Adore

Discerning a religious life for any young man or woman can often be frustrating as rewarding, as spiritually challenging as spiritually inspiring.

Discernment, however, is not just a one day process but takes time, praying for what the Lord is asking of a person. But whether a young man is ordained to the priesthood or a young woman professes final vows or someone elects for the vocation of marriage or even a single life, one should never stop asking the Lord what he wants and to be open to hearing his voice.

That was the message delivered to 15 young women who recently gathered for an ADORE retreat at Cypress Springs Mecedarian Retreat Center in Baton Rouge. The day-long retreat, the first of its kind in the Diocese of Baton Rouge, is designed for women discerning a religious life.

Those in attendance were not only offered the opportunity to mingle and meet with women religious, they were also treated to inspirational talks by Kathleen Lee-Higgins, a religion teacher at Our Lady of Mercy school in Baton Rouge, and Father Brent Maher, pastor at St. Agnes Church in Baton Rouge. Lee-Higgins and Father Maher blended humor with their own personal experiences to deliver powerful yet inspirational messages.

“Our partner in vocation is holiness, it is the fundamental call,” said Father Maher. “That is the starting piece, that’s the hard work of religious life, of discernment.

“The whole of discernment, the whole of vocation in whatever way of life is just a call to walk with the Lord and to listen to his voice.”

He explained discernment is getting to know Jesus, which is admittedly difficult but even in silence God speaks to everyone through prayer and his words.

“Know that God is sometimes quiet, but he speaks to us, in the  Scriptures particularly,” Father Maher said. “And this is one of the ways we can get to know him, through Scripture, through adoration, through our various prayers. 

“And it’s that place where God wants to get to know you. It takes time and it takes listening, and that’s part of the discernment. Discernment is sifting.”

That sifting, he said takes time but God will help individuals to understand their own lives better during this time.

“That is the wonderful piece of discernment, just that relationship with our Lord and that is able to take place and continue to grow.”

Lee-Higgins told the young women “some of you come from places where you’ve discernment and know that maybe religious life is a possibility.”

“Others may come from the point ‘I have no idea what the Lord wants for me.’ “

“It’s awesome that you would be here on a Saturday considering any kind of discernment in general,” she said. “I want you to be able to say yes to the time, a moment to reflect on some of these things, and when have time for reflection there is not like a certain answer you have to have. 

“I also don’t want you to be frustrated if you have no answer.”

“Look, I got married two weeks ago and I’m still like ‘Lord is that what you want in my life,” she said, drawing chuckles. 

Lee-Higgins, who has a bachelor’s degree in theology and is working on her master’s, recalled how she was raised across the street from the church she attended and was part of the youth group. At one point in her life, she did consider becoming a nun and at the urging of a friend spent a weekend at the Nashville Dominican motherhouse in Nashville, Tennessee. 

In her own uniquely humorous manner that resonated with the young people, she explained that early in the weekend she realized that a vocational life was not her calling.

“What I gained from it, I said yes to the weekend and the Lord was very clear this is not for you,” Lee-Higgins said. “But the whole rest of that weekend was learning how to discern, how to be open. It was not like a wasted  weekend. It was the Lord saying ‘you said yes and I’m going to give you so much more fruit out of this weekend even though it’s not where you are supposed to be.

“You don’t discern for one day and you find out what you want to do.”

She asked the ladies to focus on Mary, saying her words, as few as they are in Scripture, which are inspirational to Lee-Higgins. She said one of the first things Mary did as a young woman was to say yes when the angel Gabriel appeared to her, telling her she was to be the mother to Jesus. 

“That was her fiat,” Lee-Higgins said. “Today you’re here, this is your fiat.”

From that point, Mary’s life magnified the Lord in everything  she did.  

“Even in our  discernment does everything we do magnify the Lord?,” Lee-Higgins said. “Do we want to answer God’s call in our life or do we do it for ourselves?”

She said there are times when people ask the Lord what he wants and “we listen and say ‘you’re out of your mind.’ So some of you in your discernment sometimes the Lord asks you do so nutso things. 

“Mary tells us do whatever he tells you to do.”

She also used her own career to explain how he will not call anyone to do something that will make them miserable. Lee-Higgins had no intention of pursuing a career in education, even though her mother is principal at St. Michael the Archangel Regional High School in Baton Rouge.

But through the Lord’s intervention she is now teaching religion to young children.

No matter one’s career, however, she said each person’s  primary vocation is the call to be holy, and when honoring that vocation, it becomes much easier to say yes to what God calls one to do. 

“The Lord knows our heart,” Lee-Higgins said.

During the retreat, members of the recently formed Diocesan Vocation Team were praying in the nearby chapel. Typically the team prays without being heard by anyone but God, according to member Rozalyn Duplantis, but the ADORE retreat was different, the first when the team’s visible presence was needed. 

“While praying for the girls I felt so filled by God’s grace,” she said. “I didn’t want to leave. My prayer was answered when Mass started and I was able to stay a little longer with Jesus.”

“My prayer is that all of the girls were able to come away with a deeper relationship to Christ so that he can lead them to the vocation he calls them to,” she added.

“Discernment can be a daunting thing, it is daunting, but it’s my firm conviction that if we stay close to Jesus in prayer, and if we honestly seek his will he will lead us where we are supposed to be,” Father Maher said. “Seek Christ and he will do the rest.”