This post continues our series of Vocation Letters from our fictional novice, Sister Mary Rosaria. Though there have been some temporal gaps, we pick up the thread of her story midway through her second year in the novitiate.
Ave + Maria
January 25, Conversion of St. Paul
Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul
Dear Mom and Dad,
Greetings in Jesus and Mary on this feast of St. Paul! What an apostle he was, filled to overflowing with zeal for the salvation of souls! No wonder our Holy Father St. Dominic loved St. Paul so much and carried his epistles around with him everywhere (along with the Gospel of St. Matthew, and the writings of Cassian on the monastic life). Our great Dominican St. Catherine of Siena, too, who was on fire for souls herself, speaks of St. Paul in ardent words as a vessel of love filled with fire for the salvation of souls. This is such a shining part of our Dominican vocation!
The section of our Custom Book “On Our Interior Life,” written in the 1890’s by the original Dominican Sisters of the Perpetual Rosary, speaks so beautifully of that “zeal for souls which we consider as the marrow of our interior life.” This is one of the elements that drew me powerfully to the Dominican Order. I know I have been here in the monastery more than two years, but I am really coming to appreciate it now all over again.
When Mother shares with us the many prayer requests people send, for health, for jobs, for loved ones who have left the Church, for situations of such anguish, or when I hear of the various grave needs of the Church and the world, how could my heart not be moved like the heart of St. Dominic! He not only sold his own books to buy food for the poor during a famine, but also spend innumerable nights in prayer crying out before the Lord, “What will become of sinners!” Hearing all these intentions inspires me to give myself more fully to God with greater generosity and fidelity in our life, and to beg Him for mercy for all people to bring them to salvation.
St. Paul said he would even wish to be damned himself if by this his brethren could be saved. How many of our own Dominican saints have experienced equal ardor in their zeal for souls! St. Catherine wanted to be a rock stuck in the mouth of hell to prevent souls from falling in! In our own cloistered way here we are sharing in this great longing of Jesus, Mary, and the saints, for the salvation of all.
Of course I keep you all in my prayers too, every day. Please pray for me, that I may continue to grow as a daughter of St. Dominic with his great zeal for souls.
With prayers in Our Lady,
Sister Mary Rosaria
You might also like:
- How fictional is fictional, anyway?
- Learn more about the Novitiate on our Stages in Formation page, or Life as a Novice in our last Vocation Letter.
- Could this be your vocation? Learn more here or come and see.