When I was straying far from Thee, Thou brought me back again that I might serve Thee

Do you see now how your heart cannot contain all that God has to give you? You had many things to write about, and now you feel as though they have all left you. Each passing moment is filled with so much richness that you cannot remember all the things spoken to you throughout your day. It is all, however, engraved upon your soul because these words from God move like hands molding clay, leaving fingerprints and indentations of grace.

You were right in saying that you are not the same person you once were years ago. Certain aspects about you have remained, but you are much more aware of things you never paid much attention to before. It seems a little baffling to you that you have grown into the spirituality you have now...as a child grows into bigger clothes and finds different toys of amusement as he gets older. Do you remember when you were not so much interested in learning about the history of the Church and her foundations? You did not give much attention to the lives of the saints or to the role of the Blessed Mother. You simply fulfilled your obligations and did whatever gave you the temporary spiritual consolations - which served their purpose well in the beginning to help you fall in love with Christ.

As you were drawn closer to the heart of God, your main concern was to rid your life of mortal sin. Praise the Lord you were open enough to His help in order to do so. On occassion you would find yourself saying no to Him again, but the call to the religious life made you crack down on yourself. You knew that if you were going to marry Jesus Himself, you would have to make the necessary preparations to do so. Fr. Ed gave you no room to mess around. He came into your life at just the right time. Even though it was painful for Papa Jon to let you go as his spiritual daughter, He knew that you needed the discipline.

St. Peter Chanel provided the environment for your soul's roots to plunge deep into the soil of humility, coupled with the call to faithful obedience. It was there that you learned how to accept your weakness as a human and not rely on your own knowledge and strength to get to Heaven. The priests taught you about the saints, the Eucharist, and the Blessed Mother. They encouraged you to make use of the Sacraments regularly. It was there that you felt for the first time more at home than you felt at home.

You have thought that you do not deserve such acceptance, for the Oblates have taken you in with open arms knowing how much you had struggled to hold fast to the standards of Christ. But what they gave you...what they continue to give you...is the love of a merciful God. Look how after two years of formation under the Carmelites and the Oblates you have been led to serve the Lord. A few hundred souls have been placed under your care, whether to teach directly in the classroom or seminar...or to stand in the gap as intercessor. You wanted your life to be a prayer and God has given you the opportunity to make it as such. Now it is time to live that reality in all its fullness.

"We know that our old self was crucified with Christ, so as to destroy what of us was sin, so that we may no longer serve sin - if we are dead, we are no longer in debt to sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe we will also live with Him. We know that Christ, once risen from the dead, will not die again and death has no more dominion over Him. For by dying, He is dead to sin once and for all, and now the life that He lives is life with God.

So you, too, must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Do not allow sin any control over your mortal bodies; do not submit yourself to its evil inclinations, and do not give your members over to sin, as instruments to do evil. On the contrary, offer yourselves as persons returned from death to life, and let the members of your body be as holy instruments at the service of God. Sin will not lord it over you again, for you are not under the law, but under grace." (Rom 6:6-14)