Got the official acceptance!

Hello Everyone,
I got a call the other day from the Carmelites (out in Buffalo) and I have officially been accepted! We are still working on specific dates (because I still have student loans) but it looks like June or Julyish. I have also been extremely blessed because I only have about $2000 left on my loans. God has been working miracles! Please pray for me, did I mention that? Yeah....I need 'em. Things are getting real. I am praying for you all as well!

Carmel of Buffalo

Update!

Well, thanks to many generous people in many states as well as parishioners at St. Mary's in Sycamore and St. Patrick's in Havana and Immaculate Conception in Manito I have raised around $6300! That brings the grand total debt left to $16729! Still a little away, but making way! I am excited to get to share a little of what God has been doing in my life at all these parishes too. I have two more parishes in the next couple of weeks and I am ready to sell some more prints. Thank you again to all for your support, please continue to pray.

Not a lame thermometer....

Buy this print and send me to the Carmelites

Maria, Queen of Heaven, Mother of the Church, pray for us
Buy Now

I wanted to tell you all a little about this print. I chose to create this image of Mary because a couple of years ago I prayed a rosary novena giving my entire vocation into the hands of the Mother of God. I have complete confidence that she not only knows better than I do what I need but that she will present me to her Son, just as she did at the wedding at Cana. I also wanted this image to be a reminder to those who purchase it that she does the same for them. And that in a similar way, we also need to pray for one another. This print has been one of my favorite pieces. The print itself is 12" by 15" I have a goal of selling about 1000 to pay off all of my student loans, but with my job(s) and some generous people, perhaps it will be less! I greatly desire to enact God's will quickly and so I need your help to do that. Please consider purchasing one for yourself, for a friend, and sharing this with everyone you know, perhaps even putting this in your parish bulletin. I also have a website where you can purchase other prints or original works of art at OremusProInvicem.com. You are all in my prayers, please pray for me.

Now What's All This About?

That could be me up there! But not yet, no habit, no vows, just a desire to do God's will and to be completely His alone. What's the hold up? Well, that's what this whole thing is about. I am currently paying off my student loans in order to join religious life, and it is slow going when your only desire is hindered by money....lame. So, God has given me this artistic talent and a great love for him and for prayer and so I wanted to share that with others. The way I see it, that's what it's for. Love, vocation, talents, yes, they are for me but they are also part of the church. 

In order for me to enter religious life I have to have all of my student loans payed off. This is a way in which you can share in my vocation. By purchasing one of my prints you can help me come closer to living in a more radical way for Him. I also like to think of it as a reminder to pray for me (often!) and a recognition that my life is devoted to praying for you, a way to share in prayer! I also chose this image very specifically because I owe my vocation as well to the love of Our Lady. She is a very loving and because of that very powerful intercessor and I could think of no better way to honor her than to make her the image on which my vocation rests. I probably have about 1000 to sell before I will be completely free, but maybe less! It is all in her hands. I also have other works that you can see and purchase on my portfolio website. Below this you can read a little more about how God has worked in my life. And below that is a little donation button if God is calling you to help in that way. May God bless and reward you for your many prayers and generosity.

If You Are Interested....Here's How It Went

Ah... The vocation story. 

Well, I suppose it's the only story I want to share; it is, after all, a story of how God has worked profoundly in my life. But then again, it's such an inexplicable thing that it seems impossible to say anything. So. What is to be done? For the Lord God, I will try to put some words down, but I can't promise you anything. 

For the Lord God. For the Lord God. That is truly at the heart of it; doing, seeing, being...pro Domino Deo. Where does my vocation come from? From the Lord, God himself. That is seriously some crazy stuff. I mean, really... Really? God wants me, for himself? Alone, for no one else? 

What for? Why would he want that?

For Himself, to be a sacrifice of praise, forever. See, here's the thing. I'm a little obsessed with the Eternal. How eternal a thing is determines a lot of how much I love something. You see now why I love God, but my vocation is first of all about God's love for me. I desire my response to this eternal Love to be an eternal response. Hence, the nun thing.

But I guess I haven't said anything yet...sorry. 

It begins with an indelible mark on my soul, you know, baptism. Then came years and years. It began again with a discovery of prayer when I started my freshman year of college. I had started going to Eucharistic Adoration everyday and there was something there that I had missed before: the vast and mysterious presence of one who wanted to reveal Himself to me through my sufferings in order to show me more profoundly that he was IT. Being, One, the ONLY thing. There was nothing else after that. I would follow him.

The story, the story, I know...I'll try to get back to it. Well, around this time I met a woman who was herself discerning (first person I had ever met..."people still do that?") I said that I had also wanted to be a nun for a long time. I look back now and I ask if I had said a true thing. It had actually not entered my mind and I knew next to null about nuns, but still...It was a true statement; I had always desired it, I had not always known what it was. 

Here comes the part were I visit a ton of orders and the years of heartache and joy, doubt and certainty. But every retreat, every moment of prayer has taught me more about God's love and the shape of my soul into which God places that love. I think that know I am beginning to understand faith. And it seems like I might know less about "God's will" but more at the same time. The most obvious things are very hard to understand. In any case, I know God takes care of me; there's no other reason for me to be where I am with the crazy events of the last couple of years.

In this time I also finished school (even though it was not the same school as when this all began) and there you see the reason for the student loans. I received great formation and went to some classes at our Newman center that deepened my love and understanding of God and religious life. And prayer, always prayer was at the center of my day. That interior world, far more real than anything that I have ever experienced is at the heart of my vocation as well. Sure, I love the poverty. There is something exciting about relying on God for everything, but the interior poverty is key. The liturgy, don't get me started on how much I love the liturgy (and rightly so, it is eternal after all) but the interior prayer, that union with God will always be the only thing.

So...Is that it? No, but even if I were to relate to you all the twists and turns it would not give the real essence of my vocation anyway. Pro Domino Deo. Zelo zelatus sum pro Domino Deo Exercituum. "With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts." The Carmelite motto, the words of Elijah I hope to become true for myself in this interior discovery of where God has hidden himself within me. In this way I can fulfill my vocation to be his alone.


Well, you probably still have no idea what I'm talking about, but you made it all the way through! You are the strongest and the most virtuous to have completed the task ;) God reward ya! Please continue to pray for me, I will pray for you. Oremus pro invicem.