A Letter from Sr. Josephine Garrett

This letter is a part of The Catholic Woman’s letter collection For the New Feminism. Each piece featured in this series will explore the different ways in which Catholic women are making sense of what it means to be a woman in light of her lived experiences and in light of the Catholic Church. The intent of this series is to explore that “‘new feminism’” St. John Paul II called women to cultivate. To learn more about what such a feminism means and could look like, check out our free video program Cultivating Catholic Feminism.

D

ear sister in Christ,

It is a joy to write to you and enter into relationship with you through this letter. I know, we have heard it a thousand times before: we are God’s beloved children. We have heard it so many times now that it can roll off us a little too quickly instead of resting on us; this fact that every unique gift we enjoy is because of the Fatherhood of God and our identity as his child, a daughter before him. But I have had to struggle and grapple to really believe that I am a beloved daughter, and so my faith in this truth today is one of my greatest gifts and joys.

I know, we have heard it a thousand times before: we are God’s beloved children. We have heard it so many times now that it can roll off us a little too quickly instead of resting on us.

Image by Nick Staresinic

Heirs of the Father: We Were Made to Receive

Cardinal Robert Sarah once said that in the West we are struggling with rejection of God’s fatherhood and authority, in a sense a rejection of our patrimony, what we have received from the Father. Cardinal Sarah notes that the human person is fundamentally and foremost an heir. The word authority contains the word author, and it is God the Father who is the author of all, so in a sense, we receive what the Father, the author, has to say about us and our world. We are receivers of not only all that we have, but also all that we are. Our very names, identities, our eye color, our hair color, our skin color, our sex as a man or a woman, and even the breath we just drew – all is a received gift. Yet, in the West, we struggle with embracing the false beliefs that the path to freedom is ever greater levels of independence, and that receiving is contrary to human dignity and the freedom we long for. We, in many ways, have set ourselves on a path contrary to this economy of receptivity. We have chosen to believe that we can construct ourselves and construct our world according to our own intellects and ill-perceived autonomy. [1] Reflected on in sincerity, a path apart from our identity as children of a God who is our Father – a path apart from our identity as heirs – is a path to death, is it not? If my very breath is dependent on this receptive relationship, to separate myself from it is death.

Pope Saint John Paul II in his letter to women concluded that woman is an archetype, or primary symbol, for the entire human race in relationship to God, because before God, humanity is only receptive. [2] Therefore, our common call is to receive the gift of the Father’s love in the person of Jesus Christ, so much so, and so intimately, that we are ultimately transformed into the likeness of Jesus, “from one degree of glory to another.” [3]

So sisters, “you have received the spirit of sonship [and] when we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” [4] You are a daughter before God, an heir who he withholds no treasure. I agree with Cardinal Robert Sarah, and I will add, I do not think that many of us run from the Fatherhood of God because we are wicked or ill-intentioned. In fact, from my own personal experience, I have come to believe that this is a much deeper matter.

I do not think that many of us run from the Fatherhood of God because we are wicked or ill-intentioned.

Photo contributed by Chelsey Shortman

Gut Punches on the Path to the Father

The reality of my relationship with God the Father first dawned on me when I was a candidate with my religious order. I was on my second silent retreat and taking a sort of prayerful walk. I imagined myself that day walking hand in hand with Jesus, and I asked Jesus during that walk, in prayer, where we were going. What came to mind as a response from Jesus was, to the Father, always to the Father. Without a conscious thought, I grimaced and instinctively clenched and closed my hand. When I realized my gut reaction to God the Father was fear and an instinct to protect myself, it was definitely a gut punch for me. Gut punches are usually opportunities to see ourselves and our relationship with God in truth. I was someone who could have easily been considered a typical modern woman in many ways. I was a college graduate and I had advanced in a banking career. I had managed lots of people and several important projects at my job. I had found faith, entered the Catholic Church and received the sacraments. I had a spiritual director, was learning to pray, and appeared to be a woman of God. And to top it off, I was now discerning religious life! (Insert some jazzy beat here as I walk down the street that conveys my Catholic-woman-success.) Yet, I was a very controlling woman. I had committed sins towards the people I was entrusted to care for as their manager that I still feel remorse for today. I struggled with mismanaged anger. I was a resentful woman. I was a hurting woman.

So, there I was, a woman of God, with a grimacing face and a clenched fist at the thought of journeying to the Father. But God is so gentle as he draws us to himself. He revealed the nature of our relationship to me early in my formation to be a religious Sister. It was a time in my life when I had begun to better understand prayer, and also through going to therapy, better understand myself. It was at a time when I had enough tools to receive it.

As I tried to grapple with this revelation, I was drawn back to June 23, 1989. I was an eight-year-old little girl. My mom and dad were separated, and my two older brothers and I hadn’t seen our mother in a while. She was having her own struggles and had sent us to live with our dad. It would be over 20 years from that day before I saw her again, and that day was the last time I saw my father. June 23, 1989 was a unique day because it was Father’s Day and also my dad’s birthday. I had spent what felt like a lot of time in my room making a combination card. Making that card is a very joyful memory. I remember feeling really pleased with my creativity and overjoyed that these two celebrations fell on the same day. I can still see myself sitting on the floor making that handmade card; it is one of my earliest memories of becoming aware that one of the gifts God gave me was being a creative person. I finished the card and ran to give it to my father. He was preparing to leave the house, and he thanked me for the card. I did something that day that I rarely remember doing: I insisted that he take me with him. But he refused. He left the house, and later that day my father killed himself at his girlfriend’s house. Later in my adult life, I learned that he battled drug addiction and other mental health struggles, but on that day, all I knew was that it was Father’s Day, it was my father’s birthday, and he was gone. My father’s brother, my uncle, and his wife, my aunt, adopted us and raised us from that day forward. Lots of things changed after that day. One thing I know for sure is that I stopped making cards, and that it would be many years before I delighted in creativity the way I did that day.

I knew was that it was Father’s Day, it was my father’s birthday, and he was gone. My father’s brother, my uncle, and his wife, my aunt, adopted us and raised us from that day forward. Lots of things changed after that day. One thing I know for sure is that I stopped making cards, and that it would be many years before I delighted in creativity the way I did that day.

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood

A Father Who Binds Up, Restores, and Heals

So, there I was, in early formation to be a religious Sister, and with a grimacing face and clenched fist, over the next two years, entered into a dance with the Trinity and the Blessed Virgin Mary and sometimes Saint Joseph. God, Mary and Joseph helped me to unclench my fist. Around that same time, I was able to see my birth mother for the first time after over 20 years. It was a beautiful encounter, and during our talk that day, she, as is characteristic for her as a superstitious woman, told me that women in our family tended to experience significant spiritual struggles at the age of 33, and she believed it would happen to me too. I didn’t like that one bit because I am not a fan of suffering, so immediately following seeing her, I went and knelt before the exposed Blessed Sacrament and asked Jesus to bind that up! I entered the novitiate at the age of 32 and celebrated my 33rd birthday in the novitiate.

Something incredible did happen when I was 33, but it was quiet and wonderful, and I am smiling even now as I write to you about it. See, our vocations, our ministry, following God at his word – all of this – unleashes us. Actually, I think the better way to say that is that obedience makes a space for us to be unleashed. The world rejects fatherhood in the name of what it believes is authentic freedom. Yet, when we choose to be obedient daughters, following God at his word, walking in the world, striving for fiat step by step, the Kingdom is unleashed in us, overflows, and we get to bear out into the world the heart and mind of God. We know a truly exalted freedom, because then, we get to be like God. So, once I said yes to my vocation, creativity began to be unleashed in me.

When we choose to be obedient daughters, following God at his word, walking in the world, striving for *fiat* step by step, the Kingdom is unleashed in us, overflows, and we get to bear out into the world the heart and mind of God. We know a truly exalted freedom, because then, we get to be like God. So, once I said yes to my vocation, creativity began to be unleashed in me.

Photo by Nur Yilmaz

The sisters would joke that I just wanted to create things. I had all these ideas and I wanted to make beautiful things and make celebrations beautiful, and so I, a former fancy bank executive, had started scrapbooking! One day, I saw one of my sisters sitting at the table making something. She invited me over and asked me if I would like to learn what she was doing. She noticed I had started scrapbooking and thought that what she was doing might be a good way for me to make use of the materials. So, she taught me how to make handmade cards.

During that 33rd year of my life, I made hundreds of handmade cards. On the occasion of my first vows, I made a handmade card for every guest who came from out of town. I remember spending sabbath afternoons in the novitiate quietly praying and making cards. I need to tell you something: I think the Father works in the quiet – at least this has been my experience. We are sometimes waiting on this sensational healing, this one-and-done type of thing. I know some people who have had that, and I do not doubt their experience. For me, the Father has been quiet, slow, and gradual with me, because he knows it is what I need. Quietly sending the Son, sending the Spirit, sending Mary, sending Joseph. But always to him, always toward him, always his will and his dream for us, his daughters. In all those quiet joyful hours on the floor in my room in the novitiate making cards, delighting at the gift of creativity in me, I believe God the Father was binding up and healing and restoring.

Image by Nick Staresinic

I have to admit I didn’t even realize the connection until years later. I was just making cards. I was aware that it was a wonderful feeling, but I didn’t look at it at all in the moment with Kingdom-vision. It was years after the novitiate that I looked back and realized what had taken place. I was making cards again, but more importantly, I had freedom, courage and joy in being creative, like that young version of myself had when making that card for my father. It was as if the time on that floor, during the novitiate, a time to grow in relationship to God as his daughter, so that I could be more properly dispositioned to be Jesus’ spouse, allowed for something that had been fearfully locked up to be unleashed, and that has only continued.

Discovering the Light of the Resurrection From Dark Places

This past year, I made my final vows and in preparation for those vows, I attended a 30-day silent retreat in the mountains of Colorado. It was during the month of June. And in the month of June, my father always comes to mind as his birthday and Father’s Day pass by. In one of my final reflections for that retreat, I was tasked with reflecting on how to go forward with God in light of the Resurrection. I sat before the rising sun praying over that reflection and recalled a prayer from years earlier. A spiritual director once asked me, in prayer and in my imagination, to imagine a statue of myself the way that I thought God saw me. After praying with that, I was then instructed to imagine Jesus coming in the room and making another statue next to the one that I had made. In that prayer, we had different statues. Mine was an adult woman, sophisticated and regal. Jesus’ statue was a joyful child; his statue was full of color, and it looked like the little girl was running towards something. That morning in Colorado, as I sat before the rising sun, asking God how he wanted me to go forward in light of the Resurrection, I saw my statue that I had imagined making in prayer shatter before me, and that little girl that Jesus had made, I saw her running forward towards the Father, and, on the way, sowing seeds of the resurrection.

As I noted earlier, I do not believe the small and big things we do to close ourselves off from the patrimony that we receive from God the Father, that includes so many details of our lives, even the breath we just drew, are about us being purposefully evil people, or desiring or even from obstinacy before God. I believe we can identify with Eve in the garden more than we may care to admit. I think life experiences, combined with the whispers of Satan, combined with the voice of our culture leave us deep down asking ourselves the same question Eve did in the garden: Can I take God at his word? Is what he has given to me good, or is it best I go it on my own? I think deep down I firmly held the belief that I had to go it on my own, that I could not trust God the Father; but I was mistaken about the type of trust I was called to. Trusting in God does not mean we should expect him to protect us from difficulties, pain and tremendous loss. That is not a fair expectation and it is not based in His word. What we can count on, and trust in is that because the world is permeated with the blood of his Son, he can now work all things together for good. We can trust that he will never cease to pursue our hearts and reform and reshape them into the hearts of adopted daughters, models of the feminine genius, conformed to Jesus’ heart, despite what life has brought us.

Trusting in God does not mean we should expect him to protect us from difficulties, pain and tremendous loss. That is not a fair expectation and it is not based in His word. What we can count on, and trust in is that because the world is permeated with the blood of his Son, he can now work all things together for good.

Photo contributed by Chelsey Shortman

I want you to know that the world needs your femininity more than ever. I want you to know that the key that unlocks the creative power of your femininity is rooted in your identity as God’s daughter. It is so important that you do not get me wrong– I am not all fixed up, I am not all healed up. Henri Nouwen in his Wounded Healer book says we heal as we are being healed, and that this should not be a source of shame for us. But now, although my fist is still clenched, it is clenched while I’m in a full-on sprint to the Father. A joyful sprint, a daily hot-mess-of-a-yes, a yes wrapped up in Jesus as his spouse, a yes at the feet of Mary, who is my ultimate teacher on how to be a daughter, a spouse, a mother. A yes that is looking all around at how to sow the seeds of the Resurrection, how to tend the promises of the Resurrection in the world around us. Receiving these seeds and bearing them for the world is a particularly feminine disposition, that we – as the archetype of humanity – get to show to the world. The coming of the Kingdom and the fulfillment of the promises of the Resurrection hinge on your genius as a woman lived out faithfully in this world. The courage to be open, the courage to be receptive, however and wherever God is calling you to do so. The courage to receive the seeds of the hopes of the Father wrapped up in the person of Jesus Christ into yourself and bear this out into the world. The courage to receive the fatherhood of God, to let your identity as a beloved daughter rest on you in a deep and meaningful way. The world needs you to be a daughter. He made you, you belong to him, and you will never know your purpose or value apart from him. [5]

It is so important that you do not get me wrong– I am not all fixed up, I am not all healed up. Henri Nouwen in his *Wounded Healer* book says we heal as we are being healed, and that this should not be a source of shame for us. But now, although my fist is still clenched, it is clenched while I’m in a full-on sprint to the Father. A joyful sprint, a daily *hot-mess-of-a-yes*, a *yes* wrapped up in Jesus as his spouse, a *yes* at the feet of Mary, who is my ultimate teacher on how to be a daughter, a spouse, a mother.

Photo by Joshua Applegate

During my early formation, I returned to my father’s grave for the first time since he was buried. It was a very hard trip to make, to go towards a burial place; it made me think of Mary Magdalene peeking into a tomb on Easter Sunday. But she had to look into that dark place to learn of the Resurrection. When I visited my father’s burial place, I found that our family had never purchased a stone for his grave. So I, his daughter, was able to do that for him. I marked that place with a stone that celebrated the promise of the Resurrection. As I think of it now, it felt like planting a seed. I pray for his intercession and pray for him often. I am certain I have had the help of his prayers. I have also taken Saint Joseph as my father, and I gladly serve the Kingdom as God the Father’s daughter.

With love,

Sister Josephine

[1] Cardinal Robert Sarah, ‘As a Bishop it is My Duty to Warn the West: An Interview with Cardinal Sarah’, Catholic Herald

[2] Pope Saint John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem

[3] 2 Corinthians 3:18

[4] Romans 8:15-17

[5] Psalm 100:3

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About the Writer: Sister Josephine is a native Texan, born and raised in Houston. She moved to Dallas in 1999 to begin studies at the University of Dallas where she completed a BA in Political Philosophy with a Business Concentration. Sister subsequently entered the banking industry, serving for 10 years as a Vice President in the Home Loans division of Bank of America in the roles of Operations Manager of a staff of 200 and later as a Project Manager. Sister was raised Baptist and entered the Catholic Church in 2005. Later, in November of 2011, she began her formation to be a religious Sister. In November of 2020 Sister Josephine professed her final vows as a Sister of the Holy Family of Nazareth. She is a licensed counselor, serving as the school counselor for the cathedral grade school in Tyler, TX, and also in private practice. Sister has also served in vocations ministry and as a national speaker for youth and young adults, speaking to groups of up to 25,000.