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BONUS EPISODE God Is Present to You
For the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (June 24), Sister Regina Marie Gorman reflects with us on the ways God remains ever-present to us. The joy of that presence is the key to every life.
Cy Kellett:
Is it really possible to live in intimacy with God? Sister Regina Marie Gorman is next.
Cy Kellett:
Hello, and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers podcast for living, understanding, and defending your Catholic faith. I’m Cy Kellett, your host. I had the great privilege recently of talking with Sister Regina Marie Gorman, a well-known sister, a woman religious from a Carmelite community here in California up in Los Angeles.
Cy Kellett:
One of the things that it’s very easy to do, I suppose, in the Christian life is to forget what all this is about, to neglect the main things as we start worrying about popes and cardinals and social controversies, and who we’re voting for and what’s on social media and all that. But what it all comes down to is essentially the invitation to rest in God, to be close, intimate friends and children of the living God. This is one of the things that women who are religious, who spend their lives in prayer, are wonderful at reminding us about often just by their presence, just by the way that they are, by the way that they present themselves. Sister Regina Marie is certainly one of those people. I think you’ll very much enjoy and benefit from what she has to say. Here’s Sister Regina Marie Gorman.
Cy Kellett:
Sister Regina Marie Gorman, thank you very much for being with us on Focus.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Happy to be here.
Cy Kellett:
You’re a member of the Carmelite Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Los Angeles.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los…
Cy Kellett:
Oh, the most. I apologize. Yeah.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
It’s all right. It’s all right.
Cy Kellett:
Of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles, a community of how many women?
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
120.
Cy Kellett:
120 women. You’ve been a member of the community for a long time. Have you been the head of the community at some point? Is that one of your titles?
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
I was for a while superior general.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. So the spirituality then of the Sacred Heart is not a new thing for you. You’ve been exposed to this for a long time.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
It’s part of who we are.
Cy Kellett:
It is. It’s part of the whole Carmelite spirituality, for all Carmelites, or for your monastery in particular?
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
It’s of all Carmelite because Carmel is the order of encounter.
Cy Kellett:
Okay.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Of the presence of God. We as an institute within the order were born out of the Mexican persecution in 1921. We were established in 1927. Our beloved saintly foundress, Mother Luicita, she’s a venerable, brought her sisters across the border to Los Angeles for safety reasons. She had very young sisters, and the suffering that they witnessed, the suffering they endured marked our community. So Carmelite sisters of the Most Sacred Heart, of his wounded heart.
Cy Kellett:
So today you have schools and you do retreats and all of that is part of your community life.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
We do. We also accompany elders and their families. We care for elders and their families during the last stages of life. So we accompany people from very young, young children in schools, high schools, retreats, families, married women, priests, and elders.
Cy Kellett:
You’re in Carmel, so to speak. But you’re not in retreat from the world, are you? You haven’t run away from the world.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
That we were given a very unique charism and that we are bonafide Carmelites, and our mission is to make known the love of the Sacred Heart, to stand with our Lady in the presence of God and with our Lady to make his love known and visible.
Cy Kellett:
So the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, it’s maybe the most widespread devotion. I don’t know. But certainly it’s at the heart of all the devotions of the church. Well, you light up when I said that. Why? This is something you can affirm? It’s at the heart?
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
It is. It’s at the heart because everything comes from the one who loves, the center of his love. This heart was wounded. And it was wounded specifically for us, given over, handed over for us. So any other devotion comes from that.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. As a matter of fact, our whole church comes from that, really.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Exactly.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. So this devotion to the Sacred Heart, then, it’s not… I’m trying to… I want to say this in a way that’s fair, but we’re so worldly in many ways, many of us Catholics, and it’s hard to see how does this image of Jesus with the Sacred Heart, how does this relate to what I’m doing every day, what I’m going through every day? Can you help me with that?
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
I would love to. Look at the Gospel of John. All right. So the very first opening words of John is, “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God.” And that doesn’t mean like static; I’m sitting a cup next to, it’s with the saucer. It’s a very dynamic turning towards, orienting towards. The Son is always orienting towards the Father, always turning towards the Father. At the end of the first chapter, John says, “And it was the word, the Son, only the Son who was closest to the Father’s heart.”
Cy Kellett:
Ah, yeah.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Same chapter, beginning and end. Then you go almost to the end of the gospel, the night of the Last Supper. Who is reclining on the heart of Jesus?
Cy Kellett:
Oh, the beloved disciple.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
How did you name him right now? The beloved disciple. Which he’s also called son. Jesus, from the cross, doesn’t say John.
Cy Kellett:
No.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
He’s says “Son, behold your mother.”
Cy Kellett:
Behold your mother.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
“Mother, behold your son.” So he’s called by the beloved disciple. He was running with Peter with this, the disciple whom Jesus loved. When they don’t have the personal pronoun, it’s standing this is for everybody. This is you are the beloved disciple. You are to be the son. And this is where we get our grounding. This is where we get our identity, is we’ve been called to rest on the heart of Jesus without exception, that this is our place of comfort. This is our place of security. As any father knows when his child crawls up into his lap and the security of that child. We are being told, “This is where you find your rest.”
Cy Kellett:
See, you started with that word rest and you ended with that word rest. I think that that to the modern person, it’s almost an irresistible word because the one thing that the world does not offer is rest. Rest from worry, rest from work, rest from every kind of challenge, I suppose, being thrown at-
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
The anxiety.
Cy Kellett:
Like, even to drive from here to the bank, you almost feel that it’s a fight some days, just in traffic, that there’s… and the anxiety of it. So I don’t think we do know rest. I don’t think we have rest.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
And he is saying throughout the scriptures, “Come to me.”
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
“Come. I’m the shepherd. I will give you rest. You come to me and the living waters will well up from within you.” This is for everyone. This isn’t for Carmelites. It’s for Carmelite to make it known. And for people to understand how accessible he is to us.
Cy Kellett:
Well, yeah. Without that rest, we’re really desperate creatures. I suppose that many of the contemporary sins, many of the things that we’re addicted to or attracted to in a way that we can’t control that impulse, or we seem to be not able to control that impulse, whether it could be anything from food to gambling to sex, to all these, that in many ways, maybe with real rest, with real divine rest, that cycle can break in us.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Absolutely. Because when we rest, we start to think. We start to have freedom of choice. We start to think clearly, and we start to be able to make decisions from a place of intelligence of like a real human act instead of being driven or reacting or grasping or rolling down the river like everybody else is, but acting and moving from our real identity. That’s the great loss of our Sabbath, that we’re supposed to be set apart. We don’t have to work seven days a week. We don’t have to be frenetic. We can rest. We can enjoy beauty. We can enjoy laughter, friendship, dimensions of our lives that don’t produce, that just are.
Cy Kellett:
I have the sense if people believed you sister, anybody who watches this, maybe not Catholic, maybe they’re not Christian, or a former or whatever. If they believed you that turning to the Sacred Heart of Jesus would bring a rest to your own heart, would bring this living water that refreshes, I think everybody would say, “How do I get it?” So I suppose it’s a two-step thing. First, to be convincing that he really will give what he says he gives. “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy burdened.” And then probably to be convinced of that, then, I would turn to a person like you and say, “All right, sister, tell me how do I get it? How do I get that?” So, first of all, in your time in monastery, in your time as a woman religious, you have experienced this? The restfulness offered in Christ?
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Oh, yes.
Cy Kellett:
You have?
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Oh, yes. I have spoken to large groups, and there can be 50 priests and 50 sisters and 50 laypeople. When I say I have met more truck drivers and housewives, engineers, bankers that are contemplative than I’ve met priests and sisters, and the priests and sisters all nod their head yes.
Cy Kellett:
Really?
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Yes.
Cy Kellett:
Really?
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
People who love and people who give and people who live authentic lives, they can be very, very ordinary people. But God is permitted into their lives and their hearts. There’s a familiarity with them. They have no clue the gift of prayer that they have. It’s so much a part it’s like you don’t hear your own accent. But he is available. He doesn’t play tricks on us. He is who he says he is.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. That promise that though to live in that relationship with him is to be like a tree planted by water.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
That’s right.
Cy Kellett:
We’re just all around us, everywhere is thirsting and restlessness and burning in the hot sun of this never-ending busy culture, and we’re not planted by water. We’re not like a tree planted by water. So-
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
[inaudible 00:13:58] very, very simple practice is. I would encourage every night before you go to bed, read a line from scripture.
Cy Kellett:
Ah.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
It is the living word of God. When you receive, when you eat, when you take within yourself the living word of God, it’s planted and it grows in your heart and it starts to shape you. Let that fill your mind. If we understood the beauty and the dignity of our mind, we’d probably be a little bit more careful of what we throw in there.
Cy Kellett:
What goes in there, yeah.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
What goes in there.
Cy Kellett:
Right. Right. Right. The eyes and ears being the main windows into the soul, what we let in.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Exactly.
Cy Kellett:
It does matter. I’ll take you up on the reading a line of scripture. It does seem to me that that word is so powerful and his presence in the Eucharist is so powerful and in the sacraments is so powerful that a great deal of damage can be repaired with just a drop of that. Not everyone has to enter Carmel.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
That’s right. We are not the first vocation. Adam and Eve, marriage, was the first vocation.
Cy Kellett:
Right. Then I hope that people, at the very least, especially young people, I hope they will be enticed by this idea of rest that you presented because they need it so badly, and they can have a human life and they can live a truly humane life if they have it. Maybe they will be convinced by that. Maybe they’ll take more convincing. I don’t know, but help us to get to, I mean, you’ve begun to already without me asking, but walk us through what’s the life that avails itself of that offered presence of God in the Sacred Heart of Jesus? How do I come closer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus?
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
One is desire. All the great saints, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross place great emphasis on what is it that you desire because your desire is going to lead you. So what is it in your heart that you’re seeking for? If you are seeking only wealth or notoriety, realize that’s limited. It’s not predictable. It’s not lasting.
Cy Kellett:
So what I set my desire on. But I don’t know if I’m entirely in control of that, sister. I mean, maybe you can help me with that? But-
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
We start to foster desires. And you can nurture desires.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, without question. Yes. I see what you’re saying. Yeah. Right. The thing that I’m feeding, that I’m kind of building that up. Yeah.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Yes. So if you’re desiring the peace that only God can give you, you desire it. And if you desire it, you will start to ask for it. Like, on the night of the Resurrection, when his friends had all bailed ship on him and denied him, and what was his first words?
Cy Kellett:
Peace be with you.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Peace. Shalom. He’s the one that gives it and wants to give it. But he won’t force it down our throats because he honors our freedom.
Cy Kellett:
But he will never deny the sincere request for it. I mean, I don’t know if you even have to be that sincere in the sense of fully knowing what you’re doing saying, “I want it, Lord. I want this peace. Will you give it to me?” He will give it to us.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
He will. He will walk you to it.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Well, then I see… Well, I shouldn’t say that. I don’t know what everyone… Everyone has their own struggle. But I used to have this Jehovah’s Witness friend and he always said to me, “I have no trouble turning everything over to the Lord. And one minute later I take it all back.” I always thought that was a very wise thing to say. I suppose anyone can be enthusiastic for the moment, but how do we make this a genuine turning of the self over, to putting our head like the beloved disciple on his heart, saying, “This is where I want to be, Lord, where you’re offering this rest.”
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
I think a very important dimension is to allow God to reveal himself as he really is. So we know he’s not the sugar daddy, Papa Aw Yeah, that’s okay…
Cy Kellett:
Ay, yeah, yeah. Right.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
He’s not that.
Cy Kellett:
No.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
And yet he’s the father that comes running out, looking for his son that squandered his inheritance. He wants to give it and he understands our fickleness. He is not put off by the fact that I surrender everything to him and two minutes later… I got it back. He understands our hearts. He understands the fickleness just as a father understands his two-year-old, that he’s going to walk him through it again. He’ll walk him through it again. He will not give up on us until there’s a day when the tide of his love overtakes. It soaks in. It’s who we are. I think that’s the most important thing, for you to really know he understands you.
Cy Kellett:
Hmm. Yeah.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
And he understands what you’re wanting. He understands your weakness, and he will not give up on you.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. There’s always the temptation that I’ll turn to him just as soon as I’ve cleaned up my act a little bit or I’ve over… Let me just, because I don’t want him to have to deal with this part, but that doesn’t work.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
It doesn’t.
Cy Kellett:
That doesn’t work at all.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
No. He is the one that will pick us up. How many times a mother or father wipes the face of a child during the course of the day, and they don’t… It’s just that’s part… They don’t expect anything different.
Cy Kellett:
Ah, that’s ,very helpful sister. Yeah. That’s a very good image. Yeah. Don’t expect… Right. It’s a strange thing because you hear people say, “I’m good enough.” It’s not that. It’s that he knows that we’re not going to be good enough without him. He’s going to give it all to us. I don’t know quite how to express it. But I have this sense from what you said of it’s not acceptance of where you are, but it’s acceptance of who you are.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Yes. And that’s really hard for us.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Our acceptance of who I am is the essential piece of creation. It’s the essential piece of who I am. It’s not that oh, you know, I used to be a teacher and I this… I’m a daughter. I’m a daughter. I don’t have to use the doorbell.
Cy Kellett:
No.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
I’m at home. I have direct access.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, now I have three adult children and I have this question, and I know almost every parent I know of adult children has. How do I share this with my children? Some go to church sometimes. Some don’t go to church at all. Some get it. Some don’t get it. Some seem to want it. Some seem to not really want it. How do we? Because I feel so enlivened by what you’re saying. But as a parent, my first thing is I want you to give this to my kid. Could you visit with my children, sister, please? I want them to have it. So help us parents out.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
All right. So you can’t do that. It’s yours. You can’t use words. Look. Jesus is constantly saying throughout the gospel, predominantly John’s, he’s constantly saying, “I only do what the Father tells me to do. Thomas, if you know me, you know the Father. Phillip, how long have I been with you? If you know me, you know the Father because the Father’s in me and I’m in the Father and he’s in me and I’m in you.” And he’s constantly saying that until he gets the apostles fairly mature. Now he’s saying, “You go. I’m in you. Make the Father known now. As I made the Father known, you’re going to make me known.” Your person. Not your words, but how you are. “I’m breathing into you. I’m giving my life to you. I’m giving you my authority and my power. And it’s living in you. As I live in the Father, you are to live in me.”
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
We have a great family friend of ours up in Los Angeles area. One of the sons is a clown, kind of teasing all the time. We were running into him fairly often, pro-life dinners, another gala, we’re ending up at his table. At one point he was like, “I’d like you sisters to meet my mom.” It was like, “Oh, okay.” “She’s not in good health.” “Oh, sure. We’re…” Well, it turns out she’s not far from us and she’s been away from the Church for 60 years, and she is moving towards death. So we started showing up at her doorstep and singing to her on Christmas and just neighborly type of things. Well, it turns out that as we got to know it, there was no impediment. There was a wound, but there was nothing holding her back from the Church, and she’d been away for 60 years. She’s, we’re talking six weeks, eight weeks out from death.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
So when she realized that she could freely come back, there’s nothing. A priest friend was called in. We had a Mass. The children were completely taken by the change in grandma who was anxious and fearful and self-absorbed. Once she had been to confession and the mercy and love and warmth of Jesus was just poured into her, she couldn’t do anything but enjoy life. She enjoyed her children. She enjoyed being with her grandchildren.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, wow.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
There was new life. The entire family, which is probably about 20 some, over a course of the next three years all came into the faith because of the witness of the power of what they saw in the demeanor and response and quality of life that their grandmother had when she accepted the fullness of what Christ had to offer her. That’s your role as a parent is being so close to Jesus, allowing Jesus to live within you that they see your children and grandchildren see something in you they can’t argue with. We can’t argue with beauty.
Cy Kellett:
Nope. That’s right.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Can’t argue with joy. You can’t argue with goodness. You’re compelled by it.
Cy Kellett:
So you gave me the look like I need to go out and do this now. Okay, sister. I’ll take the challenge up. I appreciate it.
Cy Kellett:
But in the devotion to the Sacred Heart, is there… I mean, because in the Catholic Church we have all, as we’ve said, many, many devotions. But the Sacred Heart of Jesus is at the center of everything. So I guess there’s two things I want to ask you before we go. One, I think it’s hard for people to believe that Jesus knows them and loves them with his human heart. We know that he… God is love. Okay. So in a certain kind of abstract way we can get that. “Okay. God is love. God loves me.” But to think that he has taken on human flesh as a man, as our brother who’s chosen to be one among us, he loves me with his human heart. So I want you to help me with that. Then I want you to tell me just in a practical sense how would one take up a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus?
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Number one, this is such an insidious little twist that can happen. We all agree no one’s going to contradict St. John, who says God is love.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
But the little twist that’s not helpful is that can become so vague, and love is never anonymous. It’s never vague. It’s personal. It’s a relationship. For us to really receive, because it’s bigger than what we can grasp with our little minds. We can’t wrap our minds around that he loves. As a parent though, you probably do get it, that, oh, so you loved your firstborn?
Cy Kellett:
Yes.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
So then when your second-born came, you had to divide your love 50/50?
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. No, not at all. No.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
It’s the same. God loves each one of us fully. You know the parables, oh, the workers that only worked half day and then the workers that sweat all day long and then they all got the same. You know what he’s saying? God doesn’t do fractions. He doesn’t do fractions.
Cy Kellett:
That’s beautiful. Yes. Right.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
He only-
Cy Kellett:
It’s all or nothing.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
It’s-
Cy Kellett:
Beauty is the whole thing. You can have the whole thing.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
He gives-
Cy Kellett:
I love you completely.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Exactly. He loves you with an undivided, complete heart. He has given his heart to you. So the image of the Sacred Heart, there’s a couple images. There’s some that he’s pulling back his garments so you can see it. So he’s saying, “I’m showing you. I’m making myself understandable. I’m making myself visible to you.” Then there’s one where he points to it. Like, “Hello, look. For you.” The one that I love the most, that I associate it with Ignatius of Loyola in the Jesuit over in Rome, he has his heart in his hand. It’s because of St. Margaret Mary, I believe. Margaret Mary. He’s offering. The heart is being extended, but we have to accept it. We have to take it.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
We want to say, especially in our culture, “Well, I’m not worthy.” They’re like, “I don’t have my act together. You don’t know what I’ve done. I don’t think I…” No. He’s not asking any questions. He’s offering you his heart. And will you accept it? Will you give his heart space to live within your heart? And that’s the Eucharist. The beautiful part of it is we’re all broken. But the heart that he offers us, his heart is broken. His heart is wounded. It is pierced. And you know the story of Teresa of Avila. She’s having a vision.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, yeah. With the angel with… No?
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
No, no. She’s having a vision and there’s a sister there and Teresa’s talking. The sister can see the vision, but she can’t hear it. So the sister’s taking notes of what Teresa of Avila says. After a couple minutes, she says to the sister, “Sister, go get the holy water.” “Yes, mother.” So she goes and gets the holy water and mother St. Teresa sprinkles the holy water on the image of Jesus and it disappears. The sister said, “How’d you know that wasn’t Jesus?” “He had no wounds.”
Cy Kellett:
Oh, wow.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Jesus always shows his wounds. He is broken for us to be given to us. We don’t have to be ashamed of our wounds because he comes with his wounds to heal ours.
Cy Kellett:
Wow. I really enjoyed talking with you, sister. I like this conversation very, very much.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
It’s true. It’s all true.
Cy Kellett:
That’s the thing. It’s all true. It is.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
And he wants to give himself to you.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
As you are right now today. But the question is, will you allow him to love you as you are right now today?
Cy Kellett:
And we answer that question by… How do we do that? I mean, if that’s the question, the answer, if I want to say yes to him?
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
You just say that. Come, Lord Jesus. Come.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, gotcha.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Come. You’re welcome. I have a messy heart, but come on in.
Cy Kellett:
And he’ll come.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
He will.
Cy Kellett:
Standing at the door of our heart.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Amen. Knocking.
Cy Kellett:
Knocking. Yeah. What a beautiful conversation.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Thank you.
Cy Kellett:
Sister Regina Marie Gorman. I really appreciate it.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Thank you for the time and thank you for sharing.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, thank you. Thank you.
Cy Kellett:
I wonder if you get this impression, sometimes I feel like the whole modern world is just a giant machine for making people unhappy and there’s just so much unhappiness in the world. It’s just such a great pleasure to get talk with Sister Gorman. I often find this with women religious, maybe because the choice to be a woman religious today is so counter-cultural, so kind of unexpected that these are women who have made a choice to live with an intention, and that intention is closeness to Jesus Christ who brings all this peace and joy in their lives. I really feel like I almost want to make an appeal to young women, consider it, at least consider, give it some consideration, religious community, whether it’s a community out in the world, like the Sisters of Life or a community in a cloister like the Carmelites.
Cy Kellett:
I make the same appeal to men. Not to join women’s religious communities, although you probably by law can here in California. But this is a beautiful, beautiful tradition of the Catholic Church, one that brings real joy, and you can see it in a person like Sister Gorman. So I’m very grateful to her. And thank you, sister, for being with us.
Cy Kellett:
If you liked what you heard here… Maybe you didn’t like what you heard here. Maybe you got an idea for a future episode. Go ahead and give us an email, send it to focus@catholic.com, focus@catholic.com.
Cy Kellett:
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Cy Kellett:
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Cy Kellett:
I’m Cy Kellett, your host. So glad to be with you. Thanks for being with us. We’ll see you next time, God willing, right here on Catholic Answers Focus.
Cy Kellett:
Sister, I want ask you one more question, if I may. Could you tell me a little bit about Elizabeth of the Trinity? Because I said I was going to ask you about that and I didn’t ask you about it. Is that right? Elizabeth of the Trinity?
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Elizabeth of the Trinity. Well, first off, let me tell you how I got to know her. I entered the convent when I was almost 20. Like, I knew a lot.
Cy Kellett:
Yes. Right. Me, too.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Yeah. I was really smart when I was 20 and it was good. I was happy to be there. And then after a while, like, “Okay, I think this is enough. These clothes are uncomfortable. I don’t want to quit, quit. I just want to like go to the beach and go to the mall, like do something normal.”
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
So every time I started get to that point of, “Ah, I don’t know if I want to do this anymore,” I would find a bookmark and it would have this quote that grounded me again that’s like, “Oh, wait, this is who I am.” At the bottom of the card, it always had Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity. So I thought, “She’s really cool. I got to meet her. I wonder which nun…” Because there’s a bunch of nuns in the convent. I wondered which one she was. I’ll have to meet her one of these days because I think she’s… It happened probably half a dozen times. When I’m just getting ready to say, “I don’t think I want to do this anymore,” I would get a quote from Elizabeth of the Trinity. Well, you know the saying that we don’t pick our saints?
Cy Kellett:
Oh, I believe that very much. Yes.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
They pick us out. Elizabeth of the Trinity is a contemporary of Torres. They didn’t know each other. Torres died first, and Elizabeth did read the circular letter about Torres. So they influenced each other. But Elizabeth of the Trinity’s gift, she lived in the presence of God and she knew that God lived within her. That was her desire, to anyone she spoke to, anyone she wrote to was to help them understand the unbelievable dignity that God is loving them from within all the time.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
So her letters to her mother, who was a widow, and then her sister, who had a large family and was widowed at a young age, she would write to her teaching them how to live in the presence of God. One of these Carmelites that got it right and died early on, became a saint five years in. But on her deathbed she said, “I will spend my eternity teaching people, drawing souls out of their interior muddle and being able to see how they were really created, that God lives within them and God wants to minister to them from within.” That she promised to spend her eternity. To this day she picks me up when I’m ready to step off the curb, grabs me by the scruff of my neck and puts me back into truth, into reality, into right order, which is restful and it’s consoling. And it’s very freeing. That’s who she is.
Cy Kellett:
Well, I meant to find out about this sister.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Love her. You read her. You cannot not love her.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. I will. Well, thank you sister. Thanks for the bonus episode of Focus with you and then a bonus added on to the bonus episode.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Thank you.
Cy Kellett:
I appreciate it.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
Thank you. Thank you.
Cy Kellett:
Thank you again.
Sister Regina Marie Gorman:
God bless.