sIsTeR Ann e. fIORe, V.H.m

A n rt A S PA St EVE

Happiness took me in an unexpected direction

Despite urgings from her friends to serve God in other ways, this former city kid knew that the monastery is where she’d find her joy.

SISter ANNe elizabeth Fiore, V.H.M. coaches her school’s softball team.

by SiSter Anne e.

Fiore, V.H.M.

The WAITress came to take our order, but we motioned her away. We were crying too hard to talk.

Although we had broken up months before, we had never really ended our relationship. On this the eve of our final parting—he heading to graduate school

E y n S on McS EVE Jo H n E LL i Bi Sister Anne E. Fiore, V.H.M. is a Sister of the Visitation of Holy Mary at Georgetown Visitation Monastery. She teaches Latin, coaches softball, and moderates club dodge ball at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School. When she’s not grading Latin papers, correcting batting stances, or chasing stray dodge balls, Sister Anne can be found at home in the monastery, where she serves on the vocation team and edits the community blog: http://livejesus. blogspot.com. in another city and I to my last stop before entering the monastery—we began to reminisce about our journey together. We were both surprised at how difficult it was to believe that this would be our last date. We laughed through our tears; we eventually ordered our food and ate through our tears; and we walked home through our tears.

Amid the healing and the closure that our meeting provided, one of the most poignant memories was his final remark when we said good-bye: “What makes me sad is that your happiness and my happiness take us in separate directions.” And at that I realized that my Baptist ex-boyfriend had a much clearer understanding of vocation than many of my Catholic friends. God wants us to be

SISter ANN elIzABeth teAcheS a latin class during a visit to the tomb of one of her community’s founders.

happy. The secret to that happiness lies in saying “yes” to all that the Lord presents to us along the way.

When I told one of my Catholic friends that I would be entering the monastery in a few months, she grabbed my arm in panic and said, “You don’t have to do that! There are many other ways to serve the church.” She proceeded to list them for me; she seemed to think I would welcome an escape from my monastic vocation. Her well-intentioned suggestions revealed a common misconception about religious life: that it is a life of privation and loneliness. Hardly. The Lord does not call us to religious life to deprive us of joy; he calls us to religious life to fill us with himself and his joy so that we may share our happiness with others.

Before I knew it

Sometimes we can be slow to respond to the Lord’s invitation to find this happiness. I know I was. Several

months after I had started coming to morning and evening prayer at the monastery, I’d still slip into the last row just before prayer began and dart out as soon as it was over. Clearly I was running from something; I just didn’t know it was my vocation.

One day shortly after daylight savings time had ended, a sister approached my seat with a ladder and asked if I could move for a moment while she adjusted the clock above my chair. I offered to save her the trouble of climbing the ladder and she welcomed the help. As I was adjusting the clock, another sister came along and inquired about what we were doing. The sister who was holding the ladder explained cheerfully how I had offered to help, and the inquiring sister, with a twinkle in her eye, turned to leave. As she departed, she remarked under her breath, “My, my, how quickly one becomes part of the family around here.”

The clock flew out of my hand

and tumbled down toward the fl oor. Lucky for me, it was sturdy. And equally lucky, my resistance to the Lord’s invitation wasn’t nearly so indestructible. Although it was several years before I asked permission to enter the monastery, the welltimed exchange about being part of the family served as a welcome reminder amid my discernment of the Lord’s invitation to fi nd joy in religious life. I’ve learned that I can be fi lled with this infectious joy only if I am empty enough to receive it. “Empty” in this case is not the same way a soda can is empty, which implies a sense of uselessness. Not at all. The emptiness the Lord requires of me is an expectant space in my heart. I

await all that he has in store—like a child holding an empty ice cream cone, waiting for dessert. I realized quickly that I could not come to religious life “full” of ideas about exactly how I will use my gifts, talents, education, and so on. These expectations must be checked at the door—curbside check-in that costs more than only a tip! We must trust that the Lord, who calls us to this or that particular community, will use us in ways that will lead us to happiness. God’s ways, however, are not always our ways. We must trust that the Lord, through the community, will call

God wants us to be happy. The secret to that happiness lies in saying “yes” to all that the Lord presents to us along the way.

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forth from us the gifts that are needed at the time when they are needed.

How my garden grows

Toward the end of my novitiate the novice mistress asked me if I would take care of the vegetable garden. Being a city kid whose idea of “picking vegetables” meant examining the heads of lettuce in the supermarket for the one least likely to begin rotting before we fi nished eating it, I was a little nervous about this new responsibility. I spent the winter reading books from the library about gardening. I drew a map of the vegetable garden; I examined the seed packets that landed on my desk; and I wondered how in the world this venture could result in anything short of a disaster. As spring approached I rolled up my sleeves and began to dig, weed, hoe, and haul dirt around. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I trusted that the Lord would not abandon me in this new assignment. Two weeks later I received a phone call from our school’s computer science teacher. Laughing, she asked me, “What’s a city girl like you doing out in the garden?” I wasn’t being the least bit dishonest when I replied, “I really have no idea what I’m doing.” An avid gardener herself, she wondered if we might have room for some of her extra veggies and she even offered to help in our garden if we could fi nd room for her homeless leeks. (Thinking back, I realize that her classroom overlooked the garden; I assume she was calling to rescue this city mouse from the waist-high weeds.) When I hung up the phone on

little sisters of the poor

Following in the joy of JeanneJugan hospitality to the aged poor.

Sr. Constance Carolyn Little Sisters of the Poor 601 Maiden Choice Lane Baltimore, MD 21228 Tel: 410.744.9367 serenity@littlesistersofthepoor.org www.littlesistersofthepoor.org

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my new garden-helper (read: rescuer, teacher, coach), I thought to myself, “Gee, God does take care of knuckleheads like me if we say ‘yes’ even if we don’t feel confident that we can do what is being asked of us.”

In the years that have passed since that first summer, the garden has been a great source of joy to me. I have come to delight in planting seeds, waiting for them to sprout, tending to the seedlings, and watching last year’s plants become next year’s compost.

SISter ANNe eLIzAbeth fills in momentarily to warm up a pitcher. She coaches the softball team at the school where she teaches. There is many a spiritual metaphor to be found in a garden. And I have a feeling that if I had asked for a different job instead of the garden—a job that might have been better suited to my work experience—it probably wouldn’t have evolved in quite the same way. Much to the surprise of my urban family, a summer day spent in the garden is now a happy prospect for this city kid.

Learn to adjust the balance

For me, an important part of religious life is recognizing the daily occasions where I’m invited to say “yes” to what the Lord asks. In our particular monastery we are challenged to balance our monastic duties of prayer and work with our responsibilities in our school. Several years ago I came into the monastery chapel to pray. That afternoon I only had a small window of time between classes, and I was very conscious of needing not to be disturbed because I might not have enough time after class to finish my meditation.

A few minutes later I was distracted by a noise behind me in the part of the chapel closest to the school. It sounded like a person breathing heavily, and it grew louder. For a moment I considered going elsewhere to pray, but something tugged at me not to leave. Finally, I rose to investigate the noise. It wasn’t noise at all; it was a crying student who had slipped into the chapel and parked herself in a back row near the door. I approached the sobbing senior and invited her to come sit in the Blessed Sacrament chapel while I fetched some tissues for her.

It was only a five-minute diversion but it was probably the most important thing I did all day. It was a moment when the Lord called me to

say “yes” to his will even when I had other plans. I wanted a peaceful half hour in the chapel; the Lord wanted one of his little ones to find some comfort. Although I was tempted to leave the chapel in search of what I

wanted, the Lord’s grace allowed me to remain and say “yes” to his will.

Amid the difficulties and surprises that life brings, the Lord calls us, above all, to be joyful. For this we were created. The Lord wants us to be happy. He has formed us, each one of us, to serve his glory in some specific place—a place where he knows that we will be happy. Sometimes this “happiness” takes us places our friends and family do not understand. Sometimes it takes us places where we did not expect to go. But if we follow the Lord, this happiness will always lead us to the place where he awaits us. =

Much to the surprise of my urban family, a summer day spent in the garden is now a happy prospect for this city kid.

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