A huge case of nerves

So I am going to visit one of the monasteries this weekend.  I will be there in less than a week.  I am so very scared.  I am having a horrible case of the 'what ifs'.  It has suddenly occurred to me that these visits, the visit to the monastery down south and the one in yankee land, are actually a big deal.  I will be going and sharing in the spirituality of the women that could one day be my sisters; women that I could spend my entire life enclosed with.  Women that I will watch grow old and one day die, women that I will share everything with.  I will share the most intimate part of my life with them and they with me: we will share our spirituality.  I am so nervous and so worried about all this.  What if they do not like me?  What if I do not like them?  What if I was wrong all this time?  What if I only followed my will and not God's?  What if I have done this for all the wrong reasons?  What if... What if... What if... So many what ifs and they are all plaguing me.  I cannot get rid of them.  They fly through my mind and my heart stabbing me, attacking me,  torturing me.  To add to this I have been reminded that although I am surrounded by people who call themselves my friend I do not actually have any real friends.  My one friend that really supported me in my discernment has gone.  He has decided I have no real place in his life.  I am to only be there when he needs me.  I do not actually matter to him anymore.  In this world I am alone, all I have is God.  While I love God and His Son, I am human and am in need of human companionship.  God made Adam and then He made Eve because He knew that we need each other.  We need to feel connected to each other.  I have no one to connect to anymore.  People connect to me and, I guess the connection scares them, and so they leave.  What will happen with my sisters?

Pax,

Thomas Catherine

Failings...

As I work at balance and at prayer and therefore as I come closer to God I find the evil one attacking me.  Last night I had obscene dreams and today I have been fighting obscene thoughts and urges.  I failed at the fight at one point today when I was somewhere between sleep and awake.  I feel so guilty for giving in, for not fighting harder.  I truly need to find time to go to confession so that I may confess my sins.  I also need to see my spiritual director and speak to him about all of this.  Santa Teresa de Jesus warns us of these attacks.  She tells us that as we grow closer to God that the Devil will attack more frequently and with greater force so that he may claim what is not his and was never his to begin with.  This too will pass though.  I must fight harder and spend more time with God and pray for strength.  He will give me the grace to overcome these trials of the flesh.  I have overcome much harder trials with His help and grace.  I have overcome so much thanks to His love, His grace and His strength.  I shall overcome this too.  In less than a week I will be off to visit a Dominican monastery.  I will be there for three glorious days.  Pray that I am able to listen to God and to do His will while I am there.  I will be in Holy peace and quietude.  I will be praying and eating and going to mass with the nuns.  Then at the beginning of September I will be with the nuns that I hope to find my earthly home with.  If all goes well at both of these monasteries I will be invited back to stay in the cloister for a week or two.  Then back again for a month and then entrance.  Pray for me as I pray for you all.

Pax,

Thomas Catherine

Balance

I have got to work on this balance thing.  I have got to get the hang of it.  I need mass, confession, adoration, and prayer like I need air.  Air is more important than food or water or shelter for without air we cannot breathe and if we cannot breathe nothing else matters.  If I do not have prayer, adoration, confession and mass I cannot breathe, I cannot live.  I need to find a balance between the real world and between the world that I long to live in, that I lived in almost all summer.  Oh, my Jesus, forgive me for neglecting you for not spending all the time I should with you.  Forgive me, My Lord, my love...forgive for not being the faithful servant that I should be, that I can be.  Oh Lord forgive me my sins and my inadequacies.  Forgive me for all that I have done.  I need you Lord, I need you to be in my life, in my heart, in my soul.  I need to reach the place where you reside inside my soul so that I may dwell there with you for all eternity.  I need to find that balance that allows me to be in the world and spend any spare second I have in my interior cell. Oh My Lord how I need you!  This love for you is greater than any love that I have ever known.  My love for you is all consuming.  This lack of balance, this lack of time with you has left me with a dryness, with a hole that I cannot fill.  Without you I am nothing and I can do no good.  I must find balance so that I can be rid of this dryness and this hole.  I miss you and I long for you and I cannot wait until the day I can be with you for eternity.  I need to find a balance between the outside world and my prayer world.  I need Him too much.  Oh my Lord help me to stay with you, to be balanced, to spend every spare second with you.  Hear my prayers and the deepest desires of my heart.  Hear me Lord, hear my cries, hear me begging, hear my pleas.  Oh Lord help me.

Pax,

Thomas Catherine

Reading...

Last night I finished Teresa of Avila: The Progress of a Soul by Cathleen Medwick.  St. Teresa's life was filled with suffering and illness and doubt.  Of all the saints I have read about I identify most with St. Teresa and St. Catherine of Sienna.  Both of these women initially and throughout there lives resisted God's call.  St. Teresa had the wicked life before answering God and St. Catherine's parents tried to force her to marry and tried to take her faith away from her.  I feel drawn and called to these saints.  I know what it is to have led a wicked life and to have my parents try and strip me of my faith.  They inspire me to keep moving forward with my vocation.  If St. Teresa can be not only a nun but a saint then so can I.  In her time what she did was wicked and shameful and in my time the things I have done have been wicked and shameful, though many would say what I have done is worse than what she ever did, but given the time periods I would say we are about equal.  I, like St. Catherine, have no obeyed my parents wishes for me, instead choosing my own path.  I have chosen God over my family.  Right now I am reading St. Teresa's Vida.  I have not gotten far, but I look forward to reading what her confessors forced her to write in defense of her spirituality.  I wish that I had more today, but today has been fairly normal for me.  I was offered, by my father, a new car, new clothes and money, but, as usual, these are not the things I want or desire.  I have a car and clothes and money.  My needs are met and I am happy and content.

Pax,

Thomas Catherine

Prayers do get answered...

So I've been begging for God to allow me to share in His suffering and to know His pain and to share in the pain and suffering of my brothers and sisters.  God has seen fit to grant me this favor.  Today has been so long and so hard.  When I look at someone I can see their pain and I can see their suffering.  I can feel it; as though it flows from them to me.  I am filled with a compassion and an empathy that I did not know I had.  I have always cared for others and I have always had a great sympathy and compassion for others who are suffering, but I have never had this much.  When someone touches me their pain and suffering threatens to overwhelm me and over take me.  I have spent so much time crying today and praying for the souls of my brothers and sisters who's sin causes them such pain and suffering.  I have always know that sin, great or small, causes suffering in the soul, but now I know how much pain, anguish, suffering that accumulated sin and hidden sin can cause.  If only everyone knew the beauty of confession, how being granted absolution can heal the soul.  I need to go to confession more often and adoration and mass.  The saving grace of confession and the Eucharist are amazing.

Pax,

Thomas Catherine

Suffering

Since my dream I have been begging Christ to allow me to suffer as He did, to allow me to be nailed to the cross with Him, to have the privilege of having His wounds.  I know that many will not understand wanting to suffer, much less begging for the privilege of suffering, especially suffering as Christ did, but suffering is an amazing gift.  To suffer for others, to suffer for God and for Christ is truly a privilege.  Suffering opens our eyes to the pain of others, to the suffering of others because we look for someone to suffer with us.  What we do not realize is that there is always someone suffering with us, we never suffer alone.  Christ is always with us suffering for us and with us.  He walks with us knowing our pain, our heartache.  No one knows our suffering like Christ does.  Suffering is the one thing we all have in common, we have all suffered, we all know pain.  To recognize that pain in others and to suffer with them is an opportunity to help another Child of God and to witness to the power of Christ's love.  Yet, we turn down that opportunity all the time because we refuse to see that someone, who is different from us, is in pain or, if we do see it, we believe they deserve it because they are homosexual or Muslim or are simply just different from us.  People who do not know Christ's love and forgiveness are the ones who most need our help and our compassion and who most need someone to suffer with them.  Oh to suffer as Christ did and to suffer with others and for others is the most beautiful thing and is, in part, what it is to love God's children.  How I long to suffer as Christ did and to suffer for and with other children of God.  Every time I go to adoration or pray the rosary I find myself praying for the sins of others and asking God that He may help those who sin and do not know His love, His mercy and His forgiveness know His love and mercy and forgiveness.  I ask, I beg to be allowed to suffer for those people.  Christ so loved His brothers and sisters that He committed the ultimate act of obedience and under went tremendous suffering so that we all might know His father's love, mercy and forgiveness.  I can only hope and pray that He will allow me to take on some of that suffering and bless me with the gift of suffering for the sins of others.  I have known His love and forgiveness and I will do anything so that others may also know it.  Oh to have His wounds and be on the cross with Him.  To be that obedient, to love my brothers and sisters and my Heavenly father so much that I would die for their sins.  I am deeply in love with Christ crucified and for me there is nothing more that I want than to be on that cross with my love.

Today I went to mass and I get the privilege of going again tomorrow.  My need for the Eucharist and confession and mass are the same as my need for air; I cannot survive without them.  To have Christ fill me is an amazing feeling.  When I am with Him nothing else matters.  I long to fall down in front of Him and profess my love openly.  I long for the day when we are wed and I am free for Him alone.  My love, my God how I long for you when I cannot be with you.  There is no other for me, there is no other that could love me as you do and I could love no other with the passion, the calmness, the intensity that I do you.  I would give my life for you if you asked it of me.  Oh my Lord how I love you.  Give me strength, give me the ability to suffer as you did for us, give me your wounds, allow me to be on the cross with you.  Allow me to suffer for my brothers and sisters in Christ so that they may know your love and forgiveness, so they may know what it is to be filled by your love and healed by your mercy and forgiveness.  Oh Lord that is my greatest wish and desire; that everyone will know your love, mercy and forgiveness so that they may know your Father and be with you in His kingdom.

Also, today was the Feast of the Assumption.  In the homily at mass today Father talked about how selfless Mary was.  She gave no heed to the things that were bothering her, but instead was always caring for others.  The gospel reading was about when Mary had just found out that she would be the mother of God.  Can you imagine getting that news?!  The questions, the worries, the concerns.  Most of us would lock ourselves in our room and have a total nervous breakdown.  Not Mary though, she went to her cousin Elizabeth and cared for her.  Mary gave no thought to her concerns or fears; she ignored them and went to the one who needed her.  I long to lead a life like that.  To lead a life devoted to others, completely devoid of self.  This is one reason I fell in love with the religious life and why it "fits" me.  I want to devote myself to being of service to others.  By being of service I realize that my life isn't bad, my concerns are not a huge deal, neither are my problems when compared to the homeless addicts and alcoholics I worked with or the abused and neglected children I worked with.  I have everything I need; a place to live, food, clothing.  I am not lacking anything.  So I give my money that I do not need to feed others or house them.  I try to live my life as selflessly as I can, because while I sincerely doubt I will change the world, someone I help, someone that I believed in might.

Pax,

Thomas Catherine

Dreams and other things

Since I moved into my new apartment with my roommate I have been learning how to balance my spiritual life with real life.  This summer I lived alone and was able to focus solely on my spiritual life.  I would go to work and then come home and do spiritual reading, prayer, mass.  Now that I am living with someone who wants my attention and wants to talk I am having trouble spending time alone and therefore having time to pray and meditate and pray.  However the past week I have been spending time reading and praying and being alone.  I feel much better now that I am working on my relationship with God, writing and going to adoration.  I feel so much more relaxed and calm and serene.  Now if I can only meet with my spiritual director I will be back in balance.  Since restarting all this my prayer life has come back to where it was.  With all the favors that I do not begin to deserve and all the intensity.  I had miss that closeness, that intimate relationship.  I cannot truly live without it.  I am ready to die to the world and go to my halfway house, my earthly home.  I am ready to be with my beloved.  To die to the world so that I may rise again and live in Christ.  How I long for my lover.  I long to be with Him day and night, to never leave Him, to always be with Him.  Oh how I hope that I am not long for the secular world.  I feel more and more distant from it every day.  The things that matter to my friends and family do not matter to me.  I do not care about material things.  I care about the state of people's souls, not the outsides.

Today I came home from work and I read and then I prayed and I fell asleep praying.  I had a dream.  I woke up calm and relaxed from it.  I dreamed that I was at the Dominican priory for mass with a friend of mine.  After mass I was praying the rosary and he was waiting for me.  The next thing I knew I was collapsed on the floor and there was blood.  Then he was carrying me to a room in the priory and two of the Dominican priests I know were leading us.  I was begging to go back to the chapel because all I wanted was to be with Christ and see Him on the cross.  He laid me in the bed and I looked at my hands and there were the wounds of Christ.  I begged and pleaded to be taken back to the chapel so I could be with Christ.  The wounds burned and there was this wonderful smell.  I tried to get up but I was too weak.  Then I woke up.  My hands were red and burning where the wounds would have been and in the same shape as the wounds.  I vaguely remember work and everything seems a blur and I cannot care about anything but being with Christ.

Pax,

Thomas Catherine

So...the cloister? That is so not you!

When I started discerning I had very set ideas.  I was going to be a Dominican, I was going to be a psychologist, I was going to join an active community.  I was not going to be a teacher and I definitely was not going to be a nun.  I was going to join a community who wore the full habit, said the Divine Office, had mass everyday, and was traditional.  I was NOT going to be a nun!  Being a nun would drive me crazy.  I mean being silent 24 hours a day, never talking, never going out into the world and besides nuns don't do anything, don't help anyone.  I could never be a nun.  I looked and looked at different communities.  I spoke with my spiritual director weekly.  I went to daily mass.  I prayed and prayed.  Some communities I decided to not discern with because they were too liberal.  They had completely gotten rid of the habit, didn't live in community, held beliefs contrary to the Church.  Some stopped discerning with me because of my past.  Some vocation directresses just forgot about me, would not return my calls, or what have you.  This left me with the Ann Arbor Dominicans and the Adrian Dominicans.  A wise priest once asked me what was more important to me, being a religious or being a psychologist.  He then said that should I become a religious that my religious identity is my first identity and that whatever I do I do as a religious.  That I must accept the possibility that I will not be a psychologist.  This advice has stuck with me through my discernment.  I am called to be a religious and being a religious is my first identity.  Once I take those vows I am first and foremost a bride of Christ, I am a religious and everything else is secondary to that.  As a religious I am called to be a spouse of Christ.  Since my primary identity is that of a spouse of Christ then I am called to follow Him and His will, whatever that may be.  I am called to follow my spouse wherever He may lead me, I am called to be obedient to His will and echo Mary's fiat.  Nothing else matters but following His will and doing His will.  Whatever He calls me to do He will give me the grace to do it.  Once I realized this I threw out my expectations; what I thought I wanted and didn't want.  I had moved forward in my prayer life.  I was reading St. Teresa of Avila's The Way of Prayer and found myself identifying with her experiences.  I would be praying at work or at home or anywhere really and slip into contemplation.  I would no longer experience or be aware of the surrounding world.  My exterior senses were of no use.  I was alone with God.  I would do this without conscious thought or without trying, it would just happen.  I was praying the rosary once a day and going to adoration as often as possible and mass as often as possible.  I have a connection to the rosary and to the sorrowful mysteries that I do not understand.  I feel drawn to them.  I pray and weep for the sins of the world, for those who do not know God's loving mercy and His forgiveness.  When I pray the rosary I weep and I am overcome by sorrow for those who do not know God, for those who have turned away from God, for those who sin, for those who cannot forgive themselves or others.  While praying the rosary I have been favored.  I have experienced Christ and the Virgin.  I have felt her wipe away my tears and felt Him hold me.  I have been inspired by by His love while in prayer.  I have felt Him, physically felt Him with me while I pray.  I slide into my interior cell and I never want to leave because when I am there I feel this warmth that radiates from inside me that comforts me.  I feel as though I am with my lover and we are lost to the world, as though there is no world outside of when I am with Him.  When I have to eventually rejoin the world I long for my love.  I long for the time I can be with Him again and for when I can be with Him always.  I have a radical love for Christ crucified.  For me being without Him, having to leave to go to work or interact with other people is painful.  I feel as though I am being forcefully ripped from the arms of my beloved.  To love Christ fully as a spouse is an amazing thing.  My love for Him cannot be described with mere words nor can it be expressed in anything that humanity has conceived.  To love Christ is the greatest of all loves.  By loving Him we learn to love ourselves and to love others.  We learn what love truly is.  Christ is love incarnate.  We think of love as this warm, fuzzy feeling and love is not that.  Love is much more than that, love is a person; love is Christ crucified. (See Love is a Person and A Wedding Homily).  I have a radical love for Christ and by giving my will completely over to Him and trusting Him to guide me I have discerned that I am called to the cloistered life, a life where I am free for Him alone.  No other life with satisfy me and no other man can give me what I need.  I am Christ's alone.

Pax,

Thomas Catherine

How I Got to Religious Life

Last summer I had a crisis of faith.  My prayer life had stalled out, it was going nowhere.  My prayer life had not grown or changed in many years.  I had not worked at it out of fear of my own prayer life.  God, for reasons that I do not begin to understand, had favored me with the ability to slip into contemplation and He has chosen to favor me with gifts that I do not deserve.  When I work at my prayer life, when I pray, when I allow myself to go beyond contemplation I can physically feel Christ and the Virgin with me.  I weep for the sins of others and am overtaken by the sorrow that abounds in this world.  My prayer life exhausts me.  So I never worked at it.  However when it stalled out I got scared.  I knew that everything had to change and that frightened me too.  One of my dearest and closest friends suggested that I start praying the rosary and praying novenas and trying the more traditional prayers of the Church.  When I finally learned the rosary I found a connection I had never known.  Praying the traditional ways of the Church led me to that place of peace and serenity I knew the day in the church.  I started going to daily mass and adoration.  I found my peace and serenity.  Then several friends that I have a deep and abiding respect for suggested that I should investigate religious life.  I took this seriously and started looking.  I was scared though.  I never thought religious life was my calling.  I could not imagine giving up men and my life.  I dated the man that taught me the rosary and taught me to love it.  When we broke up I dove into religious life with zeal.  I had always had a great affection for the Dominicans, but now I learned as much about them as I could and I fell for them.  I allowed myself far more time to pray and go to adoration.  I was seduced by Christ and I fell in in love with Him, a love like I have never known.  To be in the world is painful to me.  I long for my lover, to be with Him always, to never leave the state of contemplation where the world disappears and I am alone with my love.  I found a spiritual director.  He is wonderful.  He is a Dominican priest who pushes me further and farther in my prayer life.  The farther I go in prayer the more in love with Christ crucified I become.  I can feel Him with me always.  I feel Him fill my soul with His warmth, love and compassion.  I long for my lover in a way that I have never longer for another human.  I feel His pain and long to be with Him.  As I progressed in my prayer life and these feeling became stronger it became clear that the life of an active sister was not meant for me, that it was the contemplative life that I am called to.  I am called to a life where I am free for Christ alone.

Pax,

Thomas Catherine

Conversion Story (Beginning Version 2.0)

My conversion story is a bit long and a bit complicated, but it is mine and I am eternally grateful for it.  Without this story I would not be who I am nor would I be where I am.  The Church brought me back to God and helped me find myself.  I have a deep love and affection for the Church and I patiently and not so patiently await the day I shall be a bride of Christ and, hopefully, am given the name Sr. Thomas Catherine of the Immaculate of Heart of Mary, O.P.

In my last post I gave a short account of how I became Catholic, here I will give the full story with all of its twists and turns; ups and downs; all of its simplicity and complexity.  My conversion is not easily defined; it cannot be placed solidly into one category of conversion experience, but instead is a blend.  Most people come to Catholicism by means of an intellectual conversion.  That is to say they convert to Catholicism because it makes logical sense.  They read the theology, apologetics, doctrine and dogma, and the proofs given by Augustine or Aquinas for the existence of God and they see the logic in it.  So by virtue of their mind their heart is converted and they join the Church.  Then there are those who have a "burning bush" experience wherein the convert has an experience that moves the heart and soul to the Truth, where the Holy Spirit fills the convert.  The "burning bush" experience is not common and many will dismiss the convert's experience because of the rarity of it.  Many saints had "burning bush" experiences but in the modern era these experiences are rare or simply not talked about for fear of being thought 'crazy' or not being believed.  My conversion experience is a blend of these two main types of conversion experience.

I have not often spoken of my past feelings toward God nor of my true conversion experience.  I have not spoken of my wicked life before I finally heeded God's call.  I have not often spoken of these things for fear of being thought crazy, of being looked down upon, and of not being believed.  Many believe that a leopard cannot change its spots.  I pray as I write this that God may inspire my words and give me courage and strength to tell the truth as it is and not as I would have it be.  I pray that my words may be more than just the ramblings of a silly girl.

I grew up in a house filled with anger and violence and fear.  I grew up not understand God or His will or free will.  My parents would drag me to church and they were not there so much to worship God, but to look good.  My parents were and are what many would call Sunday Christians.  I never felt connected to the bible or services.  I despised going.  I wanted nothing to do with God.  When I lost my best friend to cancer at 12 I actually said aloud that I hated God.  My father beat me unconscious when he heard me say this, which only furthered my hatred for God.  I did not understand how an all powerful God could allow my father to beat me daily and my mother to stand by and do nothing nor how He, being all powerful and loving, could not or would not stop it.  So I hated God, though I always believed in God.  There are those in this world that are able to be true atheists, that can say and believe that God does not exist.  Some argue that knowledge of God is a priori knowledge or knowledge based on theoretical knowledge rather than experience.  Because of this a priori knowledge we always know that God exists, from the day we are born we are born knowing that God is real and that He has a hand in our lives, that He is personal to us.  God also gave us the gift of free will so that we may choose to deny Him and deny His existence.  There are those that can deny Him and His existence and not feel His absence, I am and have never been one of these people.  When I was young I filled the hole that His absence left with sex, drugs, alcohol, cutting, burning and anything else I could find that would fill the hole, destroy me or both.  When I was 15 I took drivers ed and met two of my most solidly Catholic friends and those two are the ones who started me on the path toward Catholicism.  I spent a few years abusing my body, alcohol and drugs.  I finally got sober at 17.  Upon joining Alcoholics Anonymous I had to let go of all my resentments and my hates, which meant I had to stop hating God because I needed a Higher Power so that I might remain sober and lead a life that is happy, joyous and free.  This was not so simple.  I tried Pagan gods, Buddism, and nature and nothing worked.  I was miserable and still had that hole in me and that hatred for God, though that hatred had eased and was no longer fueling everything I did or did not do.  With my hatred now smoldering and unable to burn I stopped at a Catholic church.  I pause for a moment and ask our Lord to give me strength for this is a story I do not tell for I do not all together understand it and I do not understand at all why He chose to favor me as He has.  I was driving down the road when I came to the church I would attend mass with my friends at.  I had intended to pass it and go on my way.  Instead I felt the deep, desperate need to go into the church.  I turned in, parked and went into the church.  The chapel was empty and filled with the holy silence that is enjoyed in monasteries.  I knelt in a pew and gazed at the mosaic of Christ on His thrown and I prayed for the first time in my life.  The tears flowed my eyes and down my cheeks, my body went weak, my heart and my soul cried out for God.  I longed to feel His presence, to feel Him fill me, to heal me.  I wept and wept.  I repented for all my sins, for all my slanders, for spending my life denying Him and for ridiculing others for their faith and for then tearing down that faith.  Somewhere in all of this I suddenly felt at peace and felt a warmth fill me and sweep over me.  I felt the Holy Spirit fill me with love and serenity and with a knowledge that no matter whatever happened to me and despite all that I had been through that I would be alright, that I would do more than survive, I would live.  I physically felt Christ embracing me, holding me and my heart swelled with love for Him and Him alone.  This is where my journey toward becoming Catholic starts.  After that day I read the books my Catholic friends were reading in their theology courses in high school.  I devoured everything I could on Catholicism.  In May I started RCIA classes and did not tell my parents knowing they would have disapproved.  I loved the classes; I loved learning about the faith.  The theology, doctrine and dogma all made rational and logical sense to me.  I attended mass every Sunday and every chance I got.  In March of the next year I was almost done with RCIA and then my parents found out.  They stripped me of my car and all my possessions and disowned me.  I spent time sleeping at different friends' houses and, in my depression, the beds of many different men.  I lost sight of God and His calling for me.  I spent years going from bed to bed.  Sleeping around, desecrating my body and my soul.  I was raped twice during this time by different men, both were friends.  Eventually I met my husband who was Catholic.  My love of the Church that I had buried resurfaced.  I started RCIA classes again at the same church and I completed RCIA and was confirmed into the Church in March of 2004.  I started going to mass periodically, but I was still so mired in sins of the flesh that I could not truly connect to God.  I eventually married my husband in a protestant ceremony.  The marriage soon ended when my husband became abusive.  While I was married I was admitted to a prestigious Catholic university.  Going to this university has been my saving grace.  I have been able to surround myself with good, practicing Catholics who have encouraged me in my faith.  They have taught me the true faith.  I have fallen in love with God and Christ crucified and there is no other for me.  I have gained a faith that I would give my life for and a prayer life that I could not imagine.

Pax Christi,

Thomas Catherine

The Beginning

The best place to start is always at the beginning so that is where I will start.

I was raised in North Texas by Southern Baptist parents.  I grew up going to church with my parents on and off.  They would drag me and I would hate it.  I grew up hating God.  God allowed my father to beat me and abuse me.  God allowed my mother to stand by and watch my father beat me.  God allowed my mother to beat me and emotionally abuse me after my parents divorced.  God allowed my best friend to die when she was 13.  God allowed me to be raped twice.  God allowed me to live after I tried to take my own life.  God forced me to suffer through my horrible existence.  God allowed my family to blame me for my mother's failings.  God allowed me to become an adult far too early, He allowed me to have to take responsibility for my mother and her failings.  For all of this I hated God, but I always believed in Him.  I always knew God was real.  I always knew He had a hand in my life; I just did not think He was keeping me safe from worse things or helping me to overcome the tragedies in my life.  I did not understand God or free will growing up, no one bothered to explain it to me.  To deal with all of this I turned initially to drugs and alcohol and cutting.  At 16 I tried to kill myself and at 17 I was at the same point again.  I felt hopeless, lost, trapped by my situation.  I saw no way out except death.  I realized that something had to change and I got sober at 17.  

During this time I had friends who were Catholic.  If I wanted to see them on Sundays I had to go to mass.  At first I thought mass odd and long, but the more I went the more I came to love going.  Mass was the hour out of the week I felt safe and calm and at peace.  I started learning about Catholicism. I read any book my friends would give me, often devouring the book in a day or less.  One day I went to the church my friends attended by myself.  I went to light a candle for my friend that had died years earlier.  I knelt down in one of the pews and for the first time in my life truly prayed.  My mind stopped, everything stopped.  For the first time I knew peace, serenity, calmness.  I knew what it felt like to be truly loved and comforted.  I felt someone holding me and comforting me.  For the first time in my life I knew that I would be alright, that I would do more than just survive.  I knew all my suffering and pain had a purpose; that I had a purpose.  I knew that God loved and cared about me.  I finally got up and left.  I got into my car and looked at the clock, it was four hours later.  I could not believe that I had been in there that long.  That feeling I had in the church lasted for days.  I called the church and found out about RCIA classes and started trying to convert.  I went to mass every Sunday and in mass and in the prayers I learned from the Church I found comfort.  I no longer hated, but loved God with all my heart.  I fell in love with the Church and God that day.  While attending RCIA my very Baptist parents found out and sent me away.  When I still was determined to become Catholic they stripped me of my possessions.  I left the house at 17 to be on my own.  I did not complete RCIA, but that is where my journey began.

I spent years going to mass and not taking communion.  I spent years ignoring my call to the Church.  I spent years living with boyfriends and all that implies.  I spent years ignoring God after being unable to convert.  I would still pray, but not really.

At 24 I married my ex-husband and was confirmed in the Catholic Church.  I was still ignoring God's call for me to attend mass and pray regularly.  After getting married I started college at a community college.  After a year there I transferred to a Catholic college because I adored the psychology program.  My husband and I divorced that year because he hit me.  While attending university I started going to mass regularly, started praying more and praying sincerely.  I started going to confession.  I started becoming friends with good Catholics; in fact I surrounded myself with them.  My spiritual life stalled out and one of these friends started teaching me to pray the rosary and pray novenas.  I started attending daily mass and adoration with him (I eventually dated him but we broke up and are still best friends).  Then in the course of a week I had multiple people and priests that I respect ask if I had ever considered religious life.  I replied that I had not.  I got the clue, so I started looking into it.  I fell in love with the Dominican Order.  I fell in love with their joy and their humor.  I looked at and discerned with multiple active communities and got a Dominican spiritual director.  With his guidance I worked hard on my prayer life.  My prayer life led me to contemplative communities.  I have a rather, shall we say, intense prayer life.  One that is not well suited to an active life.  I am now in contact with two contemplative Dominican communities.

This is where it starts.  The posts here will be my musings and thoughts and feelings about what is going on because I need to write and to put my thoughts and feelings down.  Pray for me and have fun reading.

Thomas Catherine