How Three Saints Helped Me Figure Out What Was Most Important to Me

During these last couple of days (really, weeks) of my *number redacted* year of life, one question keeps coming up:

“What’s most important to you?”

It started a few weeks ago when I knew that the direction my novel was headed was not the one I wanted to take it. A lot of writers say, “I started it like this but the characters developed and the story changed so I went with it.” And it’s true. Most of the time, we start off with an idea and it develops into something else… but that doesn’t mean we have to keep it that way if it’ll betray the original message/theme. I couldn’t continue writing novel four knowing, deep down, that I couldn’t write this particular story without a key element that was necessary. That’s all I’ll say to keep spoilers out. 

It was interesting that at the same time, I could hear Christ inviting me to spend more time with Him. I wanted more time in adoration, even if it was through virtual means. I wanted to dive deeper into Scripture in a way I had never done, not even as a Biblical Theology grad student. I just wanted more time with Him, so much so that I’ve even started dreaming about him and surprising saints I knew nothing about until I woke up and Googled them. 

Jesus. St. Benedict. St. Joan of Arc. St. Angela Merici. They have been my companions during this time. Each teaches me a different thing that is helping me answer the question: what’s most important to me.

With St. Benedict, it’s the importance of obedience and silence. Being obedient to help root out the sin of pride and to foster humility. I will never forget hearing that demons and the devil never appear with knees because kneeling is a sign of humility, which they lack and hate. As for silence, while God has given me a gift for words (or so I’ve been told), I’ve often gotten into trouble because of these words that I sometimes don’t think through. I also can’t hear the voice of my Beloved if I have all the excess background noise drowning him out.

St. Joan of Arc is teaching me about courage and piety. I’m still learning more about her — something I should’ve done the day I found out my birthday fell on her feast day — but I can’t help be in awe of the incredible courage she had. To lead an army at such a young age, at a time when it was unheard of a woman fighting for her country and, really, God. To have the courage to do God’s will and do it with such humility and piety is something that I’m still light years from achieving. Knowing that being a consecrated virgin will mean being more “public” and a visual representation of the Church (in a way), means I’m going to have to have St. Joan-like courage as the Church and the vocation are under constant attacks.

St. Angela Merici is teaching me how to cultivate the virtues I’ll need to live a life as a consecrated virgin. Did you know that the young women who joined the order she founded had to be consecrated virgins? I didn’t! Not religious but living in the world and helping shape young women to raise holy families and future saints. She emphasized celibacy, obedience, and poverty, all of which have become important to me, even before I started learning more about her. I’ve also been struck by her love of Christ. 

And all these saints lead me back to Christ. What’s most important to me? To always have Christ in my heart and on my mind. Each of the aforementioned saints lead me back to Christ and the vocation of consecrated virginity. 

I want to dive deeper into Scripture to better know and understand the Faith. 

I want to spend more time with Jesus because, just as a young woman in love, I want to get to know Him better and unite my heart more closely to His. 

I want to learn to be more obedient to both God’s Will and in preparation of what my bishop will ask of me as a CV. 

I want to learn to embrace more silence as it’s the only way I will be able to clearly hear the voice of my Beloved. 

I want to learn to be courageous as I will need to stop running away from anything that remotely resembles disagreement. 

I cannot be a CV and run away from hard questions and a harder (but incredibly fulfilling) way of life that attracts ridicule and disdain. 

I need to learn to cultivate the virtues that will help me both in my relationship with Christ and in my vocation. I cannot be a CV and bring scandal to the Church through either my words or my actions. 

For the tl;dr crowd: what’s most important to me is Christ and my vocation. I want to live my life in a way that honors Him. I want to spend eternity with Him. I want to do God’s will with obedience and humility, both of which I’ll have to struggle to do all my life as I’ve always been incredibly independent and have a strong rebellious streak when I feel forced to do something I don’t want. And pride? That will always be a struggle as well as it can come up in a variety of ways.

Anyway, just a few thoughts bouncing around in my mind these days. 

I’m going to try to embrace a little bit more of that silence on this last day of Rogation before Ascención Thursday so I’ll end my post here. 

I hope you’re all doing well! 

As always, thanks for reading and God bless!