When I was discerning my call to religious life and finally decided on a congregation, I began the application process.  There were so many things I didn’t have a clue about.  One of the questions on the application was, “Do you have a spiritual director and for how long have you been seeing them?”  What was spiritual direction and why did the vocation director think I needed it?  My fear was that they must have realized that I wasn’t really good at prayer or that I sometimes questioned some of the teaching of the church?  I was at an impasse so I called the vocation director to humbly admit I had no idea what they were talking about.   Continue reading →

As I struggled with a topic to write about for this blog, my husband warmly suggested to me that I write about what’s in my heart.  So today, my heart is troubled by what seems to me to be a disturbing number and norm of non-listeners.  I’ve shared my thoughts before on this topic in a September 2015 blog entitled “Is Listening and Being Present Enough.”  I’m writing again about this topic because I feel so strongly about the importance of listening and being present to each other.

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“Pope Francis has had a great impact on the church and the world these past few years.  Perhaps his greatest influence is not from his passionate sermons and theological writings, but from the less-than-140 character tweets he sends out to over 21 million followers around the globe.”  (From a review of the Tweetable Pope: A Spiritual Revolution in 140 characters by Michael J. O’Loughlin) He isn’t the first Pope to use Twitter but he is the first to tap some of its great potential to reach millions in a few seconds with his message of peace, love, tolerance, and exhortations to be the best people we can be according to God’s plan.

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