An old Irish nun died in Ceylon a few years ago. In her last illness that splendid woman was able to calculate that, in the course of a very long life, she had actually baptized with her own hand no fewer than twentythree thousand souls. That woman was an idealist. As a girl like me, she set her ideals high. She never met a man who measured up fully to what she sought. Perhaps she was foolish, and perhaps the ideal was a mere figment of her own mind? Not so. Only Christ could reach up to her high expectations. She found, indeed, that He surpassed them infinitely.
A girl was resting between whiles during a dance. As she sat there, the idea seemed suddenly to seize upon her how empty and unsatisfying a life she was living. A sense of almost nausea took hold of her. She too was an idealist and on that eventful night the truth was borne in upon her that what she was hungering for was a life of complete devotion to Jesus Christ.
This is, by no means, to say that every good girl should become a nun. That would leave the world in sorry plight. But it is certain that a girl's mind and heart and spirit of selfsurrender will find in religious life, if lived as He means it to be lived, an ideal that will fill one's innermost being with profoundest satisfaction. A lovely young girl, with plenty of worldly prospects, entered a missionary Order to the great amazement of her companions. She wrote back and told them she had one regretthat she had needlessly postponed her entry by two years.
Our Lord, in putting these ideas before me here at my place of prayer, intends no more than that I should realize what tremendous issues are at stake in the decision I make. What would have become of those twentythree thousand souls if that nun, when a girl like me, had considered that the world was far too gay and pleasant a place to leave in order to lock oneself up behind the forbidding walls of a somber convent? And, in the inscrutable designs of divine Providence, how many more souls, perhaps again thousands of them, are depending for their eternal salvation on what I do with my life?
It is a very searching question.
A young girl appears for a moment in the twelfth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Her name was Rhode. Peter had been delivered miraculously from prison by the hand of an angel. He came to the house where he knew he would find his friends and knocked. Rhode came to open the door but, as soon as she recognized the voice of Peter, she ran back to the room, in a transport of joy with the good news. The people told her, bluntly, she was mad. It could not be Peter, for he was in prison; Rhode must have seen his angel! Meantime Peter continued knocking, for the girl, in her excitement, had forgotten to let him in.
It is, in a way, only a trifling incident. But it has its significance. Peter's successor is ever insisting that we do something for him, that we cooperate with him in his immense work for the Church, that we pray for him, that we share his gigantic burden of responsibility by our zealous works for the souls loved and redeemed by Our Lord. It is a tremendous honor to be asked by Christ's representative to do such things, because, of course, the Holy Father asks in the name of Our Lord and only in His interests. Like Peter, he keeps knocking. Rhode forgot to open, but through no lack of good will. Our Lord sees plenty of good will in me, a Catholic girl; let me use it for Him.
Of course, the completest consecration to His interests is in religious life. He may confer upon me the supreme compliment of asking that surrender from me. I ought to pray He will, more especially if I am rather fearful lest He hear me. "Fear not," He will whisper, "for I have redeemed thee, and called thee by thy name. Thou art Mine." Nothing to fear, but much to rejoice for, much to thank Him for. Even eternity will not be long enough to discharge my debt of gratitude.
Jesus, send forth Your light and direct me in this allimportant choice. Like Peter walking on the waves, I am fearful of taking this step; I am inclined even to shirk thinking about it. Do You say to me also: "Why are you fearful, you of little faith?" Mother of Good Counsel, tell me what to do. Does Jesus call me His friend, and does He bid me "go up higher"?