Transcendence

What in your family life opened you to the transcendent? What in your family life challenged or deformed your understanding of the transcendent?

One definition of transcendent that I read this was “of God, apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material universe.” My sisters and I attended and completed CCD and received the sacraments. Mom made sure that we went to the weekly classes at the parish. How we practiced the faith was less than faithful, though. We went to Mass as a family on Easter and Christmas; Mom included Palm Sunday in that list, too. She was vocal about her issues with the teaching of the Catholic Church, particularly when it came to divorce and being pro-life.  We were encouraged by her example to doubt and question the Church. Looking back, the environment of my childhood was pretty secular. The practice of religion wasn’t part of my daily life, not at home or at school, since I went to public school. I had some extended family who were devout Catholic, and I did see them sometimes.

I was raised with clear values, though. Mom was strict about us sticking to those values.  She believed strongly that family members should be loyal to each other. As children grow up, it tends to become less attractive to spend time with younger siblings, but she made sure that we looked out for each other. She valued honesty and hard work, too. She was strict about most everything, but we always knew that we were safe, and that she could find a way to help in any situation.

She was an immensely practical woman. It was at least partly born of necessity. She was a single, working mother, who raised us alone. Dad paid child support and had visitation, but was pretty unreliable. She must have envisioned, in the advanced placement classes that I was taking and the grades that I received, a better life for me.  She became a cheerleader for my future. She would strongly extol the value of having a competitive, successful career, and put down other options.  I emerged from this environment with high self-esteem and a very defined sense of identity.

The first challenge to this mindset came when I was in college.  I became active in Campus Ministry, and did a lot of volunteering. I discovered the value of giving and receiving from others. I experienced God’s call for the first time, through service to His people. It made me want to devote my life to helping others, and I decided to get my Masters in Elementary Education. It was a different choice than I was raised to make; I was inspired and it felt right.  My big career path was turning out to be more narrow than it had seemed, with less freedom than I thought. When I was in initial formation, I was challenged to question and broaden that identity more. That process was painful, but ultimately truly transcendent, as I grew in receptivity to God’s will.

I wasn’t raised to consider religious life—or even to be religious, period. But the limitations of what I was raised to consider important or normal quickly became apparent to me as I reached adulthood. I didn’t want to pursue secular goals; I had experienced how shallow they were.  I loved to go to church because it was one place that I could truly dream. The one place where everything seemed hopeful and full of possibility: the world, the future, and me, too.

My family was mostly confused by my decision to enter the Felician Sisters. They weren’t surprised, but still, they didn’t really understand the lifestyle. They were willing to ask questions and I was willing to answer them, though. Over the years since then, too, they’ve been journeying with me. They’ve seen that I’m happy and that’s important to them. They also understand better what it means to live in community. My life as part of a religious community is definitely different from my upbringing, but my family did prepare me for it in one way: I have always known what it meant to be a part of a community that cared for each other and was there for one another through thick and thin.