It was around 8:00 pm and my last night at the Monastery. I knew I had gone as far as I could in the religious life and I decided it was time to leave. I had everything packed. Our Major Superior was gone overseas for a few weeks so the Father in charge announced to the brothers after evening prayer that I would be leaving tomorrow. He let me say goodbye to each one. I was in a small visitor’s room as one by one each brother came in to say goodbye. Some seemed shocked and confused, others angry, which made me feel like I was some kind of traitor, and still one brother happy oddly enough. Maybe I was too rough with him at sports I thought?
My brother and nephew finally arrived after a 10 hour drive to pick me up. My Superior had told me previously that I was on my own in getting back home. The community would not help me. I was grateful my bro came for me. It would have been a long, cold, hike back in the middle of December.
The next morning around 6:00 am before silent prayer I left my cell for the last time. I met my brother and nephew in the back of the Monastery near the kitchen where his truck was parked.
I was also told to meet in the back without my habit so the novices wouldn’t see me or be scandalized. It made me feel like a criminal. I followed orders and put my luggage in the back of my brother’s truck. The Father came and said one last thing to me as I left that I will never forget, he said, “I hope you get to Heaven.”
It was a bizarre time in my life. Like living a dream or being a character in some strange movie.
As we headed past endless corn fields I doubted I would ever return to that place that had been my home for the last two years. For over a year I had been wearing the habit and going by a religious name. It was an adjustment to be wearing blue jeans and being called by my real name again.
As we cruised along the highway, I saw a billboard with our newly elected President Obama on it. When I had entered religious life in 2007 things were good, the economy was fine, jobs were plentiful, but now in “09,” I saw how much the world had changed since I left it. For two years no TV, internet, phone calls, or newspapers. Seeing Obama’s face on the billboard made me feel like we were traveling through some foreign occupied country at war. There was no sun that day, just overcast gloom, like how I felt inside.
We stopped to eat at an Arby’s. People looked anxious to me. So many unhappy faces. My brother told me of the many long lines in front of Subways and other fast food places were common as many people hoped for any kind of work. In this part of the country, jobs had become real scarce since the housing market crashed the previous year.
I was going back to a place where there wasn’t much work. Many in my family were either laid off or looking for work. When we finally arrived home there was snow everywhere. There were some changes to the city. A new bank I noticed. I can’t say that I was thrilled to be back. What are they going to think of me at Church without the habit I wondered?
I had no car. I gave away a lot of my stuff. I had no plan. My post religious life began that day and continues. Waiting for restoration. Trying for a comeback. In between the religious life and the world is not easy. I truly felt like an exile, forsaken. I came across a devotional prayer book to Our Lady of Sorrows during Christmas. She and Joseph were exiles around this time many centuries ago. Did they have a plan? Did anyone support them? Weren’t they forsaken as well?
Within the prayer book I found a litany to Our Lady of Sorrows. She had the title “Protectress of the Forsaken.” I took her as my own that night. Although I know God never forsakes us, the world can, so for all those suffering a divorce, a death of a loved one, being without work, or lost after religious life or seminary experiences and back in the tumultuous seas of the world, take Our Lady as your special Protectress. She, who suffered exile like us, can protect forsaken souls struggling in the world as they try to find their way Home.
No comments:
Post a Comment