How I Met the Home
Sarah Harmon
Well, I think there are two kinds of meeting someone or something. First off, I could meet something as in I come in initial contact with it, and know something as simple as its name. And regarding this, I came to meet the Home of the Mother one day in February 2005. However, there is a different kind of meeting something, which extends beyond simply knowing the name. Knowing anything requires learning about it, and learning about it is best done through experiences. And my experience of the Home of the Mother has been one that has changed my life.
My getting to know and appreciate the Home happened gradually. I can hardly follow God’s providential actions to understand how I came to be here. I go to school at Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida. I did not know this when I first started there, but Ave Maria has a Women’s Discernment Program run by the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother. The sisters help to guide the souls of women at the University, as these women search for the vocation that God wishes for them, whether it be marriage or consecrated life. I was oblivious to this program my first semester at the University.
Early in the second semester, there was a women’s retreat put on by the sisters. Many of my friends were attending this retreat, but I did not want to go. In fact, up until the last minutes before leaving, I was set on staying at school in my comfort zone. But my friends kept on pressing me to go. Finally, after they pushed me into the car and drove off, I decided that maybe I would think about it.
When I got to the retreat, I learned and experienced many things that would change my life. One of the priests there, also of the Home, began to talk about the importance of daily Mass, daily adoration, daily rosary, and frequent confession. He stressed the importance and necessity of these commitments, and he stressed the fact that each one is called by God to be holy, to be a saint. A saint? This was my first time hearing this. Another thing addressed at the retreat was the importance of ridding yourself of attachments, which separate you from God. All of this made a profound impact on me, and I began to change many things in my life. I also began to speak with the sisters more, and began to learn a few things about the Home.
I began a life of prayer, following the guidelines set forth. I asked one of the sisters to be my spiritual director, and began to receive counsel as to what I could do to improve my relationship with God. Upon getting rid of certain attachments, God granted me the grace of experiencing a profound joy. I felt as though He said to me, “That is a space in your soul that I have been longing to fill.” On seeing that my attachments did, in fact, hinder my relationship with God, and did have an effect on my soul, I began to look for other things which I could renounce for Him. I was like a child, asking eagerly, “What can I give you now?” I kept on asking in prayer, and after weeks of constant pestering Him like this, He responded to my persistent questioning, saying, “Everything.” After this answer, which was the last thing I had expected, I slowed down with my generosity. To me, this “everything” that He asked of me meant giving Him my life as a religious. And I did not want this. I felt as if He wanted me to seriously discern His will for my life, but I did not want this either. Therefore, I put forth a firm “no” to His wish that I discern further what He wanted of me. I was definitely not prepared to give Him everything--my life, my plans and dreams. So I decided to stop asking Him what He wanted, because I was not prepared to give it. I kept on with my commitments, but after this moment, I began to lose the peace which I had found in my soul. I went through moments of drastic changes in the next few weeks, as I began to fight against what God had revealed to me. I never talked about this with my 
spiritual director, and the burden of holding this in weighed heavily on my soul.
I thought a lot about what God wanted, and what I wanted, and I could not reach an agreement between the two. A deciding point for me in this struggle was the final week of Pope John Paul II’s life. A Sister in Rome wrote me an email and included one of his last phrases. “I have looked for you. Now you have come to me. And I thank you.” This phrase is very beautiful. The only problem was that I could not read it because it was written in Spanish. I decided to go to a translation website to find out what it said. When I did so, the page did not load properly. I was waiting, but the only thing that appeared on the webpage was a little button that said “Word of the Day”. I was getting impatient, so I clicked the button in order to try and reload the page. Instead, a new page popped up with the word of the day that hit me like a slap in the face: DISCERN. Ahh!! I hit the “Back” button quickly to the previous page, but I was still staring at the word in my mind. God, it seemed, had grown tired of my lack of generosity, and decided to write out what He wanted, plain and clear for me to see. At this, I realized what I had to do, and realized that I had to accept His will for my life.
Therefore, I began to regain that peace as I searched for the steps He wished for me to take. At around this time, I began to feel very attracted to learning more about the Home and these Sisters who struck me as being extremely joyful in their vocation. I felt like it was God’s will that I go to Spain over the summer to discern if this was what God wanted from me. I went for two months, and during that time felt that I experienced what I had heard all along: this was, truly, the Home of the Mother. I felt as if from the first moment I arrived, I was part of a huge family. Through experiencing, I have learned, and through learning I have known, and through knowing, I have realized the call that God wants me to follow in forming part of this Home. After this, God made it clear that He wished more from me, that He wanted me to, as He had said, give Him everything. So on July 13, 2005, I entered as a candidate of the Servant Sisters of the Home. Upon telling my parents, the response I received from them made me extremely happy, as well. They accepted my vocation with love and serenity, and expressed this to me by quoting Pope John Paul II in The Meaning of Vocation: ".... to generate a child is above all to 'receive it from God': it is a matter of welcoming from God as a gift the child that is generated. For this reason, children belong first to God, and then to their parents: and this is a truth which is rich in implications for both parents and children.” I feel as though their acceptance and generous encouragement has been an enormous gift from Our Mother.
I thank God for leading me to the Home, and calling me to form part of the gift He wishes to make to His Mother. For from the Heart of His Mother, Christ has worked to transform me so that I may be abandoned to His will for me every day, saying to Him with Our Mother, “Let it be done to me according to your word.”
