A Year in Carmel, A Year of Motherhoood: Three Lessons Both Vocations Share

This month, we celebrated my daughter’s first birthday of my little girl. As I looked back at the past 12 months, I thought of how this was the same amount of time I had spent in the monastery. Such different years, and yet I found some similarities. Although the vocation of motherhood with all its unpredictability is quite different than the strictly ordered life of a nun, there were three things that both years had pushed me to grow in: surrender, cultivating a prayerful disposition, and embracing solitude and silence.

Surrender

One can easily see that the life of a nun is one of total surrender - those in religious life follow the humble road of obedience, adhering to the daily schedule set for them, and completing the tasks assigned to them. Little is left to one's own choosing in this vocation. During my year at the monastery, I came to a greater understanding of the beauty and eternal value of this surrender. I had to let go of my ideas of how to become holy, and instead more deeply and deliberately apply myself to the task of each moment, however little and simple it was, embracing it as God's will, and therefore as the path to true holiness.

When I became a mother, I found that the same surrender was required of me. I could plan out my day however I wished, but a crying infant who needed me would very often bring my perfect plan to a screeching halt. At first, I found myself frustrated and discouraged, trying desperately to keep my baby happy and also check off my to do list in a timely manner. But then I realized that, just as in the Carmelite monastery, I was being asked to surrender - to let go of my plans and my will, and embrace what my vocation was asking of me in the moment...and that often meant setting aside the chore or the handiwork that I was attempting, and sitting with my baby to nurse and hold her. Once I came to the realization that motherhood required just as much surrender as being a nun, and that that surrender was my path to holiness, I was filled with deep peace. Instead of baby cries pulling me from my work, they were pulling me towards God's will, and I found joy in offering my surrender.

Cultivating a Prayerful Disposition

You may think that a nun naturally has a prayerful disposition, and while it is true that being in a monastery is conducive to being in a prayerful state, one can just as easily get caught up in daily tasks and forget to remain rooted in God throughout the whole day. There were many little things that were part of life at the monastery to help keep us united to God - holy water fonts in every doorway; the habit of signing oneself with the cross before each new task and offering it to God; the custom of saying "Praised be Jesus Christ" to greet each other as we passed throughout the day. I learned that it took practice, deliberate effort, and determination to remain always at the feet of Christ in your heart; I also learned how greatly it contributed to intimacy with Christ and therefore growth in holiness.

As a mother, there is far less time one can set aside for more formal prayer, and therefore it is all the more crucial for a mother to make a prayerful disposition habitual. Little things like short whispered prayers, spiritual reading instead of scrolling while nursing or doing a contact nap, a loving glance at a painting of the Sacred Heart as I pass it in the hall, choosing to quietly listen to the birds outside while folding the laundry instead of turning music on...these small choices can help build a prayerful heart, a heart that is a true little cloister where we converse with God in the midst of the many demands of motherhood.

Embracing Solitude and Silence

The way of Carmelite nuns is a path centered on silence and solitude. Though I didn't mind at all being confined to the cloister grounds, separated from the outside world, I did struggle a bit more with the solitude within the walls, as silence was observed most of each day. This solitude and silence, however, created a space for God to fill, and my mind and heart grew clearer and more in tune with God the more withdrawn they became from external busyness. I slowly learned to fill the solitude with prayer, quiet walks on Sundays and in the evenings, and reading, though I still struggled with it.

This struggle with silence and solitude, as well as the call to it, has followed me into motherhood. As a full time stay at home mom, there is a silence and solitude during my husband's work hours when it's just the baby and I home. I often find myself reaching for my phone, looking through my contacts to see who might be available for a chat (sorry for all the long calls, Mom, haha). When I'm nap trapped, my first impulse is to scroll on my phone or turn a show on. This tendency in me to avoid or fill silence and solitude, which in this twenty-first century I dare to say most people have, is something that both life in the cloister and life as a stay and home mom brought front and center. Lately I've been trying to deliberately embrace silence and the solitude of a stay-at-home mom - choosing to not make that call or turn on that music or show but rather find peace in the stillness of the moment, opening my heart to God's presence and voice.

Cloister and motherhood...two such different paths, and yet they both gave opportunity for some of the same virtues to grow in my soul. If I've learned anything in the past year, looking at it in the light of my year in Carmel, it is that most undoubtedly, every vocation, lived with full generosity, can lead one to great holiness.