It's Getting Real

I finally received my formal application today, and it just drove home how excited I am about this process.  It took me over 12 hours to even work up the courage to open it!  All of the information I read aligned with what I am looking to accomplish in mission work and in life.  Of course, this also terrifies me.  I have a ridiculous fear of admitting when I want something because then I will be embarrassed if I don't get it.  I didn't tell people I was thinking about changing careers until I had been thinking about it for 5 years and seriously planning it for a year.  I have been thinking about mission work on and off for about 10 years now, and it is only in the last week that I have really told people I am serious about it.  The fear comes from my own ego and wanting to protect my pride, which is selfish.  People want to be a part of this journey and are genuinely excited for me, and I want to be able to share this with them.  Even if it does not work out, they will understand me a little better.

On that note, imagine my surprise when I opened the application and there was a question specifically asking how people had reacted upon hearing about my desire to do mission work!  As scared as I was to do it, I have spent the last week telling family and friends about my next steps, and their reactions have been amazing.

Mom:  I always thought you would do that.  Ok, so we will sell all of your stuff and you can live here right before you go to training.  Leave me with access to a bank account so we can handle your student loan payments.  (Zero shock, straight to planning.)

Dad:  *immediately logs onto Google*  Holy s*** Bolivia is really far away!

Mom again:  Please don't go to El Salvador, you will die.

Family email chain:  That is so cool!  What will you do?  Where will you go?  Quickly turned into jokes about drugs and sex.  I would expect nothing less, and would have been horribly disappointed had they reacted any other way.

Friend from church:  Selfishly I want you to stay here, but I also want you to go.  (she then put a prayer intention into our mass for those discerning mission work and I almost cried.  By far the sweetest thing anyone has every done for me.  The power of prayer gets me.  EVERY.  TIME.)

Another friend from church:  That is awesome, you are an inspiration (Ha!)

A friend who did mission work:  I hope you go to El Salvador.  I can visit you there.  They are so going to choose you.

Coworkers:  Wow cool!  What do you mean "discern?"

All in all, a success.  Now to actually finish the application.

Fishers of Men

Part of my discernment process, the most rewarding part, has been focusing on my prayer life.  A very dear friend of mine introduced me to the Liturgy of the Hours, and I love to pray as many hours as I can manage.  It has been a rough adjustment to get used to it (finding my place in my breviary, figuring out what to do with all the ribbons, etc.), but I am definitely glad that I stuck with it!

Today is the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, and today's antiphon for Morning Prayer struck me as especially fitting in my life.  "Come, follow me, says the Lord;  I will make you fishers of men."  Then, I went to mass, where we heard about Nineveh and the way they were saved when they repented, as well as when Jesus called Simon, Andrew, James, and John.  All of them were fishermen, but answer Jesus's call while they were mending their nets and became "fishers of men."

When I hear stories about the early church, I can't help but be struck with how brave they must have been.  It is easy, with the 2000 years of hindsight we have now, to forget what a crazy decision that must have felt like at the time.  It really puts my current decision into perspective.  More than likely, I will not be killed for choosing to follow Christ.  I will not be thrown in jail or hide from my persecutors.  I live in an age where being a Catholic is, for the most part, acceptable.  There are certainly parts of the world where this is not so, but I personally have never had to face that.  In choosing mission work, in giving up my comfortable life for God, I am able to experience a small part of what the early church was charged with.  I will get to go out into the world and show God's love.  Hopefully, I will answer this call even half as bravely as the apostles did.

This morning, I chose to pray the alternative prayer because it was so beautiful.

Almighty Father,
The love you offer
always exceeds the furthest expression of our human longing,
for you are greater than the human heart.
Direct each thought, each effort of our life,
so that the limits of our faults and weaknesses
may not obscure the vision of your glory
or keep us from the peace you have promised.
We as this through Christ our Lord.

Dear Lord, please guide us as we discern what you are calling us to in life.

A New Journey Begins

"As I said, the heart of your question has no reply. Only when we too can cry about the things you said can we come close to answering that question. Why do children suffer so much? Why do children suffer? When the heart is able to ask itself and weep, then we can understand something. There is a worldly compassion which is useless. You expressed something like this. It’s a compassion that makes us put our hands in our pockets and give something to the poor. But if Christ had had that kind of compassion he would have greeted a couple of people, given them something, and walked on. But it was only when he was able to cry that he understood something of our lives. Dear young boys and girls, today’s world doesn’t know how to cry. The emarginated people, those left to one side, are crying. Those who are discarded are crying. But we don’t understand much about these people in need. Certain realities of life we only see through eyes cleansed by our tears. I invite each one here to ask yourself: have I learned how to weep? Have I learned how to weep for the emarginated or for a street child who has a drug problem or for an abused child? Unfortunately there are those who cry because they want something else.

This is the first thing I want to say: let us learn how to weep as she has shown us today and let us not forget this lesson. The great question of why so many children suffer, she did this in tears. The response that we can make today is: let us really learn how to weep.

In the Gospel, Jesus cried for his dead friend, he cried in his heart for the family who lost its child, for the poor widow who had to bury her son. He was moved to tears and compassion when he saw the crowds without a pastor. If you don’t learn how to cry, you cannot be a good Christian. This is a challenge. When they posed this question to us, why children suffer, why this or that tragedy occurs in life – our response must be either silence or a word that is born of our tears. Be courageous, don’t be afraid to cry."

-Pope Francis, Encounter with the Youth (January 2015)

As Catholics, we should never accept that children suffer.  Instead, we should weep with them and do what we can to, in our own little way, show God's love.  In my life, I am currently entering the discernment process for mission work.  I am lucky that God has a track record of picking people who felt completely unworthy.  This blog begins as a way for me to record my own experiences along the path of discernment.  Hopefully, through God's grace, it will change to a record of my time as a missionary.  Throughout all, I hope that this blog will glorify God.