It has certainly been an exceedingly crazy week. A good one, but most definitely crazy.
Wednesday I spent five hours with the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. The novice mistress came to campus with all 16 postulants. They were wonderful! We hosted Evening Prayer followed by dinner for any young women who was interested and we have about fifteen girls come, which was excellent! After dinner, the novice mistress gave a talk entitled "Bread of Life/Culture of Life" as a sort of pep-talk for the March for Life. We had an excellent turnout! Probably about 45-50 students came. Which was great considering it was the third day back from break and we hardly advertised at all. It was meant to be a smaller venue.
I have to admit I was nervous having them come. I've longed loved the Dominicans and when I first began really discerning, I had my heart set on these sisters. I devoured their website, figured out everything I could about them, etc. I had never met them, but I loved them! Haha. I had plenty of plans to go out for a retreat, too! Oh Dominicans. Yes, I still have a special place in my heart for them. But I was nervous that maybe I would be super attracted to them, then get really confused all over again. Because that's what happened with the SSVMs at first, when I started really feeling attracted to them. I was so confused because I loved the Dominicans so much. Yet God was drawing my heart in a different direction. I dragged my feet! Of course, now I'm in love (in such a drastically different way-- I like to think of my 'love' for the Dominicans as more of an infatuation, haha) and as much as I love the Dominicans... Well, spending time with them was great, but it also just reinforced where I want to be! God is good!
The Tolle Lege issues are printed and ready for distribution. I've been trying to coordinate the distribution process and we had settled on Friday afternoon... until I realized that half of us were going on the March for Life and wouldn't even be on campus Friday! Dope! You have no ideas how many times I tried to schedule things for that day. Proof that I need to keep my day planner with me at all times. I'm excited to get the journals out, though. I can still hardly believe that I survived the editing process. That was crazy last semester. I can also hardly believe that one of my essays that I submitted made it in and I'm officially published!
Friday was the March for Life! Talk about a long day! Sadly we didn't have tickets to the Verizon center for the Youth Rally, but we had Mass at the Mount before heading down. We were situated in the Mall pretty close to the stage by 11am. We saw a lot of people we knew from different colleges, as well as a lot of Mount grads. It was great.
I don't usually do well with crowds but by God's grace I managed to stay calm the entire day.
At one point during the pre-march rally, one of the Mount grads (and a good friend of mine) called to say she was with Sr. M, our FOCUS Missionary from last year who had entered the Sisters of Life. They were way far away from us, but one our current missionaries, my best friend and I all pushed through the crowd for four blocks and met up with them. It was so nice to see her!!!! Unfortunately we could only stay for a while because the march was beginning and we needed to get back to our group.
I was really disappointed at this point, because I had sincerely hoped to see the SSVMs somewhere. Sr. Joy had called me on Thursday night to let me know where they'd be at the March so we could try to meet up. But it just didn't seem to be God's will.
UNTIL. We were marching along and our group was praying the rosary. I had just begun leading the third mystery. Then I heard something. Drums and trumpets? Could it be? I was so distracted looking behind me and to the left. I couldn't quite tell. But it totally was the IVEs and SSVMs.
We ended up marching right next to each other! What a blessing! I got to see some of the sisters and catch up with Sr. J. And one of my friends from the Mount who had entered in the summer got to come and see all of the Mount students. It was wonderful!
Needless to say, that made my day.
Now I have a ton of reading to catch up on. And my thesis advisor asked for "whatever you have written" by Monday morning. Ugh. It's the same nine pages I've had for a while now. I don't wannna do it anymore!! *whine*
Oh! Two sisters from the Sisters of Life are coming to campus tomorrow! Hello! So, I'll be taking them on a tour of the Grotto, attending Solemn Vespers with the seminary, and then taking them to dinner. Should be fun!
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Ahhhh -- I know I've said it before, but I'm going to say it again: "YOU HAVE SUCH AN AWESOME AND MUCH ENVIABLE INTERNSHIP!!!!!" :) Okay. I am officially living vicariously through you.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you found the Sisters of Life. I think I walked the perimeter of the Mall at least a good three of four times looking for them. Aaand I'm glad you found the SSVMs, too! Blessed be God!! I was looking for them as well! I guess my group must have been WAAAAAY up front. :)
And you know, I did the exact same thing with the DSMME before I found the SSVM. My only ordeal was that I suspected that God wasn't calling me to be a schoolteacher. When I went on one of their retreats, that's when I found out about their formation program... when EVERYONE is certified a school teacher. :P Oh well! It was a great retreat, though!
Ah, and to say the least, I think it makes a lot of sense, your attraction to the Dominicans AND having a vocation the SSVM. One of the priests you'll meet (God willing, when you enter), Fr. Bonello, was first ordained a diocesan priest, then he entered the Dominicans for a short time before leaving for the IVE. The IVE/SSVM is (as you know) super-Thomistic in their intellectual formation. So... I always thought about that as a nice treat and consolation from God to satiate my Dominican infatuation when I was there. ;)