“I have loved you with an everlasting love.”
By: Sister Marie Estelle of the Holy Spirit, OCD
I first felt drawn to becoming a sister in middle school. But God truly started drawing my heart to him a few years earlier when I was still in grade school. Every night my family prayed together before we all went to bed. And I don’t recall the exact age this happened, but as I crawled into bed, I realized that I wasn’t finished talking to God. I felt that he deserved more than just my regular night prayers. My prayers were often letters to him, written in my head, “Dear God….” I was graced with a real presence of God and knew he was very near to me and that he loved me. Sometimes I would listen to music as I fell asleep and one of my favorite tapes was one by a group of priests. My favorite song contained the words “I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have called you and you are mine.”(Jer. 31:3 and Is. 43:1) These words really struck me and I believed they were true.
IIn the 7th grade I received a letter from the diocesan vocation office encouraging me to pursue a religious vocation. With my back against my bedroom door, I held the letter and just sobbed. It was a real moment of surrender. I knew God was calling me; I heard his voice. It was no longer just an idea, it was a personal invitation, and I knew I had to say ‘Yes.’ But what does one do when they are in 7th grade? Continue to live life! And I did.
The following years of high school were great years spent doing what normal students do. I was involved in drama, music, volleyball, newspaper, procrastination and studying for tests. I also was blessed to stay involved in my faith in various ways. There were many experiences and people that really formed me. There was one summer I volunteered on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation teaching vacation Bible School with some beautiful Sisters. That trip really opened my eyes to the poverty that exists and also the beauty and joy of living a life of service for God’s children.
The most poignant moment that confirmed me interiorly of my vocation to religious life was witnessing the ordination of a young man to the deaconate (and a year later the priesthood!) After the laying on the hands, he lay prostrate in front of hundreds of people as the Litany of the Saints was sung imploring their prayers that he be faithful to Jesus Christ forever. I was awestruck. It is an image that I will never forget. There were no words to describe its beauty and the impression it has left on me. He was giving his whole life to Jesus Christ and the Church, and I knew I had to do the same. The invitation was now a command—a command of love and total self-gift.
But a vocation is never as cut and dry and neat and clean as when one writes it out. I was not without my struggles. Though I confessed to know God I still wanted to live according to the world and her foolish maxims. But God was unrelenting and kept seeking me and asking me to give Him my whole heart. In college, I felt very frustrated in classes because I kept feeling empty and realized a ‘major’ was not going to fulfill me. I wanted to major in helping people…that major doesn’t explicitly exist in any university! So I knew I couldn’t keep going to college; I needed to enter the convent. Although unhappy with school, it was a great consolation to be a part of a Newman Center that had a vibrant spiritual life. I became involved in a choir and soon was attending Mass twice a week…then everyday! I met young women who were also discerning religious life, which was so encouraging! It was there that I encountered and developed a relationship with Jesus Christ in Eucharistic Adoration, and I fell in love. I longed to be a sister…but where?!
Knowing I was called, but having no clue where, I was filled with impatience and lack of peace. I wanted everything to be clear, easy and according to my plans. I really learned to trust and allow God to lead. It was at this time I read Story of a Soul by St. Therese and after I finished it I told my mom that I was going to be a Carmelite. I didn’t really know what I was saying, but I knew I had to be what she was. I was so attracted to her intimate relationship with Jesus and the vocation to pray for priests and ‘to be Love in the Heart of the Church, My Mother.” So, I searched everything ‘Carmelite’ on websites and learned as much as I could. A young seminarian gave me a brochure to our community, and I was given generous support from my diocese in my discernment. After some visits to convents, more struggles and tears, deciding not to return to college, and LOTS of prayer, I found my new home in Christ. I was deeply attracted to the Carmelite Sisters who radiated such a profound joy in being the Spouses of Jesus Christ and were women of deep prayer. And in September, 2003, I entered my beloved Carmel.
Pope John Paul II was a major influence in my search for God. In the midst of confusion, fear, and impatience, he called out to me, “Do not be afraid to follow Christ!… Those who give themselves completely to Him cannot help abandoning everything to follow Him.” I also had the great grace to see him at his last WYD on earth in Toronto, Canada. Upon seeing him I was immediately brought to Jesus. The Holy Father’s great witness of fidelity, even in his great physical weakness, convicted me of the real worth of a life lived totally for Jesus, a life poured out in love and sacrifice for the one and eternal Love.
Carmel seeks union with God in prayer, and looking back I can see how God is the one who calls, none of it is from us. He was there calling me to Himself as I went to bed at night, through every person I’ve ever met, especially my family, through trials and stresses of life, through the beauty of the Church and the glory of Carmel and, ultimately, through Himself in the Eucharist. This vocation is a gift that we must humbly receive. Once embraced it calls us to respond to Infinite Love in a total gift of self to Him who has given Himself totally for us, immolated on the Cross. And although I do not listen to that tape anymore when I go to sleep, I still hear God speak those words to me, “I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have called you and you are mine.”
