My vocation is Love

As I sit and prepare for my 5 day retreat, I am bombarded with emotion. My final retreat prior to becoming a postulant starts tomorrow. I have sat and reread my journal entries for over an hour. They cover everything since I have embarked on this journey in January 2016. I cried when I read the sweet note my sister wrote at the beginning of each of the journals and laughed at the short and sweet one my little brother wrote. What I realize is I am truly blessed. My family and friends have touched and impacted my life greatly. I relived the loss of a dear cousin's son, the fear of starting a job teaching, and the joy of each convent visit. I read with deep sorrow, again, of the loss felt by family, friends, students, and my self after Hurricane Harvey, experienced the overwhelming gratitude I felt for friends and family after I entered the affiliate last year, and I relived each and every "normal" day recorded. Today I said goodbye to my 2 goofy pups. I cried and Alex

Today's readings have some pretty strong words and Father talked about our prejudices can hinder us. This struck me quite strongly so here is a bit of what he said along with some of my words of continued reflection.  The first reading today was from the 1st letter of John and had this killer line... "Those who hate his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining." (1 Jn 15). This was followed by the Gospel from St. John with another tough one to hear, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" (Jn 1:46). It may be good to back up and explain what is going on around that 2nd one. If you are unfamiliar with this line- as I was till reflecting on the Gospel reading this morning, Jesus had just called Philip. Philip then turned and tried to recruit Nathanael. Well Nathanael, along with many other people felt that Nazareth was too small and too insignificant (backwoods or boondocks if you will) for the savior of the world to come