One of the fondest memories my sister and I love to share is how we would set up an altar on top of a big stone in our yard. It consisted of a hibiscus flower, a cross from a broken rosary, and a half-burnt, unlit candle.
We would kneel in front of it, praying the Hail Mary at the top of our voices, hoping that the Blessed Mother would appear before us as she did at Fatima. I was probably 5, and she was 3 years old. Childish wishes, but in hindsight, there were stirrings, not yet understood by this human heart.
Accompanying an aunt to the Carmelite monastery in Naga stirred my heart once again. The memory of the nuns’ voices singing behind a black curtain and iron bars has stayed with me. A clearer and more distinct memory came when I was 13.
When there was trouble at home, and my parents did not agree on some things, it was unpleasant. To find understanding, I would skip lunch, cross the highway from our school, and spend the lunch break in an empty old parish church. My favorite spot was the pew in front of a statue of a saint I hadn’t been introduced to yet.
There was no name, but what probably attracted me were the roses and the cross held close to her heart. I preferred her gentle look over the more eye-catching statue of the parish’s patron, clothed in animal skin and enshrined at the retablo on the right side of the church.
I would sit there, with unanswered questions in my mind, quietly staring at the statue, tears falling. I don’t remember what my prayers were, but I remember my quiet time would end when I heard the school bell signaling the end of lunch break, and I would return to class.
After graduating from high school, on three occasions, the slightest expression of my desire to become a Carmelite nun would elicit an adverse, almost violent reaction from my father. His possessive love was evident even when I was growing up. Wanting to keep peace at home eclipsed the stirrings within me.
Ten years after confiding in this unknown saint, I fell in love with the man I wanted to marry. At that time, St. Therese of Lisieux was reintroduced to me by my mother. In her desire to convince me not to marry yet, she asked me to pray a novena to St. Therese to discern if marriage was the right step at such a young age.
She advised me to ask St. Therese for a sign. Not knowing any better, I naively asked for any flower except a rose. Since I often received roses from my students as a teacher, I didn’t want to mistake a rose as an answer.
On the ninth day of the novena, as I walked to the parish church for an early mass, a bunch of golden shower flowers from a neighbor’s tree fell on my head, with dew spattering all over me. To my neighbor’s surprise, instead of being annoyed at getting wet, I was overjoyed—it was a “yes” from St. Therese!
Gifted with her book, The Story of a Soul, by my husband, I slowly and unknowingly adopted total confidence as a way to deal with the daily challenges of being a young mother, wife, teacher, and student all at once.
In many instances, God’s providence—what some might call luck—became as natural as the sun rising in the morning and setting at night. Whether it was the lack of food on the table, bringing the kids to school, coping with bills, staying up late for the laundry, falling asleep during prayer, asking for safety in my husband’s hazardous job, imposing rosary time on the family, or even scrubbing tile after tile—everything was done out of love for Him, confident that whatever I lacked, He would supply. Was placing every small snag in family life into His hands what is called confidence?
If it was, I wasn’t aware. I didn’t even think of the word “confidence” in terms of a spiritual journey. What kept me going was the advice of the former Mother Superior of the Carmelite monastery I had applied to and wanted to join.
When I apologized to her for getting married instead of entering the Order, she simply smiled and said, “Go, child. Before, you wanted to bring yourself to heaven. Now your mission is to bring your family to heaven. God will be pleased that there will be more of you in heaven.”
Fast forward. After 35 years of a happy family life, I accidentally stumbled upon the Carmelite House of Prayer in Quezon City. I had been looking for the convent where I was supposed to meet a friend but was directed instead to the House of Prayer.
A priest was giving a lecture on St. Therese. Mesmerized, I stayed, and I never left after that. I applied, went through the six-year formation program, and became a definitively promised member. Uncharacteristically, my husband and family, who were used to always doing things together, supported my journey—even driving me to meetings.
A year before learning about the secular Carmelites, I had a dream: my husband was going up a mountain, and I couldn’t move my feet to follow him. Then I heard a voice, “Do not worry, soon you will be Edith of the Merciful Love.”
A little over three years after discovering Carmel, my husband had a heart attack. Confined in the ICU, he persuaded me to leave him and attend my temporary promise ceremony. After the ceremony, my youngest son surprised me with a big bouquet of yellow-orange roses, saying his Dad had sent them.
The flowers somehow assuaged the sadness of not having any family members witness my promise. Three months later, my husband passed away. God’s provision became clear when I became a secular Carmelite with the name “Edith of the Merciful Love.”
On October 1, 2013, ten years after my husband’s death, I attended mass at a cathedral where a wedding was taking place. Seated at the last pew, thinking of how we had a happy married life, I was overcome with sadness and wondered if he was praying for us in heaven.
Offering my sadness to Therese on her feast day, I stayed on. Then a member of the wedding crew approached me and offered a bouquet of yellow roses intended for a wedding sponsor who hadn’t come. Was St. Therese consoling me or telling me that my husband was indeed praying for me?
In Carmel, mystical experiences are not sought after, for we have no way of knowing their source. Instead, fidelity to the “6 Ms”—Mass, meditation (mental prayer), morning and evening prayer, Mary, meetings, and mission—guides our daily living.
In whatever circumstance we find ourselves, it is always “allegiance to Jesus Christ through friendship with the One who we know loves us and in service to the Church” that calls us.
But thank God, St. Therese’s teaching of complete confidence in our Father transforms the difficult life of a mother searching for a missing son when left in His hands and into His Divine Will. The flaming holocaust becomes grace, for indeed, “all is grace.” (St. Therese of Lisieux)
