 |
Rose |
Rose: In 1958,
after leaving school, I felt God calling me to become a cloistered Sister. I had felt his
call for a long time but had resisted, because I couldn’t understand how God could
call someone like me to such a holy kind of life.
There were many choices available to me for religious life
but I felt I wanted to give God my all, so I chose to become a cloistered Nun where I
could speak to the heart of God and meet everyone in God’s heart.
I lived very happily in the Convent for sixteen years.
However, at the end of that time, I began to struggle with a deeper call to share the
fruit of my contemplation and to witness to people that a life of prayer is possible for
the ordinary person.
So, I prayed and discussed my feelings with my Spiritual
Director and prayed some more. The Lord confirmed my feelings and promised me that when I
made the step back out into the world, He would send me someone with whom I would share my
life and to help me do His work. When Rhonda came into my life, I knew this was the person
He had sent.
It was not easy for me to leave the walls of Rosary
Convent. I know that if I had to live my life over, I would make the same choice, because
to this day, I still draw from the life of prayer I lived in the Convent.
I had to get the permission of my Bishop to take that step.
He advised me that since it was such a big decision, I should take one year trying to live
out what I thought was God’s plan before I made my final decision. It was a very
difficult year for me, adjusting once again to the outside world. Simply having to wear
normal clothes again and not the full habit of my Order was traumatic. The first time I
put on a dress I felt almost naked and thought I would get pneumonia as the wind was
blowing right through me. I cried almost every day but God helped me and I thank Him for
the beautiful people He put into my life to support me through that time.
Rhonda and I began our lives together, with a two week
prayer retreat in Mayaro, listening to God’s voice. Then we began our first Wednesday
night prayer meeting in January 1976. We made a promise to the Lord then that we would
hold a prayer meeting every Wednesday night, no matter what else was going on. We also
began ministering in a small way to the poor people who lived on the streets, taking soup
and sandwiches to them at night.
________________________
|
