Listen here, or read the text below, for Elise's testimony of how she learned to listen to God in prayer, heard Him calling her to become a nun, and how He cleared an enormous obstacle.  Glory to God for His Providence and for the gift of faith that with prayer and grace can move mountains!

Letter from Elise to her friends about how God prepared the way for her to enter the Little Sisters of the Poor.

On August 2nd, 2010 The Little Sisters of the Poor, who give their lives to the service of the Church and the Elderly Poor, granted me permission to enter this October on the condition that I would be free of my substantial college debt of $81,000.00.

I confided this cause to St. Joseph and it was with courage and confidence that I asked the Faithful for help in pursuing my vocation.

The Little Sisters, our Elderly Poor Residents and I, with great help from friends - old and new, had a Bake Sale in August & a Rock-a-Thon in September - both very successful! And we prayed that God provide the money, if it be His will that I enter this October.

God has heard our prayers and moved this mountain! As of October 1st, 2010 one day shy of 2 months, I am debt free.

Additional donations are being accepted to cover the cost of my health insurance during Postulancy (9 months) and to allow me to get shoes, a winter coat and other appropriate clothing like sweaters, undershirts, etc (the main Postulancy clothes are provided by the Little Sisters).

My Entrance Mass will be on Friday, October 15th and offered in thanksgiving for all those who opened their hearts to God working through them so that I may enter this October. Thank you for all of your help!

May this modern-day miracle be a testimony to God's awesome power in our lives. All glory be to Him!

Peace, and may God bless you,
Elise Maloney

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"When you know what God wants for you,
and ultimately He wants for you to be happy,
and He's given you the opportunity to do that,
of course you're excited." - Elise, 2010

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Elise’s Vocation Testimony

Given at the Fresh Anointing on October 8, 2010.

My name is Elise and I was asked to speak today because I will be entering the Little Sisters of the Poor on October 15th.

The other night I was invited to go to Adoration at Catholic University. I used to go to Catholic University and I hadn’t been there in a long time, at least to Caldwell Chapel. I remembered when I went to Adoration there. I saw people who were fervent in their faith, and I was not that person, but I admired those people. In addition, I saw people who were trying, and I was that person. There were also people who were just present, and those people are inspiring because it’s 9:00 on a Wednesday night and the last thing you might want to do is go to the chapel, but they go anyway.

The homily was awesome! The Gospel reading was about when the disciples asked Our Lord how to pray, and Jesus taught the Our Father. The priest asked us, “Who taught you how to pray?” I could not think of the answer to that question for me. I had no idea. He gave some examples such as, “Was it your pastor? Was it your grandmother or grandfather?” I thought, “They expected me to pray but I don’t think they taught me.” I was getting frustrated because I wanted to know the answer to the first question, and was distracted from the beautiful homily. He kept going and said, “because whoever taught you how to pray, you have to thank them, because they gave you your faith.”

Then I made the connection. Even though I couldn’t say who taught me prayers like the Our Father – I didn’t just come out of the womb knowing all the Catholic prayers – I just could not pinpoint a moment when I really started learning any of them. But I do remember the first time I really started to understand prayer, and that was here, in February 2009. That was the first time I came to the Fresh Anointing.

I had no idea what I was doing here because I thought I was coming to Bible study. I had my bag with me, my travel Bible, four-color pen, and a little notepad. I was ready. The person who had invited me had also never been to the Fresh Anointing, and was late.

I came in and I thought, “This is odd. There’s a lot of people, and they’re just sitting around, and talking to me and they’re very nice, but where is the person I know, and why is there a guitar? We have song books. This is very odd for a Bible study.”

I had no idea what was going on but the people were very friendly and as I looked around the room I thought to myself, “I see a crucifix and someone has Marian medal so we’re Catholic, that’s very good. I will stay.” Then praise and worship started and I thought, “I listen to hymns in Latin. I don’t know any of these songs.”

I hid behind my song booklet as much as possible, hoping no one would notice me. I probably looked like the most awkward person in the room and people must have noticed that there was a girl hiding behind the song booklet. That was me.

Afterward, there was a time for sharing words. I had never heard of this. I thought, “People think Jesus talked to them. What? Really?” I was not prepared for this at all. Then they started to explain that this was a charismatic prayer group. I had heard of “charismatic” as in describing a charismatic person, but not as in “charismatic Catholic.” I thought, “They’re making up words. I don’t know what we’re doing now.” I didn’t understand at all but I think it was Br. Zyg who explained it and I understood a lot more, and I was much more comfortable. I saw there were religious in habits and took comfort in that.

Then people got up to do prayer ministry and I thought, “We’re laying hands on people. This… is out of my element. I was OK with learning new songs, and that the woman next to me was singing between verses. Now there are people on the side of the room and they’re laying hands on one another, and someone just passed out!”

Then someone said we would be having Confession in the corner. Relieved, I thought, “Oh good! I can do that. I can’t learn any more songs right now.” I met this great priest who probably doesn’t remember now, I think it was Fr. Fred, and he was very calm. I asked him, “What is this?”

Afterwards I started talking to people and they were super Catholic - I had no idea! They were talking about out verses and Bible translations, and referencing encyclicals. I thought, “OK, these people are real and I actually don’t feel very Catholic right now.”
While people were talking, one woman was struggling with something and another woman turned to her and said, “Why don’t we pray about that.” I thought, “That is such a good idea! I have never had friends who would do this before. Your solution is to talk to God? Awesome! I watched, thinking this was cool because not only was one person praying, but another person came over and prayed. That was really cool.

I decided to come back because, in a word, I was fascinated. But there was something more to it than people referencing encyclicals and the Bible, and wondering why people were passing out, and why is it OK that we were singing between verses, which took me a while. I didn’t understand the gift of tongues at all - not interpretation of tongues - but I didn’t understand what that meant. This was a lot to learn at once. It felt like I was supposed to come back and I didn’t know what that meant. The person who was supposed to meet me showed up at the very end of the social. I asked her, “Where have you been? You have no idea what has been going on here. It has been intense.” I explained a little to her and she said, “Oh, they’re charismatic.” I said, “You know!? Why didn’t you tell me?” She really thought it was a Bible study.

I told her how I wanted to come back and she said, “You don’t have to, it’s really OK.” I insisted saying, “No, I’m coming back.” She replied, “OK, then come back.” I didn’t understand why. As I was here I learned a lot more about what it is to pray. As I said before this was the first time I learned how to pray; and what I meant by that is that it was the first time I learned how to listen.

You do that in praying. I didn’t know that. I was very good at saying morning prayer, evening prayer and night prayer. I had no idea that when you ask God a question that He would answer. My image was that you could talk to God and He would give a silent nod or shake His head to everything. I just didn’t really listen at all.

I would come to God like in the Caldwell Chapel when I would bring either lots of joy, lots of suffering, or just throw that all out there and then “here’s X,Y, and Z” and then, “Great, well, bye… nice talking to you about everything that is on my heart right now. I know you have advice to give me and encouragement, but I don’t want to listen." That is pretty much where my life was before.

This ties into my vocation because not only did I do that when I was younger but I had even told my grandmother that there was no way that I would ever be a nun. In my opinion, nuns were awful and no one could ever make me be a nun. I wanted her to stop telling me that I was going to be a nun. So when I had to call my grandmother to tell her that I’d be entering religious life, the first thing she said was not, “I’m so happy for you.” She said, “Elise, do you remember?” I was hoping she wouldn’t remember, but she did. Talking with her about my attitude from earlier in my life was a good way for me to exercise humility.

It wasn’t just when I was a little girl that my grandmother’s dream was for me to be a nun. Other people would tell me I should be a nun. For example, people on retreats would ask if I had ever thought of being a nun and I would go back to my 5-year-old self and say, “I will never be a nun. I don’t know why you people think I’m going to be a nun. I don’t have this thing where you want to wear that awfulness all the time, no, that is not for me.”

When I was 17 or 18 years old, I was known for not dating anyone, and because of that guys would try to date me. I knew what they were doing, but they thought they were clever. I had been friends with one guy for a long time, so they thought he would have the most success. He said, “Maybe we could hang out sometime?” I replied, “I don’t know, maybe. We could get our group of friends together and go do something.”

He said, “I don’t know why you don’t want to date me,” and I said, “Because I’m going to be a nun.” Then I said “I don’t know why I said that. Sorry.” He said, “I know you’re Catholic, but I thought you weren’t going to be a nun. You had said that before.” I said I didn’t know why I said that, but I still didn’t want to go out on a date. It was very awkward. I didn’t know what to do with that and I was annoyed with myself that I would say such a thing. I told God that this wasn’t cool, but I don’t know what He said, because I wasn’t listening.

I went to college at Catholic University. My roommate was great. She was Episcopalian. She was funny and I was dating someone at the time and my roommate would say, “You two are so cute together.” I thought that was nice. She went on and on about it.

One day she found me online looking at Dominican orders. The reason for this is because outside Caldwell Chapel there was a display with free prayer cards and information about religious orders. I am a very meticulous person, and while walking by the chapel I saw that one of the cards had fallen on the floor. It was pretty and had pastel butterflies. I put it back and I realized it said it was free to take. Being in college, I thought this is awesome and decided I could use it as a bookmark. I took it in my book bag. In my room, I dumped everything out on the floor, and the little bookmark travelled across the floor. When I picked it up I saw it said, “Dominican.” I thought, “Dominican? What’s a Dominican?” So I searched online. Then I found, “Vocations” and I thought, “Vocation? What’s a vocation?” I went through vocations and it suggested visiting their sister site. I had windows open for all these different orders.

I was so engrossed with the Dominicans and Poor Clares. They were so fascinating. I was learning terminology like “discernment process” - I didn’t know what that was, as well as “vocations.” My roommate asked, “What… are you doing? Are those religious orders?” I nodded. She said “You have a boyfriend,” and I said “yes, I do have a boyfriend.” She’s said, “You cannot have a boyfriend and be looking at religious orders.” I replied, “I’m just looking at websites.” She said, “I know exactly what you’re doing.” I said, “You do? Because I don’t.” She said, “You’re so Catholic, you’ve always been so Catholic.” I thought, “How would you know since we just met about six months ago?” She had me convinced I was very Catholic and it was too much, and that I was cheating on my boyfriend by looking at these websites, and that I was just awful.

I said, “I’m not even Catholic anymore!”
She said, “What?”
I said, “That’s right! I’m not Catholic!”
When my mother found out she reacted, “What! You went to Catholic University and you’re not Catholic anymore?”

In my rebellion of no longer being Catholic, I went to Mass daily, I went to Confession on a regular basis as well, but I was telling everyone that I was not Catholic and they just needed to be aware of that and stop inviting me to things. This must have come as a shock to everyone because they said, “What are you talking about because I see you every morning at 7:30 in the crypt church.” I was running from it because I was so scared of the idea of being a nun.

I found out there’s more than one thing called an Order, and they are not just different versions of the same thing in different colors. It was a lot of information all at once. Eventually I decided to read about each Sacrament in the Catholic Church, voluntarily, in the middle of college. My roommate would ask, “Which Sacrament are you on now?” I would say, “I just finished Penance and am going to read about the Eucharist next.”

She would ask, “Do you believe in it?” And I said, “It seems very legitimate.”

I studied each of the Sacraments and believed that the Church was right. The Church had my consent, and I decided I would indeed be Catholic. A friend said, “I’m so glad you are Catholic again. I got you a Rosary.” I said, “You got me a Rosary! Good I’ll pray it because I’m Catholic again.” But then, what ended up happening was that as I continued in my “newfound” Catholic religion, other people still thought I had a vocation and the four or five year old in me came back and found it really annoying. I had run from it for a period of time. When I came to the Fresh Anointing, I hadn’t thought about it for three years.

Then I came back here and started listening to God, and it came up. And let me tell you I did not like that. Other people would make mention of it and I would say “no”, and just smile and hope they would stop.

It wasn’t until June 2009 that I had even met a nun. By mistake I ended up at a women’s discernment dinner with the bishop of Arlington. I didn’t know that’s what I was going to, God doesn’t tell me these things because then I would say, “No.”

I arrived and that thought it was very clever of God. I thought I would just sit through this and try to leave. However, the nuns want to talk to you and so do the other people who are discerning. At that point I wasn’t discerning. I wanted to tell them this was a big misunderstanding. I came because I called about registering for a parish, and I got connected with the wrong person who asked if I would like to meet other young adults on Monday night and without asking what it was, I went. The first person I met was the Dominican and she asked, “How long have you been discerning?” I was thinking in my head, “Oh no. Lie to a nun? You can’t lie to a nun.” So I said, “15 minutes.” I said it’s kind of a long story and I’m not supposed to be here, and she said, “I’m sure it wasn’t an accident for God.”

So, this continued and I met the Daughters of St. Paul. We both lived in Alexandria. I didn’t drive and they asked if I needed a ride. I accepted and they asked if I’d like to go bowling. I thought, “Hanging out with nuns? My brother is never going to believe this.”

I told them, “I’ll go bowling with you but I’m not a very good bowler. I bring down the average.” She said, “That’s OK. We can’t bowl either and we bowl granny style.” I thought, “Granny style bowling, and they want me to go with them. And, this is very fast, God. I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

What ended up happening was she said, “We have a book club.” I thought, “A book club? I love books.” You could see it in her eyes. She said, “Yes.” I had no idea who she was but I was excited to go to the book club. As I was waiting to hear about this book club, I got other emails, and I looked at her card and it said, “Director of Vocations.” I thought, “Director of Vocations! Oh she tricked me! She told me it was a book club.” I decided to go to it.

What I hadn’t mentioned before was that In order to go to that dinner I had to supply my contact information. As it turns out she is the assistant to the Director of Vocations of the Arlington diocese, and I got an email that said there would be a summer service volunteer weekend at the Little Sisters of the Poor. I thought, “I like to volunteer. They take care of the elderly poor. I can do this. I used to work with Alzheimer’s patients, health care was my thing, it’s near Catholic University, and I went to school there.” It’s probably a good thing I didn’t know about them otherwise I might not have ever become a Little Sister of the Poor.

I decided to go on the volunteer weekend. I had no idea that the person I was meeting was the postulant mistress. I just thought it would be nice to volunteer. I started to sign up for volunteering, and eventually realized that I was volunteering a lot and it wasn’t exactly easy since I didn’t have a car. I had to take a bus, walk, get on the metro and walk some more. They started to take notice of this and invited me to more things with the community. I had no idea what was going on. This was happening while I was going through these spiritual experiences at the Fresh Anointing and learning to listen more. Finally, the two met.

Then, I understood what was going on. It was scary, but I had learned what to do in such a situation. I knew that I could pray. I didn’t know that before but I can pray and God could answer my prayer, even if it wasn’t in the way that I wanted. There was some sort of reciprocation as opposed to me just talking to a wall. It was really cool, so that’s what I did, and I told God what I was discerning. I told God that if He didn’t tell me I’m going to be a nun in this time period, then I’d get married.

During that time period, I would hear God calling me to pray. I thought, “I am praying. What do you want from me?” I kept getting this over and over again. The reason why was because I had asked God for another thing. I had asked him to date someone who was Catholic. I had never done that before. I had gone to high school in Texas where there are non-denominational Christians. My best friend was Buddhist and my other friend was atheist. I knew a few Catholics but they were in the seminary. After college, and after being in Texas for a while, I didn’t date anyone who was Catholic. Even in college I didn’t date anyone who was Catholic. But I had asked for this, and I ended up going out with a guy who was Catholic. In dating him, I didn’t understand why I was dating this person. I was pretty sure in October when I prayed about accepting a new job to work with the Little Sisters of the Poor, to quit my job in health care and work in administration for the Little Sisters of the Poor, I knew what God was asking but I will say yes to this job and I start in January, and I heard in prayer, “Don’t worry about it, pray, date someone.”

What it took was me dating this person. I needed to be OK with that. God is very patient. He is a gentleman, it’s true. I had run away from it for a very long time.

I was supposed to go on a live-in experience with the Little Sisters of the Poor and I had told everyone that I wasn’t going to be here certain weeks in July and August.

I didn’t tell people I was going to a live-in experience, just that I would be away. I had all these different plans, and I was really excited. But things changed and I wasn’t able to go out of town since some things were going on at the Little Sisters of the Poor, so I stayed. It was probably the hardest time I had ever had at the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Do you know how sometimes you might have a bad day, but then something else happens and it’s a worse day because two bad things happen? Well, I had seven of those days all in a row. But unfortunately they were the worst kind of bad day because it wasn’t about things happening to me, but about people I cared about. That was the worst bad day, and it happened seven days in row. What was funny was that it happened in the context of the Little Sisters of the Poor, and that the Sunday that kicked off the week, in preparation for these live-in experiences I said to God, “I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I have the strength for religious life.”

It was as if God’s reply was that He would use suffering. There were certain days when I felt like I didn’t understand why. It wasn’t until the following Sunday when I realized that I asked for this. I thought I shouldn’t have asked if I could do this. In response to my prayer, God gave me the worst possible days and also the best possible days. It was probably the most grace filled week I have ever had.

It was really intense and I didn’t know how to reconcile this. I found a book of a compilation of Scriptures. When God speaks to me, it’s often through a psalm or other Scripture. I found a morning prayer for the day I was struggling with the idea that it was the worst and the best week. The morning prayer was about how Jesus being a man of sorrows. It said, “It is the Lord. Let Him do what seems good to Him. For though I were righteous I could not answer Him. I would beg mercy of my Judge. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.”

It talked about accepting adversity. I thought that was appropriate because I had just had this awful week, and I was trying to reconcile that with the idea of him answering the question of religious life. The evening prayer that same day said, “Have faith in God. Whoever says to this mountain be removed and casts into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart but believes that those things that He says will be done. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask, when you pray, believe them that you will receive them and you will have them. Without faith it is impossible to please Him. For He who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Is anything too hard for God? With God all things are possible. Lord, increase our faith.”

The excuse I had about debt and not being able to enter came back and I asked for God to increase my faith. I asked the Mother Superior of the home to set up a meeting with the Mother Provincial and on August 2nd, I was accepted to the Little Sisters of the Poor on the contingency that I would be debt free. We had done the math and knew we had to raise $81,000 by October. The Mother Provincial said, “It’s fine! That’s just four groups of twenty.” I thought, “She doesn’t need to ask for an increase of faith. I do.”

Once I had the permission of the Mother Provincial she contacted the Mother General about this situation. The entire Order, which is international, knew my name and that we were trying to do something that is essentially crazy.

They said, “Let’s pray. God is so good. He will provide.” The Little Sisters rely on Divine Providence. They are begging sisters, so everything they have is donated. The Little Sisters and the residents have everything they do because God’s people support them. That includes wages for the employees working for them, food, furnishings, and bills for the building. The sisters said, "Go to St. Joseph and he will take care of it.” I thought, “They are very confident and I am with them in this boat now, so let’s see.”

I was very happy and I thought how cool of a discernment this is because God would make it very clear that if I’m not debt free then I am not supposed to enter this year. It is up to the Lord. If He wanted me to enter next year then I would know because financially I wouldn’t have been ale to do it this year.

We had two events. We had a bake sale, which raised $8,000, and we had a rock-a-thon which is a rocking chair marathon since we take care of the elderly. Instead of sponsoring people to walk, they rock in rocking chairs to 1950s music. It was a good time. That raised $10,000. In the month of August we had the bake sale at the end of the month and by the end of August we had raised $40,000.

So, I was accepted on August 2nd, and on August 4th was my email to friends about religious life and that we would be having a bake sale. Then by the end of August we had $40,000. I thought, “Wow, this is awesome.”

On September 25th we had the rock-a-thon and then we had only a total of $14,000 left and I thought, “Oh, I’m entering! This is really, really cool.” By October 1st, we had all the money. I was amazed that we reached $81,000 and were only one day short of two months from being accepted.

The Catholic Standard did an interview, and reporters from ABC News called to find out where the numbers were and showed up at the events with lights and cameras. They asked if I was all right wearing a microphone and I thought, “I don’t even know your name, and I don’t like cameras, I don’t like talking in front of people especially now that the lights are blinding me and it’s hot.” But, it was as if God was saying, “While you’re going through this two month trial I’ll stretch you,” and I thought “OK, all for the glory of God.”

When we calculated all the numbers again, the actual amount of debt was $89,845.99, and we raised $91,000. Now the rest of the money that was raised can go for my health insurance, shoes, and clothes.

I would have never listened if I didn’t come here to the Fresh Anointing. At first I was scared and intrigued, but I came back and realized what it really means to pray and communicate with God. I learned what it means to be really involved in your faith and not just saying that you’re Catholic and going through the motions, or trying but not be open to receiving. I want to thank you all. Thank you all so much!

Bake Sale

Friends from the Fresh Anointing

Saint Jeanne Jugan, 18th century, France, Foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor

The Little Sisters welcome me, and my cat :)

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