Closeness. Attentiveness. Nourishment. In this collection of letters, Catholic women share their experiences of the nourishment God and how they’ve bringing it to those around them - in friendship, in motherhood, and in community.
After 55 years, I had hit a wall. I was so uncomfortable with the chaos and craziness around me – I had lost my usual sense of peace and calm. Something was stirring inside me, drawing me away from my usual way of life.
For most of my life, I experienced unexpected and difficult trials that left me with hurts, fears, and growing pains that almost crippled me at times. But God carried and protected me through it all and that is what I want to share with you.
If someone told me 10 years earlier that I would eventually be married and a stay-at-home mom, I would have been angry. It was not the type of life I imagined myself having when I left the Church, and God, in pursuit of worldly things. I left the Church in pursuit of the lies our world tells us about sexuality, gender, and lack of commitment to others.
The moment my motherhood changed was when my fourth child was eleven months old. The other kids were ages 6, 5, and 3. We were all in the kitchen when I lost it on them for what seemed like the hundredth time that morning. And then I saw it: the look of fear in their eyes. I realized my children were afraid of me.
The summer before my senior year, I was a mess. I just had a difficult exit as the president of our Newman group on campus and my faith was very much on the rocks. An overachiever at heart, I had used my work as a facade for faith.
In 2011, I started my first job. I loved the work, and I also loved that it paid well. Growing up in a simple Indian middle-class family with a strong emphasis on maintaining high moral values, we didn't have much "stuff" but there always seemed to be more than enough love to go around. I wondered back then if life could have been better if we had more money?
Holding our 9-month old daughter who weighed less than thirteen pounds, I prayed that God would send us to the right doctors. I prayed for her healing and placed her on the altar with Isaac, hoping for a resurrection. I had to trust that God would bring us through whatever happened, although my heart ached for her to be healed. She was His daughter too, after all.
Dear Friends,
Even as a child my family could see that I was a nurturer; I could constantly be found taking care of a doll or stuffed animal in a gentle and intentional manner. The desire to provide them with a safe, loving, comfortable environment was certainly within me! I can vividly remember the day that I put on a full wedding ceremony for two of my teddy bears.
For many years, I struggled with the notion that I wasn’t very good at anything. I had a friend who was a star swimmer, friends who were in all honors classes, a friend who was the lead in the school play, and friends who just seemed to have it all together. And then there was me.
When I was pregnant with my fourth child, God blessed me with an opportunity to go on a retreat where I first heard the message that we all have an individual call from God – a vocation – that is the path to our holiness. For some, it is a call to the single life, for others it is the call to marriage and motherhood – for all, it is a call to sanctify our lives and offer up our days as a prayer to our Heavenly Father.
While crying is often seen as a sign of weakness and lack of emotional stability, I believe that showing these strong emotions can make us better reflectors of Jesus.
This is the important thing, I think: longing for Heaven must be felt. We must allow this thirst for our true home to grow in us. There is real pain in this world, but there is also real beauty. It is our sacred duty to hold these two things in tension. We must be like Mary at the foot of the Cross, contemplating her crucified Son. We must be like Anna beholding the risen Son, and let the glory of God radiate through our broken bodies, lighting the way home.
Sisters, sometimes I forget that in order to experience the mercy of God, I have to experience some weakness. I fear weakness, and my first instinct when it comes my way is usually to protest: “God, why did you let this happen to me?” (In this case, it was, “God, why did you let me get sick?”) It’s a frustrating question, but I’ve learned that the only answer that ever really satisfies me is this: in my struggle, He shows up. He’s still there. In my weakest moments, in the moments when I experience most intensely the fallen-ness and hardships of life, He works all the more to shower me with His mercy, turning all the trials in my life into grace and beauty.
Sisters, through tremendous sorrow, my eyes were opened to the greatest and most selfless true love, shown on the cross of Jesus Christ. My Jesus, who as He was dying was thinking not of Himself, but of others. Of us. Of you. Of me. My Jesus, who loves everyone no matter how blind to Him. I saw that selfless love reflected in my mom, who in her agony kept thinking of others. My mom, who, as she lay dying, was thinking of me
But with every small victory—the occasional moments when I am able to practice gentleness with my 4-year-old, despite how mad I am that he just pushed his little brother down the steps—a change takes place in me. My capacity for gentleness grows. I had no idea how much virtue I lacked in the realms of gentleness, self-control, and patience. Motherhood moved my focus from an external sense of stability and social validation to a much deeper internal need for God’s grace and guidance—inevitably helping me rely more on God’s fatherhood.
Jesus gets it. He understands every human emotion we may feel. And when I’m feeling anxious, I often reflect on Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. The fear He must’ve felt is beyond anything I could imagine.
If you’ve lost a child, I need you to know that you’re not alone. Our grief has woven together and we’ve found ourselves a part of this club that no one ever wanted to join. And it sucks, it’s okay to say that. It’s awful and messy and frustrating and ugly — but we’re here together, we’re not alone.
Being honest and vulnerable with God showed me that His love is always greater than our failures.
Like you, I was given a skin colour. But, unlike many of my sisters, or if you can relate, like many of my sisters, my skin colour either became a determinant for who I was perceived to be, or my skin colour was not considered valuable enough to even be acknowledged. My skin colour either gave people a right to accept their own preconceived ideas about me or it was just dismissed all together.
The love I first felt pulling my son out of my womb, bringing him to my breast, singing him to sleep, it had been a mere taste of this heavenly love.
Dear Ladies, I have desired to be a wife and mother for as long as I can remember. Can you relate?
In times when I can’t find God, I need only search for love. ...Anytime I feel love, or don’t feel love at all, but choose love with my will, God is there in that moment.
For most of my life, I mistakenly thought that in order to please God, in order to be of any good, I must succeed at everything, and I bent all my energy to achieving my notion of perfection.
"I was a sophomore in college, and even before setting foot on campus, I decided the Church had nothing to offer me…”
"I was sitting in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting the other day - it was a women’s only meeting - and I was struck by how honest, vulnerable and real everyone’s shares were. I wondered if I had been to any Catholic women’s gatherings where…"
A few years ago, on a fairly ordinary, cloudy Thursday afternoon, I went to the dentist. The dental hygienist was pleasant enough, and asked the fairly ordinary and benign question, ‘How’s your day going?’ as she rummaged through her supplies. I replied, ‘It’s been alright.’ She nodded without looking up. And in that moment I was flooded with a loneliness I’d never known before.
That morning I had gotten civilly divorced…”
"My dear Sisters, as women there is an undeniable tug on our hearts to love. How we each express this is as numerous as there are women on the earth & in history..."
"Hey, sister friend! Can I just tell you how beautiful the concept of “sisterhood” is?!? I remember attending a retreat many years ago..."
I was pregnant with my third baby, but still not a child in my arms. Five weeks of carrying this precious soul and holding onto a thread of hope that perhaps this would be the one.