Domine, si tu es, iube me venire ad te super aquas […] et continuo Iesus extendens manum adprehendit eum et ait illi: modicae fidei, quare dubitasti?
Matthew 14:28;31
Last Sunday’s reading portrayed Saint Peter asking the Lord to command him to come to Him to walk on the stormy waters. Peter then doubted and cried out to the Lord to save him. The Lord then lovingly reproached him as He took him by the arm: man of little faith, why did you doubt?
I later prayed about this conversation and asked the Lord, “In which area of my heart did I start doubting?” My attention was drawn to when I had to leave the convent in May 2020.
This moment in time is etched in my memory as one of the most painful periods of my life, which was preceded and followed by profound psychological and spiritual turmoil. This ended with me having to pause my vocational journey (or so I thought). I have often returned to it over the past 6 years, with an ambivalent attitude and outlook – sometimes wishing it never happened, other times being grateful it did.
However, in this instance, it was as if the Lord made me understand that how I approached leaving the convent made all the difference. Leaving the UK and a budding career for the convent could be likened to stepping out onto the waters towards Jesus. When I left, it was as if I took my eyes off the Lord and allowed myself to drown in the deeper waters of doubt, shame and failure. Quare dubitasti?
Perhaps I didn’t have to believe I had to pause my vocational discernment. Unlike Peter, I realise that I didn’t dare cry out to the Lord. I didn’t think about saying: salvum me fac! Save me, Lord! Save my vocation! Secretly and shamefully, I carried these stunted desires in my heart for all these years: something I wouldn’t dare to visit or acknowledge.
I didn’t leave the convent with the Lord, holding on to Him in my pain and confusion, with trust and hope; I left, turning it all into more food for my self-fulfilling insecurities – ultimately forgetting that tender sense of a call. I doubted, and those doubts took root. Thankfully, I still kept my faith, but I allowed deep wounds to fester.
I spent the last 5 years before last year pushing aside, freezing, any thought about religious life; segregating my desires to be parked for an unknown future when discernment could resume again.
All of this because I doubted and lost sight of the Lord in the storms of life.
Since last year, things have been better. I have had ups and downs, but I have at last been on a journey back to myself – starting to believe again that my desires had purpose, starting to feel I could live that life. It remains hard for me to fully accept that I have a vocation and it is not just my head, as feelings of inadequacy still plague me, amongst other things.
I may never get there in this life.
However, I’m starting to allow the Lord to come through to me. I feel I must accept that what is in my heart is not just wishful thinking, but a God-given call for a different life.
It may be too late for me now.
But I allow the Lord to tell me: “You doubted your vocation when, in that pain, you lost sight of Me”.
Perhaps, Lord, I’m yet to look into thy gaze fully. Accedite ad eum, et illuminamini; et facies vestrae non confundentur (Psalms 33:6). Help me, sweet Master, to look at you well, and to cry out, “Save me! Confirm my vocation! Save me from my doubts! I’m yours, I belong to you!” I am but a small thing, but I belong to you.
Domine, iube me venire ad Te super aquas.