not go declaring oneself as having same-sex attraction if it has not led one to actual physical interaction with the same sex.
In this day and age where we have a great lack of spiritual directors--and not hearing about such things as "temptation" from the pulpit anymore (or so it seems)--those who are suffering from temptations toward the same sex seem to think themselves doomed to such a lifestyle.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Get a Green Scapular and a St. Benedict medal (such a medal being part of a rosary is greatly preferred), and get to praying. Go to Confession, tell the confessor that you're being tempted, and that you need the grace to get over it.
Another aspect of same-sex attraction: 99.9 percent of the time it happens to those who have been sexually abused--usually during childhood. This is why, in our membership requirements for our Cloisterite Hermits, we ban "homosexuals," and ask them to write their autobiography.
When I was dealing with SSA, I knew that what I was feeling was wrong. So, what did I do? I PRAYED!!! I asked the Holy Ghost to let me know why I was experiencing SSA, and one of the first things He pointed out to me was that it was a form of self-comfort. Secondly, it was acting out what was performed--children perform that which they are taught, do they not? Thirdly, Satan was exploiting the situation and was trying to make me sin. The Bible taught that it was a sin; the Church teaches it's a sin; and my father's name would be made rubbish if I acted on these tempations. I simply could not do that to my dad.
I told my spiritual director that I was having flashbacks (and I was), and he said, "Get help now!"
To this day, I am grateful I never acted on SSA. I refused to follow the path that my perp put me on. He wanted me to be hurt, but I refused to let him hurt me anymore. When psychologists tell those with SSA that it's okay to act on their temptations, they are perps themselves--they are not healers. Being totally cured of SSA means having meaninful relationships with the opposite sex--and I don't necessarily mean marriage, either.
And please pardon the next paragraph--it is quite blunt.
SSA came up again when my son and I were in the grocery the other day, and a notoriously SSA fellow student was there at the same time. I could tell by the way he walked that he had been sodomized. Once we were in the car, I had to give my son a checklist of things to be wary of when it came to SSAs making more of their own: Rape; fondling the front; or grabbing the rear. My son was reeling. I told him, "If you're feeling sick, how do you think God feels?"
I will always believe that anyone who encourages the SSA lifestyle is a perpetrator. We have no idea how the SSA person got that way, but we have a responsibility to help them recover their memories and put their perps behind bars (or liberate them from their memories). When I revisited the house in my hometown where the abuse happened, I heard within my soul, "I AM A HURT CHILD." I related this to my mom, and she contacted the perp's daughter (who disowned him legally, I might add). Upon her investigation, I was correct. He had been horribly abused as a child, and perpetuated not only undifferentiated pedophilia (boys and girls both), but adultery, as well.
We were put on this Earth to do a job that only we can do. We were born with the sex that we're supposed to be. Anything else is falsehood. Because of the abuse that I suffered, I wanted a sex change at one time. I read a magazine article a few years ago about transgender teens. Good God, my heart bled for them.
Just because perps do it to the victim does not mean that the victim has to follow that way of life. Period. I say take back your life from the one who stole it from you.
So, in a roundabout way, I am saying that those persons who are discerning a vocation, but also have experienced SSA, or are currently under such demonic assault, need to get their Sacraments and sacramentals in line. Humbling oneself before God, and presenting the injured inner child to Jesus for healing also works. That's what I did. (My psychologist was Jewish, too, so that went over like a lead balloon in session).
After one has reconciled their memories, then they should continue their discernment into religious life. Any convent (or path to eremitism under c.603) will require a psychological evaluation, so go ahead and do it now.
Blessings,
Gemma
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