The Lord is my Shepherd and the one I want

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. If you had everything you needed and wanted - could you hope for anything more? Would that mean you had no troubles? Having hope doesn`t mean having no problems. It means you can trust the One to handle your problems and never abandon you in them. You shall not want for what? You shall not want for his presence, his love, his safety, his protection and guidance. The Good Shepherd didn`t say we wouldn`t have trouble (he said just the opposite) but we would always have him and he is the One who has overcome the world. This is the Shepherd we want with all our hearts.

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Ahhhh....the easy life?

Who doesn`t want a life of ease and comfort? Who wouldn`t want a calm life free of stress, anxiety, and hard work? Well, if you`re looking for that, rest assured you won`t find it, even in a monastery. You`ll find lots of hard work, of course, and little ease or comfort. As to stress or anxiety? No matter your walk of life, you`ll find some of that. So, if "all we do is pray" sounds overly cozy and pleasant, read on.

We haven`t entered into monastic life to escape the stress and anxiety of the world. We come to this life to enter into a long spiritual combat that consists of our entire lives offered up to Christ for the sanctification of his priests and the needs of the entire world. Combat implies you automatically have an enemy to contend with. Most often that is our own selves, our fallen nature. But when our mission encompasses others, in this case priests, we can`t ignore the enemy outside ourselves whom we know, beyond doubt, is after their Christ-marked souls.

Knowing the devil is after priests, and thus also after all those who pray and sacrifice for them, actually need not cause any stress or anxiety either, because it grants us the calming assurance that every hardship can be transformed into grace purchased for priests. Even the roughest situation can be offered up with tranquility of soul. The `stress-less-ness` of our lives is in this exchange: our little battles for their peace.

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Ever feel like prayer `didn`t work`?

It`s difficult to describe prayer. Imagine the near impossibility of conveying in mere human language what transpires between God and a soul. The cartoon may help disabuse some folks of the notion that nuns have prayer come easy to them or that prayer is only for priests and nuns and not everyone else.

The truth is that not only are all called to an intimate prayer life with the Almighty, but also that achieving this union with the Trinity really isn`t an `achievement` at all. It`s a gift. We don`t do it. We can`t schedule it. We are expected to do our part to cooperate with the grace that God gives in growing in holiness, but it is never solely our doing.

Prayer is communication with God but often we need to remind ourselves that listening to him in silence is far more important than whatever we tell him.

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Asking nuns when they retire or get to go on vacation is like asking a mother when she stops being a mom. As we are, in a very real sense, spiritual mothers, especially of priests, it is true that we don`t take vacations or retire. While that may sound onerous and tiring to some, it is not when examined from the perspective of generosity. Think of it this way: it means that there always will be days full of gifts and graces to offer back to our Savior, to console his Sacred Heart, each moment of our lives, however full and busy they may be. This is just like the moms who never stop giving of themselves all their lives.

And whenever we do feel a little tired, we can look at the tabernacle or the crucifix and remember how much Jesus gave us. He gave us himself. With him, we can continue serving until he chooses to call us home. #sisterreginacomicstrip ...

You’ve probably seen or heard about Catholics filing into a movie theater and genuflecting at their row of seats. In monasteries, nuns can also get into a routine of picking up visual or physical cues and moving accordingly before realizing what we’re doing. Standing and bowing at the end of chanting a psalm is usually done together. But not always. A sudden move or sound can set off the entire Chapel in a sort of religious wave of standing, bending, and bowing bodies until we can get back in sync. Another example of God’s sense of humor. #sisterreginacomicstrip ...