Born into a non-practicing family, I was baptized and went to catechism until confirmation, but as a teenager I gave up everything to… play soccer! It was at the age of 19 that I really experienced the living Jesus, in Lourdes in 1986 (one hundred after Thérèse, who received her grace of conversion at Christmas 1886!). A long path of discernment followed for several years, guided by this question: how to find happiness, where will I be happy? I searched for a long time, until the day I met Thérèse who turned me upside down. His incredible way of loving Jesus, his little way, that's my way. And it was in Lisieux, where I had come for a retreat, that I was called to religious life. I received a word in the Bible which confirmed the place to me: “The glory of Lebanon was given to him, the splendor of Carmel. »
Thérèse being my little sister, in my heart, Carmel was necessarily Lisieux. But it was not easy and my vocation encountered obstacles. On the train back I experienced an inner joy, a feeling of freedom, a fire: “I don't know what you want from me, Lord, but whatever, you lead me where you want”. Some time later I went to a weekend of discernment where a good Jesuit father and my spiritual father confirmed my call: “Return to the Carmel of Lisieux! they both said to my surprise. I was in seventh Heaven, as if the Lord were telling me: “I am waiting for you in Lisieux. This is what my vocation is based on, and remembering it has always helped me a lot since I entered: the Word of God and the confirmation of my companions.
I am a happy Carmelite. Of course, like all human beings, we go through difficult times and struggles because we remain above all women. In the silence and solitude of the Carmel, in community life, many things from our history, from what we are come back to us in the face. This leads us on a path of inner freedom. It is this freedom that attracted me to Carmel: in a way, here, there are no more walls. The walls of the enclosure, I no longer see them, because it is the interior walls that must be knocked down. The more the walls come down, the more freedom grows.
The image that speaks to me for a long time is that of the Creation that one finds in the cathedral of Chartres, because I see there what God does with me: He creates in me the new man, in the image of Christ, He is this good potter who shapes us, poor clay that we are, in time. And if you look closely, you will see that in this image man is not yet finished, God is still at work in me.
A phrase from the Bible which I like to meditate: I am the way, the truth, the life. For me, contemplating and saying that God is life goes to the heart of my personal vocation. God gave me to understand that He calls me to life, to fully live this life that He gave me, and to pass it on. This is the source of my wonder: God lives in each of us, each being is a child of God.
A Carmelite from Lisieux
