It was really something to celebrate Mass with over 7000 people, and to listen to the phenomenal speakers. But the highlight for my girls were all the nuns! They were everywhere! There were sisters dressed in blue, white, black, and our favorite that we met was a beautiful sister named Sister Joachima from Poland! Leah, our 7 year old, was smitten immediately and begged to be allowed to enter her Dominican order (which is in Justice, Illinois).
Sister Jo did say she wanted to scoop her up and take her back with her, but instead she gave Leah work to do: "Pray for your vocation," she said. "Pray everyday and God will reveal it to you." Our impetuous redhead was not all that keen on waiting 11 years, but she promised to pray.
The next morning, she was frustrated. "Mom! I want to pray, but I can't!" She was so earnest, but it also made me laugh a bit. I invited her to my lap to come and tell me about her troubles.
"I want to pray, but Jesus said you have to go to your secret room. Mom! My sisters are always in my room! How can I close the door and pray in secret if they're always with me?!"
I could understand her exasperation, but I tried to help her see a little deeper. "Leah, do you think that maybe Jesus means a different kind of secret room? Maybe not the same thing as the bedroom?"
"Oh," she said knowingly. "You mean, like the bathroom?"
We spent a few minutes looking up pictures of Saint John Paul II praying, silently, leaning on his crozier or on a prie dieu (kneeler) in his chapel.
"He was always surrounded by people, but somehow he found his secret room and was able to gain the strength he needed from his prayer. I wouldn't put it past him that he would have prayed in the bathroom. But I think his "secret room" was with him wherever he went. What do you think?"
She smiled, "I think it was in his heart."
"Ah. And do you have a secret room like that?"
She smiled and jumped off my lap. I didn't see where she went in the house, but I'm pretty sure she found the room she was looking for.
