Dedicated to God (31 page)

I can’t even remember when he left. All I remember is I was seven when my brother and I had to stay with my grandmother and my aunt. You miss your parents and younger siblings. My grandmother was kind of strict; she was kind of sickly then, but she was kind of strict, but I guess she had to be because we were super-active kids then. She was older then and could not take too much.

I was thinking of religious life even when I was little but I never had a calling. You have to know where God wants you. So when I was in the Philippines, I never really felt any calling to any communities there. We had a Poor Clare monastery in the Philippines, only fifteen minutes away from us, and my mother used to take me there. We always went there for prayers, but I never felt I was called there.

I told all my classmates I wanted to be a sister. Everyone else would get a crush or like “this person,” but I never really got involved with anybody—just like a movie star, whom you like because he’s handsome or because you like her hairstyle. I admire beauty in people so I feel like I’m quite normal, but still in me it’s not something that’s satisfying. It fades away. It doesn’t give me peace; it’s more a passing joy, you know what I mean?

Since I was little, I felt that God was calling me but since I don’t know where, I didn’t know if what I was feeling was really real. I had this constant seeking: What does God want of me? It was an interior struggle, if God is really calling me, or not. If yes, why doesn’t He show me where I should go?

I was a nurse. There was an agency in the Philippines that contacts hospitals here that need nurses. At that time there were a lot of hospitals that needed nurses, so the hospitals hired this agency and then the agency put an advertisement in the newspaper and then we went there for an interview, and they sent our papers to the hospital here. I went to work in New York.

Before I left the Philippines I talked to our parish priest, and I said, “You know, my desire to serve God is, like, bursting in me, or bubbling in me. But I really don’t know where to go, and I’ve already committed to go to the States. I really would rather stay in the Philippines and serve God wherever He wants me. I really would answer God, if He just tells me where He wants me to go.” But our parish priest told me, “Since you have all the papers done, since you’ve already committed yourself, just go. That’s God’s will.”

I also talked to a nun in the Philippines, a Poor Clare nun; she’s dead now—Mother Rosa. I had talked to her before; I didn’t plan to enter the Poor Clares, I just went there because when I was little and my mother had problems, she went to talk to the sisters. She gave the same advice. “You go.” She didn’t invite me to join the monastery. I didn’t really feel called to their monastery. They saw that my papers and everything was settled. They just said, “Maybe it’s God’s will that you go.”

I never thought it was bad advice. I felt kind of nervous going to a foreign country away from my family. I guess my thinking was, “I’ll serve God close to my family.” My own premonition, inner desire, is that if I’m going to serve God, I really want to be close to my family. God had another kind of way of putting it. He wanted me to be away from my family. I never thought that I would enter here in the States. I thought after I finish work here, then I would go back to the Philippines and find and see where God wants me, that kind of mentality. I never thought God would call me here.

I worked in a nursing home in New York, with the Carmelite Sisters of the Eucharist. They petitioned me, and I worked there for one year and a half before I entered here.

The Carmelites wear a full habit. I always went to church. They have a chapel in their nursing home, and I always went there before work and after work to pray. One of their sisters—she was the youngest in the community—one time stopped me after I prayed and said, “Do you want to be a sister?” It just struck me because the other Filipino nurses would do the same thing, you know, and they were also religious, but some of them were married. So when she asked me, I said, “Yes, but I don’t know where God wants me.” So she said, “Oh, I’ll pray for you.” Even the superior thought that I would like to join them. Well, I really didn’t feel called to join them. You have to feel a call. I never felt really called here, too—I mean to a monastic life. In the Philippines, a monastic life means you’ll never see your family again. Well, I knew that would be quite hard for me and I knew it would be quite hard for my family.

We had a mission in New York at the parish church. They call it a mission because it’s a calling back of lax Catholics to their faith, or strengthening their faith. I think it was laypeople proclaiming, sharing how God touched their lives. I went to Mass that day; I decided to stay and listen, and then that stirred me up and I went to confession and for spiritual direction. After that
I became restless. That surfaced the call within me. I felt that God was calling me, but I still didn’t know where. I said to the parish priest, “You know, Father, I feel like I’m being called to religious life, but I really don’t know where I should go, it’s just strong in me. I don’t know where to go.” And he said, “Well, where are you from?” I said, “I’m working at Saint Teresa’s Nursing Home under the Carmelites.”

The parish priest I talked to said, “Why don’t you join them?” I said, “I don’t feel called to join them,” because I was a nurse and working there with the sisters, but most of them are administrative, not nurses like me.

I have an aunt—my father’s sister—and she and her husband are kind of rich; they support some religious organizations, including a retired home for sisters in the Philippines. One time my aunt and uncle visited our family, and they took us to visit their friends, these sisters who are retired in their motherhouse. One of the retired sisters, when she learned that I was here in the States, she wrote to me. She would send me letters and inside her letters were letters that I should mail here in the States. One of the letters was for the Poor Clares here in Rockford. She was asking them questions—how to make rosaries, I think. I copied the address because I wanted to ask for prayers because I was taking my nursing board exam. I asked the Poor Clares for prayers, and then they wrote back and said they would pray for me to pass my board exam.

I still felt uneasy. Like I told you, when my mother was low, she always brought me to the Poor Clares in the Philippines to ask prayers when she had problems. So I told myself, “I’ll try to call them.” Well, there was no telephone number in the letter, so I called the operator and she tried to find their number. Finally, I got it and I called the sister and asked for prayers. I said, “Sister, can you pray for me? I feel like I have a vocation, but I really don’t know where God is calling me.” The sister immediately said she was going to get Mother Dorothy to talk to me. Mother Dorothy was the Abbess then. I said, “I wonder what Sister’s doing? I just asked her to pray for me. I didn’t tell them I want to come, you know. I’m not inquiring about their life, you know.”

I really just called the monastery to ask them to pray for me. I had already taken my board and I was asking for prayers that I passed it. Passing the board was the only way that my visa would be extended because I was on a working visa. That’s the main thing—to pass the board so that I can stay here longer so that I can work; that was just a means for me to keep working here.
But that was not my life’s goal. My life’s goal, which I was more interested in, was to find out if my real vocation was to enter the monastery because that would answer the questions within me: Am I called, or not?

I talked to Mother Dorothy, and she said, “Well, I think you have a vocation, but would you like to come and visit?” I said, “I really don’t have time to visit because my friend is going to the Philippines and I’m doing her shift, I’m going to work overtime. I really can’t.” She said, “Well, just take your time. When you have time, just give us a call.”

That made me speechless. I felt like I really wouldn’t have time because my friend was going to stay there for a month or longer; I knew it would be a long time before I could visit. Still bugging my mind was why she was asking me to visit. But I became restless again. I felt like I had to do something. My friend was leaving the next week, so I only had one weekend free. Anyway, I finally arranged it; I came here on a Sunday, I left on Wednesday.

It’s amazing. When I came here, everything was perfect. Everything fell into place. I called the airline. The plane flight was so cheap then—just $89 back and forth—the first time when I came for my visit. I was surprised because the next time I came here, it was double. And the bus—as soon as I got out of O’Hare, there was the bus going to Rockford. And then when I was here, I felt God. I felt so much peace. I felt that God was calling me here. Before I left, I committed myself already. I had my entrance day. The place felt like a presence.

I always carried with me a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It’s a picture of Jesus with the Sacred Heart exposed. When I left, I left that picture here where I slept downstairs. Mother Dorothy called me and said, “You know you left your picture?” I said, “Yes, I left it intentionally because I told Him I’ll be back.” When I was here, I just had that peace, that searching, that I finally found it. I didn’t hear Jesus, like the saints said, “This is where I want you,” but I just feel like that inner call, that calling in you, finally: “This is it.”

I think that other girls feel that same way—applicants that come here and didn’t feel that when they came here. They feel it in another monastery. After they visit another monastery, they write back, “When I went to that monastery, I just felt at home.”

When I came back from my visit, as soon as I got to our house, my friend said, “Oh, wow! Congratulations! You passed your board!”

As soon as I came back to New York, I settled everything quick. I told the nursing home, and they said I could have two weeks.” The Mother Abbess gave me all the requirements—towels and things—so I bought everything.

Then I called my family. I said, “I think I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is I passed my board. My bad news is I think I’m going to enter the monastery.” My mother said, “Oh, no. Don’t enter yet.” I said, “I think I have to, Ma, because God’s calling me now and I want to know. I don’t want to wait. If God is calling me now, I really want to answer now.” I was just afraid. I was twenty-five then and I felt like I was really old. In the Philippines, they enter at sixteen. They entered young—sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and sometimes after college. So at twenty-five, I felt like I was ancient.

It was hard for my parents. Well, it was hard for my whole family, but especially my mother. My father said, “If that’s what you want … ” But my mother said, “No.” But I said, “Ma, I’m twenty-five.” I had to decide, you know. And like I said, this longing to serve God has been with me since I was a child; I just don’t know where to go. Once I knew, I said, “Ma, I really have to know if this is God’s will. I’d rather know it now than later.” My father said, “Oh, your mother cries every night.” She wanted to see me.

I visited here May 26 and I entered July 16. I entered that quickly. The second time was hard because the plane ticket went up and different things. But it was fine. I felt like when I had come here before; I felt so much peace that God was calling me here. It’s where He wants me.

My father died a year after my profession. I was solemnly professed in 1991 and he died in 1992. But I’m glad, though, because I always wanted to see him, and I saw him before he died. I hadn’t seen him since I came to the States. I came here in 1983. From 1983 to 1991 I hadn’t seen him; I hadn’t gone home to the Philippines. That was the first and last time I saw him after I left the Philippines.

He had worked for the Americans, so he spoke English well. It was funny because when he came here for my Solemn Profession, he was interviewed by the US Immigration in the Philippines, and the interviewer said, “Is that all you’re going to do there?”—you know, to see my profession? He said, “No, we’re going to see the whole country, your beautiful country.” They were so impressed when my father said that. The thing is, my father was diabetic then, and he really couldn’t travel that much. Even when they were here for two weeks, or a week, I could tell he was kind of tired. He loved to travel
before, when I was young. But when he was here, he didn’t travel, really. But they did go to California because my mother has lots of relatives there.

When I entered everything was fine with me. I didn’t have a hard time, except the cheese. I can’t eat cheese. I am lactose-intolerant. I didn’t know that then, because in the Philippines we don’t eat that much cheese. When I came here, we had cheese every night for supper—two pieces of bread, cheese, and an apple—and I was just getting sicker and sicker from it, I could hardly sleep. Well, I got through it. I knew they wouldn’t change the whole diet just for me! I knew that. So I tried everything. I put jelly in it. I put margarine in it. I mean I tried. I was willing to do as much as I could do because I felt if it was God’s will that I stay here, He will give me everything I need to endure it.

I didn’t think I was lactose-intolerant. I knew milk bothered me, but I just keep going. After a few years, it got real bad. I had really bad diarrhea. My doctor then told me I might be lactose-intolerant. I said, “No, I can’t be, I’m eating all this milky food.” And then she said, “I’ll put you on the test.” So she put me on the test, and then I found that I’m really lactose-intolerant. Since then, I ask permission not to take any milk at night, because I learned my lesson; I just have trouble with digestion and it keeps me awake at night. Sometimes I take a little bit and then I have to deal with the result. But I still take some. I still drink milk. I eat everything. I’m pretty good. In the morning and in the afternoon for lunch, I can take it; I take a little.

For the night vigils, it can be hard to get up, but it’s something that I want to do and I have to do it. It’s for the Lord. You know what I mean? I just have to think that what I’m doing is for the Lord; it’s not for me, it’s His will. I think that’s the main thing; if you’re doing things for the Lord, He gives you the grace. I still have that peace. I still miss my family, but I just have to keep trusting that God will see me through. Although I had peace within me, I mean, I still was kind of unstable, like a temptation: ‘This life is hard for you, you can’t do it, your family is suffering.’ All these kinds of things. I didn’t think I could live it. But it’s all in God’s grace. I just kept praying, I only want to do God’s will. That’s all I prayed every day was to do God’s will. And that’s what I think kept me going is that it’s His will.