More Than Anything (a Woman at Home Post)

What is time? It has been given
That we may work and merit heaven

Anonymous

Well, I turn 21 next month (at this point, I’m contemplating occasionally drinking a little wine if I like it, but I’m not feeling very adventurous yet 😛 ); I’m not in school, not away from home, not in a relationship, not actively feeling called to pursue the religious life. Presently, my whole life (or maybe, my interior life would be the better phrase) feels enveloped in this huge cloud of quiet. On the outside, I have some pet projects and obligations I keep busy with; I have wonderful friends whose company I just love; and am blessed with the most beautiful family and a life that offers no lack of color, variety and opportunity to find God and clumsily grow in virtue. On the inside, though . . . it’s quiet.

And it’s the holy Faith that keeps me alive to these beauties surrounding me, and the beauties that are still yet to come. I could have nothing at all, except Our Lord’s Church, her liturgy and her Sacraments–and I firmly believe, I know with all my heart I would still have everything to live for.

I find this time of my life humorous, in a way, because a few years ago I was convinced I’d already been through this exact phase and that I knew God’s will for me. Well! How very little I knew–and how little I still know now. At eighteen, I honestly had been through nothing but a phase of contemplating my personal desires, praying that the things I wanted to happen would happen, and arriving at the conclusion that I knew God’s will. That’s not quite the same thing.

Maybe I should call this present phase living in the quiet. In many ways, I feel I have been through various bouts of high waves, sometimes storms, in one way or another, but particularly over the past few years. They certainly were all part of God’s designs for my soul; and even in my cloudy, limited perception, I can see that they have been transformative on me in many respects. I’ve arrived at the point where I barely recognize the child, the girl, the young woman I used to be, before this all happened. In some ways, it’s a really strange point to be at. This isn’t to say I don’t have the same struggles and flaws that I’ve always had (ah, if only!), but rather, I’m in awe at the grace of God, and how He has enabled me (especially through Our Lady’s intercession) over the past year to see life more clearly, in particular the end and purpose of life more clearly . . .  and, at last, to be quiet.

I think it just may be part of growing up. I asked my mom something to that effect a few nights ago while doing dishes after supper. (Washing dishes with your mom or a loved one present in the kitchen is a wonderful way to unload your weary mind and may save you psychologists’ bills.) Have you ever felt . . . different? Like you’re not who you used to be, and you don’t exactly enjoy reflecting on how you used to be, but you’re grateful for where God has brought you now?

Like all mothers, she knowingly said, Of course.

Living in the quiet has meant, for me, being showered with grace to where I am enabled to earnestly say, “Do what You want with me, when You want it of me.” And then to be still: to not be afraid of whatever it is He’ll ask: but, perhaps even more importantly, to not be afraid of the silence indicating He is not going to ask me yet, but for now is content, for His own mysterious but perfect purposes, with where I am–a young woman at home.

One of my most favorite passages from the side notes in the 1962 Missal speaks of Holy Communion in this way:

We should open our will to Jesus Christ as we open our lips to receive Him, leaving Him free to act in us and accepting in advance everything His grace will ask us to become. We consume the Sacred Host, asking that we be consumed by His Divinity. We receive Him physically, that He might receive us divinely into His sacred activity, and transform our life and action and desires into His.

We should receive Him as the Blessed Virgin received Him at the Annunciation, concerned only with leaving Him free to act, with a will to conform to His will for the Redemption of the world.

Now, living in the quiet doesn’t make my waiting always easy or effortless, or even painless for me. I desire so much to know God’s will for me and to enter into my vocation: my specific path, my soul’s joy, my crucible and my ladder for Heaven. I’ve experienced a lifelong interior tug towards marriage and family; I’ve been given a strongly maternal heart that craves babies and loves the company of children; I find myself naturally desiring the leadership, love, and assistance (both temporal and spiritual) of a good husband; I dearly love the thought of being a mother in the home, schooling my children, making my family’s home a church in miniature through prayer and traditions . . . but as good as these things are, I’m prepared to surrender these ‘wants’ of mine if God asks me to, and to go down the road to a vocation that doesn’t initially satisfy my first desires, though it most certainly will be most conducive to my eternal salvation (which is what I want more than anything!).

In fact, yesterday I was reading Fr. Lasance’s thoughts on the unmarried, virginal life in the world. He was speaking in the context of young women who desired life in the convent, or the married state, but for whatever reason weren’t able to fulfill those desires, and so were consigned by God’s will to living a secular, chaste life alone. His words struck me as being incredibly perceptive and wise.

It is no small trial for her, and many a secret tear does she shed because God has seen fit to refuse her the object of her ardent desires. Ought she on this account to be disconsolate? Certainly not; for God orders all things for the best. But why did He implant a longing {…} in her heart if this longing was never to be satisfied? It is plain that He acts thus in order to increase her merits. To find herself obliged to relinquish all hope of attaining the desired goal is the greatest and most painful of sacrifices. If she makes this sacrifice for the love of God, resigning herself to His will in a spirit of childlike submission, and striving to serve Him faithfully {…}, how great is the store of merit she lays up for herself in eternity!

Now, I’ll be honest. As unbelievably hard as it was once for me to be open to the religious life–to be open to being alone in the world, all my life? That was ten times as unthinkable and made me shudder with plain dread.

But now . . . God has helped me to see, quite plainly, that Heaven is all that matters in the end. Traditional Church teaching is clear and true: any state of life will not do for any soul, nor is it a matter of little consequence which state we enter into. If we follow our own will instead of God’s in deciding our state in life (whether it’s consecrated, married, or virginal in the world), we endanger our salvation, because God has fashioned us, has searched and known us, and He has ordained, in His wisdom, which individual path is best for the salvation of our individual souls.

So, much as I might be tempted to, I can’t shudder with dread, even at the thought of being single for the rest of my life. Do I anticipate this being God’s will for me? Well . . . not currently 🙂 But it might be. What matters is that I want His will more than anything. What matters is that I spread my hands, open and empty, before Him every day, and offer my life to Him without any reservation. What matters is that I am malleable, willing, soft and fresh in His palms. What matters is that I tell Him (as often as I think of it) that I’m ready whenever He is, and that I’m happy with whatever He wants.

One thing I’ve learned: the more I think about what I want, the less at peace I am. The more I pray for the things I personally desire (even if they’re good things; actually, especially if they’re good things), the less open I am for the better things He desires. The more I contemplate my invisible future with anxiety, longing, or impatience, the less receptive I am to His grace for the present moment, for my present sanctification. I can’t serve two Masters: my will and His will. I can’t simultaneously pray, Dear Lord, this is what I really, really, REALLY want to happen in my life . . . butThywillbedoneofcourse. Amen. It isn’t a prayer; it’s a contradiction, and it erodes my interior foundation, my charity and my self-surrender.

So again, I’m so very grateful for this period of living in the quiet. I’m grateful for the grace I’ve been given of largely letting go of my own desires. Yes, there are hard days; I fail, and I never have perfectly good intentions in anything I do. But those hard days are given to me so that my merits might increase, my desires might be purified. My failures and sins are opportunities for me to return to God with a humbled and contrite heart, so that He can embrace me in His Fatherly arms and give me renewed strength for the combat here below.

And so whether there’s a wonderful young man somewhere who God sees would make a spot-on husband for me one day; whether there’s a convent full of beautiful nuns with an empty place awaiting my arrival; whether there’s a small house in the world where I will eventually live out a virginal life of charity, kindness, and service to others . . . in the words of St. Gianna Molla, Whatever God wants. And that’s enough for me; it’s enough for all of us.

(Woman at Home Series: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4)