Undercover OPCarm

VEE:

As neither of us are actual religious Sisters we are still as Catholics called to preach the Gospel. This is the vocation of everyone, to know, love, and serve God and to help others to do the same. I think in a way we as lay people have the harder vocation. We dont have a community of Sisters, a Mother Superior, grand silence etc. We have our own poor judgement and the world to contend with. We share our lives with people who dont instantly shut up at 9pm. We dont have classrooms of young eager minds to teach, instead we have co workers of all kinds to deal with. We dont have habits that people can see and think "oooh a nun" and possibly be nicer to us. The only cell we have is the "cell of the heart" as St Catherine of Siena put it.

DS:

I think its even harder when you've been there, living your religious vocation, and then you are forced back into the world. Nothing can compare to the peace and the structure and the graces of religious life. But at the same time, as I am now called to live out in the world, those graces are still up for grabs...its just much harder now to obtain them. How does one love God while struggling with the temptations of our modern age? How does one love their neighbor when you most of the time want to punch their lights out? It's all in the balance, and the figuring out who you are...and what road are you going to travel...the one more often trampled on that leads to hell, or the narrow abandoned one that leads to God?

The Christian of this age is persecuted, buffeted by all sides, hated, spit upon, looked upon with disdain...Christ experienced nothing less... and as He says, "No servant is greater than the Master..." and, "They hated me first."

Together, with Jesus, we need to "fight the good fight" and not give up lest we succumb to the darkness...hopefully our witness will effect those around us as we "preach" the Gospel. This war of good vs. evil that the world is locked in, is being fought on the frontlines, not only by those wearing religious habits, but those of us who are "incognito"---in the "undercover" plain-ness of our simple civies.