Our grown up joy is dependent upon our grown up choices.

We looked at our own “Divine Order,” early in Cor Unum, and realized that, divine or otherwise, there is an order to our days. No matter how DISORDERLY they may seem sometimes, certain patterns are in place.

We realized that we let the dog out, have our coffee, the read the paper, bring the dog in, take a shower and get ready for work. Or we turn on the radio or television and sit before it with a bowl of oatmeal, then call an early-rising friend, put in a load of laundry, and head for the gym. Or we wake up, we begin to praise our God with the first thoughts in our minds and the first words from our lips; we take up our Bibles, we practice a few moments of stillness, of waiting upon God, we give Him thanks before the newspaper is read.

When the new postulant enters the monastery, she knows she will have order to her days, she knows it will be one “office” after another, prescribed by someone else, for as long as she lives, but she wants it all. Hers is an order that gives her the greatest opportunity to make sure all the aspects of worship and prayer, meditation, praise, repentance and celebration are fitted into each day.   She wants both to WALK WITH GOD continually and devotedly and to APPEAR BEFORE THE THRONE OF GRACE, daily, repeatedly, purposefully, all the days of her life. She chooses to live in heaven, to live on the earth, to live cloistered with God.

Do we want other than that, here in Cor Unum? No! We want exactly that, and for those things we are come into this monastery.

Any professed nun will concede that to become a monastic in this way, in our way here in Cor Unum, is the truly HARD WAY! Without an Abbess, without a “rule,” except the one we ourselves implement, without a barrier against distractions, without extern sisters to protect our Divine Office, we must provide all those things from within, through wisdom, by way of self-discipline and devotion and persistence . . . and even through failure!   Failure that results in redirection and multiplied effort and determination is hardly failure at all!

God bless our day in Cor Unum! God bless us to bring our lives into a devotion that satisfies HIS heart!