Cultivating a Hungry Heart

Over the last two years, I have been blessed to write for the Global Sisters Report.  This week marks the two year anniversary of my start with the site and the publication of my latest piece on Friday will mark my 22nd column for the Horizons feature. Before that piece is published, I thought it would be fitting to post an excerpt from my last column "Cultivating a Hungry Heart", a meditation on what it means to give and to gain through the lens of Lent and a life of faithfulness- enjoy & thanks as always for reading:

For years, I've taken something on for Lent — a work of mercy, a good deed, a practice or a devotion. One year, I went to daily Mass; another year, I gave donations to local charities.

This year, I did something I haven't done in a very long time: I gave something up.

I gave up snacking between meals and, in the process, I learned what it means to cultivate a hungry heart.

As a college campus minister, I am quite literally surrounded by food. Snacks draw students into spaces. They help facilitate conversations and give space and place (for good or for bad) to emotions, stress and sharing. They are everywhere, and for that reason, I knew giving up those snacks would be a challenge.

Within the first week of Lent, I realized the difficult, if not enlightening, situation I'd gotten myself into. Just as taking something on for Lent had served for years as a way of being more conscious of my actions in everyday life, returning to the practice of giving something up did the same for me in a new way.

I quickly realized that the snacks that are ubiquitous with my ministry weren't going anywhere. They were still there as I talked with students; I just needed to refrain. More difficult, though, was that I came to realize that after a stressful conversation or emotional moment, I couldn't reach for something sweet or salty to dissipate or absorb what I was feeling. Instead, I had to recognize what appetites exactly I was feeding. And where I might normally pause and gather myself for a moment with a mindless munch, I had to gather for a moment of recollection, centering myself again on the One who grounds my ministry. That moment of recollection made me realize the many moments of my day that call for rededication to what I do, moments when I might collect myself and invite God more deeply into my being and doing.

Those moments, no doubt, are even more numerous than I was able to realize. As the days wore on, though, I found myself more conscious of when I needed to pause and pray. My heart, it seemed, was hungrier than I had realized for these moments.

In the frenetic pace of our lives, this is often the case. It's only when we can stop ourselves (or even just slow down) that we realize how much more there is to be consumed and digested in each moment. To cultivate a hungry heart, we must be able to recognize and admit that we, in fact, are hungry. That acknowledgment of hunger is the beginning of a process of being fed.

Once I acknowledge my hunger, I can try to identify what will feed me. This requires paying attention and listening, not only to myself and my body, but to God.

Over the 40 days of Lent, I came to know more clearly the moments I needed to stop and reflect, and yet I also found that sometimes that reflection, for whatever reason, wasn't always a ready possibility. Sometimes I just didn't have the energy I knew it would take to dive deeper, and at other moments, it was a matter of not having enough time. Realizing that the hungers of the heart — hungers for justice, prayer, goodness, and grace — are those I can so often ignore, push aside, or, quite frankly, miss, I recognized the need to be intentional about how and for what I make space in my life.

My days of fasting between meals taught me the importance of what you eat when you get the chance. I became acutely aware that whatever I consumed during a meal needed to nourish me enough to carry me through the day. Meals on the fly weren't a good option. If I ate quickly, my body missed the intention of the meal. I would feel this later when my stomach gurgled. My body needed time to know it was eating, to feel cared for, to be filled.

In time, I came to understand the best ways to navigate my Lenten sacrifice and to see how it applied to what I ate and also how I lived. At its basest level, choosing not to eat between meals made me more aware of the most basic needs of my body. It wasn't until Holy Week, though, that I realized that what I'd given up had larger lessons to teach me about the truest hungers of my soul and what it means to have a hungry heart.

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As my Lenten season came to a close, I took a few days during Holy Week to gather myself. The first few months of this year have been full of ups and downs; I'd barely had time to pause, let alone stop, to nourish my heart and soul. As I looked toward the holiest days of the year, I realized the need and desire within myself to step away and reflect. My heart and my soul were hungry. Like a body constantly in motion, eating meals on the go, I needed a moment to be filled. I needed time to stop and recuperate.

What I wanted were days of deep connection. I longed for release and relaxation. Yet as I settled into the silence, I found that I could only handle so much. I found myself both relaxed and restless. I knew what I wanted those days to be, and yet somehow, like a diner with too many menu choices, what I ordered never seemed to satisfy.

In fact, as I moved through Holy Week to Easter, that is what struck me over and over. No matter what I expected or tried to make those days, they wouldn't be. No matter how I tried to find nourishment in them, I couldn't quite manage; not because I didn't have good intentions, but because I wasn't really opening my heart to the One I hungered for.

Don't get me wrong, I thought I was. And surely I was making inroads, but what it turned out I wanted was to be in control. I wanted to choose how and where I would be fed. In my hunger, I'd forgotten that grace cannot be dictated and God certainly cannot be controlled.

After seeking without finding, I finally had to ask myself what my heart really hungered for.

Giving up eating between meals had made physical space in my life, making me more present to deeper needs in my life; it had disciplined my being and allowed me to be in control. Yet, as Easter quickly approached, the question now seemed to be if I could let the deepest hunger of my heart — the insatiable hunger for God — take control.

On Holy Saturday, after over 40 days of fasting, a simple yet profound answer seemed to come: In it all, be faithful.

Be faithful to prayer, to relationships, and to me, God seemed to say. Rather than dictating your consumption, let yourself be consumed by faithfulness.

Only through such fidelity can a hungry heart be cultivated. That, perhaps, is what the journey is all about: letting our Lenten sacrifice take on new life in the realm of Resurrection, to move beyond our boundaries and to let our deepest hungers, ultimately, be fed by faith.

Joseph on the Journey

The following is a brief piece on Joseph written in anticipation of the feast of Saint Joseph this Saturday. Written for my students as part of a larger prayer, it speaks to the journey of life and living that Joseph traveled. As a journeyer, Joseph shows us that sometimes we don't know where we're headed and that sometimes it's in the subtle prompts of Love that we find our way... one step at a time. 

San Jose en el Rio Grande by Fr. Bill McNichols

St. Joseph was a man sent on a journey.

He had a dream. And like the dreams of many, it came from deep within, from the One who was creating something new even if Joseph had no clear idea what it was. “Do not be afraid,” the angel said in the dream. “Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 

When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded and took his wife into his home. And so, a new journey began.

A beautiful baby boy was born. Joseph pledged to care for the tiny babe in his care. Joseph was a just man; he would teach that sense of justice to this child. And each person he touched would bear the mark of care and compassion from his father. A touch taught on the journey- a journey of listening, of going to far-off lands, and of seeing the distance love will take you.

Joseph was a man sent on a journey. He was a man with a common touch. A person taught to follow, to care, and to dream. Beyond all knowing, beyond common knowledge… deep in the heart of God... for the life of the world.

Touchstones

Last weekend, I went for a walk in six degree weather. The air I walked in was the type that burns any exposed skin... that makes your sinuses ache when you scrunch your nose and your eyes water in the wind.  These aren't the types of temperatures we often have in the Mid-Atlantic region and yet, despite the absolute chill, I walked for over a mile.

Sitting here as my forehead peels, I'm grateful that I did. I cleared me head and allowed me to see things from a new perspective. It also reminded me of where I've been. You see, for the year I lived in Chicago as a novice I walked a lot and at least once a week I walked multiple miles in temperatures near zero to get to my ministry site at a Montessori school across town on the North Side.

I remember the freedom those walks afforded me. As novices, the women I lived with and I lived in close quarters. We spent an inordinate amount of time together and a lot of time praying and processing together. This time was full of grace, yet every Monday when I hopped on the L, I was happy for the walk that awaited me. That walk gave me time to reflect on my own.  I'd walk a mile to the station by our house and then reaching the North Side, I'd walk at least another mile because the bus never seemed to show up.  Through rain and snow, ice and wind, I made that walk.  And trudging down the hill to our Mother house Saturday, I couldn't help but remember all that time in Chicago meant to me.

There are some moments in life, when it feels like seismic shifts are taking place, that you find yourself grasping for solid ground.  And, there are other moments when, even though the shifts are seemly imperceptible- whether by design or denial- that you find yourself happening upon touchstones in your life.  These touchstones give you something to stand on. With each footfall this weekend I felt a little more support.

These cold winter days are filled with change and challenge.  The stark realities of religious life stand out when everything else seems to be stripped bare. It's at that intersection that I seem to stand. And here is where numerous touchstones seem to be coming to me, as if God is saying "Be still. Fear not. I am here and you are mine."

Two weekends ago, I found myself at my Alma Mater for a reunion of sorts. Each year, alumnae of the Religious Studies program at Fairfield University gather for an evening to join in conversation and community.  This moment of pause with old (and new) friends in familiar places is a gift. This is a touchstone community for me, full of touchstone people.  This is the group I left suddenly the first year to go be with my dying grandfather and this is where I return year after year to reflect personally and theologically on life and the future.  We share and journey together. I am reminded who I am, simply by being with those who know a part of me and as a result hold a touchstone piece in the mosaic of my life.

Before leaving campus the day after to drive back to Philly, I stopped by the Egan Chapel- a cornerstone of my Fairfield experience. Here is where I prayer the Spiritual Exercises during the 19th Annotation, where I spent countless nights, where I gave my energy and found a deeper sense of living.  Simply being in a space like that is rejuvenating.  Everything you encounter holds significance, reverberating with a sense of the holy and evoking a fundamental wholeness.  This place is home, even after many years of absence.

It is the places, people, and experiences of life that ground us. From time to time, we find ourselves called to return to them.  In some cases, we know why and in others, we are left to wonder.  Either way, we know them in the core of our being. These are our touchstones. They lead us closer to God and the pave the way for what lies ahead, reminding us that no matter how rocky the path gets it is the touchstones that hold firm beneath our feet.

 

The Space Between

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me when the next post would go up on the blog. I can never really tell when the next piece will come, but soon after "Epiphany on Moreland Street" appeared. That brief comment, though, got me reflecting on an experience from New Years and time spent on retreat; those reflections moved their way through personal poetry to my latest contribution to the Global Sisters Report: "The Space Between". Below is an excerpt. Thanks for reading.

"It is in the shelter of each other that the people live," An old Irish proverb teaches.

Life, it seems, begins and ends in encounter. Together we support one another. We create something new; we make space. And there, within ourselves and within the world, life is sheltered and sustained. Between you and me there is created the perfect balance of resistance and reassurance — trust rooted in and returning to love — a balance better known as relationship.

Together we live and move and have our being. Just as God lives in us. Yet, in the cold chill of winter, it can be easy to forget that our God is a God of relationship encountered.

"Look at the sky, Colleen," the woman said in a hushed tone as she gestured out the window. She knew we weren't supposed to be talking. "The beauty," she continued, pointing to the treetops, "that's what this is all about."

I looked intently as she left my side; I could feel the eyes of the other women in the dining room on me. They knew we weren't supposed to be talking, either, and so they watched my gaze, trying to discern what it was that was so important it warranted breaking silence to be addressed.

I felt like I could have stood up and shouted to the room "It's beauty!" But instead, I just sat and stared intently at the treetops. Crisp and clear; stripped bare and set in silhouette against the bright blue sky. It was beautiful. And I couldn't say a word about it.

I was at a silent retreat for New Year's — a prayerful pause at year's end. The fog and dreariness that engulfed the end of the year in the Northeast seemed to have broken. And seated in that dining room on the last day of 2015, I smiled to myself as I soaked in the beauty. Unbeknownst to me, it was what I had come away to encounter.

Driving five hours north a few days before, I'd traveled through a foggy haze from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts, from the relative warmth of Philadelphia to the snow covered ground of the Commonwealth. As dusk fell upon the back roads I was traveling, I noted what seemed like the fusing of heaven and Earth. The trees made to look even taller in their barrenness seemed to stretch into grey sky, their tops disappearing into low hanging clouds just as quickly as the taillights ahead of me faded into the distance.

A year ago, I attended this retreat for the first time with two sisters I'd shared novitiate with, drawn by a Jesuit friend who was helping facilitate the retreat. Somehow in just one year of attending, I'd become part of this nearly 40-year-old New Year's tradition. Religious sisters from numerous congregations were in attendance, along with married, single and widowed women, all of us seeking time away to begin the new year with prayer and intention.

Arriving at the retreat center, I was met by familiar faces. To my surprise, despite a year's time and few words between us, they remembered me and I remembered them. Friends, new and old, united in reflection and prayer, connected by the space between us.

Settling into the silence of retreat, I found myself giving thanks for the opportunity to step away, no matter the hazy grey of winter and year's end. Silence and time solely set aside for prayer were a welcome and much-longed-for reprieve from everyday life. I was determined to take full advantage of it all and yet, I soon realized the invitation of this retreat might be to take full advantage of what God was offering and not, perhaps, what I had planned.

I wanted to encounter God, to take a quiet look back on the year that had been. I longed for deep connection within the all-too-rare stillness. I wanted to listen uninterrupted. I named those desires and God answered. Sometimes, though, what you want and what you long for can turn out looking differently than how you imagined.

'Look at the sky'
It didn't happen all at once. It happened as I sang my heart out at liturgy; and as I let me guard down; and, oh yeah, as I stopped to have deep conversations with those around me, people I love, people who are on the other end of a phone or an email more often than they are in conversation with me in person. And in those moments, moments utterly contradictory to what I thought I needed or wanted, God provided.

Talking, I found clarity. I remembered why I need to talk, why I need to write, why I need to create and explore and discover. There in the space between myself and another was God inviting me to listen and speaking softly in the consolation of relationship, the reality of friendship, and the gift of presence.

There, I could see the year as it was and myself as I am. I was free to live. I'd found shelter.

In the space between, I could hear myself beyond the words I speak or the stories I tell, I could genuinely be myself, be known, and in the process, know myself better. That's the invitation that comes in prayer and the gift God offers us each day. Sometimes it takes silence; other times, we need someone else to listen with us, to witness to God's work.

More often than not that's where the gift is that's being offered to us: in the space between. That is the gift of relationship, whether with friends or colleagues, family or strangers. It's in the space between us that God works. We get an opportunity to encounter the Divine in connection with another. If we're lucky, we'll come to know and recognize that God can work anywhere and through anyone. We just need to make space.

There, we are given the opportunity to be the best version of ourselves. That's the reminder Pope Francis gives us with each call to mercy and example of encounter. For if "the name of God is mercy," then our lives are a call to occupy (and bridge) the space between heaven and Earth in each relationship.

That call doesn't always sound like we think it might. For me, it was in conversation where I thought there should have been silence — a humbling reminder from God that we can't do this (mercy, encounter, or relationship) on our own.

We can't make heaven touch Earth. We can't clear the clouds. We can listen, though, and create space. And, perhaps when we do, the beauty that's been there all along — the presence of God in beauty and in others — will shout out in the sudden silence and we'll delight in the sight and the sound of a space between filled with grace, open to love and in the shelter of which life for years to come can flourish.

Epiphany on Moreland Street

In the light of the night
they lay
unceremoniously discarded by the roadside
conifers cast aside with
season's cheer and a chill in the air

and as I drove past
the only guide, a set of headlights
I wondered- when does room at the inn run out?
what price must be paid for new life?

And there in rings as bright as day
like stars traced out across the sky
the stumps answered in
a chilled chorus of Hallelujah:

Keep your gifts.
It takes a life.
To make a manger...
to take the journey.

Vision: "Why being single and living as a sister aren’t the same"

As the semester comes to a close, I am trying to catch up the publications that have come out over the past few months. Below is one- an article in the most recent edition of Vision Vocation Guide about the difference between vowed religious life and life as a committed single person.  In some ways, because of the publication, the material deals more with ideas and ideals than experience; there is much gray in the midst of it all- not all communities are the same, but the reason for and state of religious life stand as a distinct and unique. Religious life is definitive, a unique expression of the Christian life lived out by grace in commitment. It is a radical calling, not better or worse than any other, yet certainly distinctive.  With all that said... I hope you enjoy the article. Blessings, Colleen

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When I told people I was thinking about becoming a religious sister, they asked me the same questions: Why did I feel called? Why religious life? Or just plain, Why?

And once I told them about my desire to grow in my relationship with God, to serve others, and to live a radical life of intention in line with the gospel, the inevitable questions were: Why become a sister? Couldn’t you do all those things as a committed single woman?

Yes, I could have done all of those things as a committed single woman. I realized this as I discerned, so the bigger question for me was: What exactly is the difference between a committed single life and a vowed religious one?

The answer to that question is more complex than simple statements. It digs deep into the nature of call and vocation, uncovering who we are and what call truly means. Single life and religious life, after all, are both calls. Before we can look at how the two are different, it is helpful to understand what they have in common.

As Christians, we are called to live out our faith. The lives we lead reflect the love of Christ, and our vocations are the way in which we are most called to share that love with the world. Our true vocation enables us to be our most genuine selves as God created us to be.

The people who questioned me about why I was becoming a sister rather than staying single had my best interests in mind. I could do everything I sought to do as a committed single woman, but they missed one key point: discernment of a vocation is about more than you.

Vocation is about you and God—your deepest desires and God’s deepest desires for you. Discernment is about discovering those desires in relationship with God and naming what gives fullest life to that relationship. You don’t become a sister because of a lack of options, just as you ideally don’t remain single because nothing better has come along. You commit yourself to a way of life based on how your relationship with Christ calls you... Read the rest here

Big Questions

The following is an update following the facilitation work that "The Next & the Now" preceded in Latham, NY for the CSSJ Federation Leadership Assembly. 

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Religious life is the realm of big questions.

That’s part of what drew me to want to be a Sister of Saint Joseph. As I sit with the young people who I minister to on the college level, there are always questions. And whether they are big or small, each is important.   As I got ready to leave last week for the Federation Leadership Assembly in Latham, NY, one of my students turned to me and said, “Why can’t you just stay here?”


I assured the students I was with that I would be back after a day, but I needed to go. Big questions don’t restrict themselves to one realm or another and it seemed after months of planning with Kathleen Durkin, CSJ that Latham was where some serious questions needed to come into play.

The big question of this year’s leadership assembly was “What’s next?”  That’s not a question you can answer in just a few short days, but it is a starting point and it is a critical question to keep asking ourselves as women religious and Sisters of Saint Joseph. What’s next in a sense is what’s now.

As I recently wrote in my column for the Global Sisters Report, “Our world, our church and our congregations are at a critical point in time. We find ourselves in a liminal space, where change is pressing in and new life is imminent… Here in this liminal space, the next and the now are in coexistence. Each one is reliant on the other. Today is lived in hope of tomorrow, and tomorrow cannot be without faithful living today. Perhaps the real question at this moment is: What will we allow to be birthed in us?”

Standing in front of the Leadership Assembly this past week, sharing in conversation, engaging big questions, and pondering the next and the now, that question kept returning to me: What will we allow to be birthed in us?

Listening to the sharing of the Assembly, I could hear where the creative tension of the current moment lies. New membership, life long formation, shared governance, congregational boundaries, justice issues, corporate voice- these are where the hearts of the Assembly seemed to go.

For me, that seemed to be an indication of what might be next. Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder if we’ll take a step.  Asking big questions is one thing, taking the next step of not just asking but engaging big questions is quite another. That step  doesn’t guarantee answers; in fact, it almost certainly will draw forth more question than answers, but the act of engaging pushes us forward toward the future.

After having spent the day with the Leadership Assembly, I knew I’d been engaged in a process that was worthwhile. As a newer member, it is my hope that we, as Sisters of Saint Joseph, will have the courage to engage the questions that arose; that we might have the strength to be challenged, to respond to the call of our vowed life in a more authentic manner.  Leaving the Assembly, I wondered what shape it might take. Our future- whether personal, communal, congregational, or federationally- is going to be influenced by what we choose to do, to be, and to stand for today.

We need to have the courage to ask big questions …and to listen for answers. What we hear may surprise us, it may scare us, and it, no doubt, will challenge us. This is the work of the Spirit, influenced by grace, and put into practice in the daily living of genuine commitments and questions.  It won’t be easy, but who ever said it would be?  Religious life is the realm of big questions. We need to keep asking... and acting-- our future depends on it.

(See this article in full on the United States Federation of Sisters of Saint Joseph website, here.)