*This is a talk I gave in March 2011. I am posting it because it is still how I feel and is still something I struggle with today. Lord, help me to by "Wholy."
This weekend, I went for a run... though I would rather like to call it a marathon. It wasn't a race with numbers to clip to yourself, there wasn't a winner with a trophy, and no one was keeping time to see if they broke a record. It was all the way in Indianapolis and part of the challenge was getting myself there... you see, I have never been to Indy and I was so scared to drive there all by myself, but as evidence shows... I did in fact make there and back in one piece.
You see... I was on a Nun Run (did she just say nun? Gasp!) Yes... I did say nun. I traveled around Indianapolis with five other young women spending time with five different religious communities, learning about their foundings, spiritualities, and most importantly... experiencing holiness in a variety of ways.
You may be wondering, why would Kara go on a nun run... is she like... gonna be a nun? Well, you and I are wondering the same thing and I don't have an answer for ya. I have been discerning religious life for a really like time now, since like freshman year of high school. When I used to hear the word vocation I thought it meant either married life, single life, or religious life and I would play eenie, meenie, minie, mo with God everyday... pleading with him for an answer. What was my vocation?
Then this summer, I learned about a universal vocation that we all have. I went on a pilgrimage to Europe and those two weeks traveling around France, Spain, and Portugal, visiting holy site after holy site could be a week long testimony in itself, so I will not share about everything, but I will share an afternoon with you. We were in Avila, Spain... Home of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus... a doctor of the church. We had spent the morning at the Carmelite Monastery there St. Theresa lived and I had a big moment there. I met the Mother Superior at that convent and just being there, visiting with her... I can't really describe it. Sorry. I will say that when I was in the monastery, there was such a sense of peace and when I was in the presence of Madre Carmen, overwhelming joy. This was a very holy place.
So, after being at the convent, I needed some time in prayer and reflection and found myself spending the afternoon with a new friend I had met from the pilgrimage. Max was a seminarian preparing to become a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal and he is the one who got me on this “holiness kick.” We were walking around Avila, talking and he asked me if I had considered religious life. I kind of lost my breath for a second and my heart was racing. How did he know? Do I have this “nunly ora” radiating from me with a big sign over my head that says “discerner, discerner.” I answered yes and then we sat down and talked about discernment. I told him everything... the first time I kind of felt the call was at my confirmation retreat and then all during high school, I kind of ignored it because I didn't want to deal with it. But then I got to college and I mean, there is a lot of future preparations going on. People are picking majors, planning careers, and all I can think about is what God is calling me to do with my life. What is my vocation?
I told Max that I went on this pilgrimage to find peace. If you look in my journal, I named it “A Pilgrimage for Peace.” I told him that I wanted to end this pilgrimage at peace with my vocation. I wanted to know if I was going to be a religious sister or not. He was quiet for a minute and I was thinking, oh gosh... I have said too much... dang it. Then he looked up and was like, Kara, I am going to share with you something my spiritual director shared with me during my discernment. Don't get so caught up in asking God if you are called to religious life. Instead, answer the universal call to holiness. We are all called to be holy, to be saints and it is from that holiness that we can figure the rest out. I just sat there for a minute. Holiness... what is holiness? How am I called to be holy?
Well, that was about 8 months ago and I am still working on it. I initially thought that being holy meant being religious. Fr. John is holy... he is a priest, celebrates mass everyday, prays the divine office... yep... that's holiness. I looked at Madre Carmen... she's a Carmelite nun... SOOOOO holy. She prays all day, is cloistered, and stays in her “little heaven” of a monastery as she calls it. I'd say that's holy. Then I looked at the Saints... though I wouldn't say they all were particularly holy their whole lives... some very not holy actually... they still had eventually reached that conversion and had lived their lives in such a way that they were canonized by the Catholic church as Saints. But what about everyone who is not canonized as a Saint? Do they not also live good, holy lives? Of course they do.
There isn't one way to be holy. Even though we all have that universal call to holiness, we respond to that call in our own, individual ways. We are equipped with gifts unique to ourselves that help us live out that vocation.
Once I made this holy distinction, I spent some time pondering how I am to answer that call. One might say I was obsessed with it. I wanted desperately to be holy... so I took it to prayer. I went to adoration one night at Newman and wrote a chaplet for holiness. It is a prayer prayed on rosary beads, but instead of Hail Marys, Glory Bes, and Our Fathers, I wrote different prayers for holiness to be said on the beads. So I was sitting in the chapel, had just finished my chaplet and then I got thinking and this voice/thought came into my head. Hey Kara... you are holy silly! I made you in my image and likeness... you were holy from the very beginning. Stop obsessing and live out that holiness. Use your gifts to glorify me in all that you do... that is answering the call.
Glorify me in all that you do... hm... so it's not glorify me in some of the things you do, or sometimes when you want a break, you don't have to glorify me and can just do whatever, even though the whole time you are making unholy choices I will be tugging at your heart, kind of ruining the rebellion... yeah... I am a pretty bad rebel... my guilt ruined the rebellion. Even though, I don't completely have this part down... the whole glorifying God in all that I do... holiness is a vocation right... not a vacation. It isn't something you do for a weekend and are like, high-five, that weekend of holiness was really great. I glorified you real good for 3 days. What a vacation. No... it is a vocation. It is something that we are called to do for our whole lives, and part of that means that it is a process. We won't necessarily get it right the whole time, but we gotta keep at it.
So... I kind of figured out what holiness was... but how am I called to be holy? That is where this weekend comes in again. I experienced five ways to exercise holiness during the nun run because each community glorified God in their respected ministries. The Daughters of Charity serve the poor, the Little Sisters of the Poor serve the elderly in their nursing home, the Franciscans are teachers at a local university, the Sisters of Providence teach at an innercity Catholic High School, and the Sisters of St. Benedict live in a monastery and run a retreat center. But holiness isn't just exercised in ministry, it comes about in every choice we make, in ALL THAT WE DO. Each community had it's own prayer life, it's own spirituality, its own charisms
I will close with this: When I was in religion class in Catholic School growing up, we were learning about First Holy Communion. When I was writing Holy Communion, I would always write it with a “w” at the beginning... as in wholey and I would get so mad when my teacher would mark it wrong. Looking back... I mean, I prolly just did it because I had spelling issues, but while preparing my testimony on holiness... I thought back to it. Why isn't holy spelled with a w? I know... there is probably a root word and etymology or something... but putting that all aside... answering that call to holiness, being holy... is about the whole person... glorifying God in all that we do: actions, thoughts, and prayer. Answering that call to wholiness... glorifying God in ALL that we do... becoming WHOLE!
