Surprising Grace

On September 21, FCJ sisters and our friends marked the launch of our bicentenary year - a year in which we celebrate 200 years since the founding of what Marie Madeleine - our foundress - called "this little Society". She was convinced that the Society came about by God's grace and would be sustained by it. Two hundred years later, those of us who have been drawn to each other in this Society have lived our life and mission in vastly different ways and contexts. Marie Madeleine and her sisters, who ministered to poor children of cotton pickers in Europe of the 1800s, could scarcely have imagined the Society setting foot in some of the lands we FCJs now come from. As we turn the page into a new chapter for the Society, perhaps it would be interesting for us to ask, "What does it mean to be an FCJ in this time in our history?" Of course, everyone in their particular contexts would have a different answer... though woven through them all perhaps w...

(This post is continued from How to Discern a Vocation to Religious Life: Part I ) Of course, we aren’t always in touch with what our deep desires are in the first place. What often preoccupy us are the shrill and incessant voices of what I will call our “surface” desires (for chips and chocolates). One of the things that helped me in my process of discernment, then, was cultivating my awareness of what was going on inside me. (I’ve written about this before in a blog post on getting in touch with the daily “movements” of our hearts .) To continue the story then: once the two-month period I had given myself had passed, besides gathering information about various congregations of religious sisters, I also started a practice known in Catholic circles as “spiritual direction”, in which I talked to someone regularly about my spiritual life, and this person helped me to notice and become more aware of how I was experiencing God’s action in my daily life. In addition, I went to retrea...

A while ago a reader of this blog asked me, “How did you discern that religious life was for you?” As we have talked a little about discerning life choices here on this blog, I thought I might post my response here too and add to that conversation. Do feel free to leave comments or write back about your own thoughts or experiences. ***** Dear Reader, Your question reminds me of a rather interesting conversation my community had earlier this year at the dinner table when one of our sisters said that someone had asked her, “How do you know if you are called to religious life?” The four of us at the table started sharing our own stories of coming to that awareness. We were each from different countries, with age differences spanning 45 years, but surprisingly enough, while the details of each person’s journey varied widely, we noticed some common threads running through each one. The first was that each of us at some point felt a desire for religious life. While some peop...

Community Day 2018: A pictorial representation of our vision / direction statement for 2018, which says: “ Celebrate hope, peace and justice through companionship. ” In the community where I live now, there are 9 of us from 4 different countries. I have been very grateful for my experiences in this community and for the people in it who are to me examples of generosity and loving service – and witnesses also to the importance of fun and humour in daily life. My younger brother came to stay with us for a week back in December when I was about to make my first vows. On the last day he said, “I thought this week of living in a convent with sisters was going to be very difficult – but it turned out to be so much fun!” His statement reminded me of my own surprise the first time I visited an FCJ community. I suppose what I had in mind was the image of serious, holy nuns in habits praying in choir… but the group of smart, capable, funny, joyful motorbike-riding women that I met ama...

Who are you, and what is this blog for? I think I owe it to you all – who are considering investing time in reading this – to try to answer that. As I was wondering how to do that, another question that I am often asked popped into mind. This one goes,  “Why did you decide to become a nun?”  The two are related, really. Yes, I am a Catholic sister in a society called the Faithful Companions of Jesus (FCJ). I don’t often like to use the word “nun” when people where I come from (Singapore) ask what I do. Technically, “nun” means someone who lives a cloistered life in a monastery, (which I do not); and “sister” means someone who also takes religious vows but actively ministers outside the convent (which I do). But to most people (and in common parlance) all Catholic religious women are “nuns”. So when I try to describe myself as a “sister” to the non-Catholics who make up most of my acquaintance, usually after a bit of confusion people end up saying anyway: “You mean you’...