It was as insistent, sometimes, as a telephone ringing. A persistent “come…come…come..” that I couldn’t quite ignore. Walking by the stairs leading up to my school’s chapel, I would often feel that pull.
I was a student in a Catholic girls’ academy taught by semi-cloistered nuns. I found, there, just enough quiet to allow the Lord’s gentle “voice” to make its way through. …Come to the chapel…. Come make a visit to Me…. give Me a few minutes of your time… These were not words, but a gentle sense of invitation. I never heard a “voice,” only the secret nudging that seemed (always) to be there.
Sometimes I wondered where this call could be leading. Everyone I’d known who’d mentioned having “a call” was either in a convent or serving as a priest. That didn’t seem to fit with what I envisioned for my life. Marriage, children, perhaps a career in the arts … these were my dreams. Were they God’s dreams for me? I don't remember stopping to ask. One day I WAS stopped, however, and told about another kind of dream …
My Speech teacher pulled me aside after class. Smiling (knowingly?), she said: “I had a little dream about you last night. I dreamed you joined our order here.”
Many years later, Sister and I talked about that day. She remarked: “Nancy, I find it interesting that I didn’t say I dreamed you became a nun. I said I dreamed you joined our order.” I had never entered a convent. I’d married and had children. Yet, as Sister said these words, I knew she was recognizing my specific answer to God’s call. Mine was a vocation to marriage and motherhood. Intertwined with that was (and is) my life as a cloistered heart.
Mine is the call of every Christian. To give my life to Christ, minute by minute. To keep making the choice, circumstance by circumstance, to live as He wants. To find ways to be with Him, even in the midst of a busy life.
…Come… visit Me…. Come… give your life to Me…. Come…spend a few minutes with Me….
May He give us the grace to answer His call.
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