CNA<\/a>).- After years of working as a pro-life news reporter, a Catholic journalist discovered that she had a vocation to be a contemplative nun and that God had been using her work to prepare her to answer the calling.<\/p>\n\tOn Oct. 14, Kathleen Gilbert, former LifeSiteNews U.S. Bureau Chief, will begin her first year as a postulant for the Discalced Carmelites in Buffalo, N.Y.<\/p>\n
\tAlthough she was raised in a \u201cCatholic household\u201d where religious life was always seen as \u201ca very good thing,\u201d Gilbert told CNA she never felt \u201cpushed\u201d in any particular direction and was \u201ctotally free to pursue whatever I wanted to become.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tEarly on in her life, Gilbert said she wanted to be an apologist \u2013 someone who teaches the Catholic faith and defends it from misinterpretation \u2013 especially since she frequently \u201cpracticed\u201d explaining Catholicism to her Presbyterian father.<\/p>\n
\tWith prayers and a strong faith formation from her family, Gilbert said she \u201centered adulthood knowing that the path I chose would be my own creative response to God, not just aimless self-determination.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tGilbert wanted to study exorcism and demonology, but eventually became a journalist, giving up her post-graduate studies in theology to write full time for LifeSiteNews.com, a non-profit online news site dedicated to covering stories from the culture, life and family spheres.<\/p>\n
\tBut that shift in plans was possible only because of the spiritual nature of her work, which was \u201cenough to satisfy my desire to do good and, especially, fight evil,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt was an absolutely spiritual workplace. Our daily bread is prayer,\u201d she said. \u201cBeing able to bring such single-mindedness towards God into one's daily work routine is a real privilege.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAs a journalist, Gilbert said she dealt with \u201cdarkness\u201d and \u201coccasional discouragement\u201d because of the news she reported, but she still approached her work with a strong sense of optimism.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI never really felt any reason to fear or despair,\u201d she said. \u201cAny darkness we encountered just became all the more reason to roll up our sleeves and get to work shining light on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tIn Dec. 2011, after working as a journalist for three years, Gilbert began to seriously discern the possibility of a religious vocation.<\/p>\n
\tShe explained that she has always felt \u201ca bit of that sense of detachment from the world,\u201d as if she were an \u201conlooker\u201d or \u201cexile,\u201d but simply attributed it to being \u201ca member of the City of God.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tHowever, when that feeling \u201cbegan to gnaw,\u201d rather than just \u201ctough it out\u201d for any longer, Gilbert began to listen to the \u2018still small voice\u2019 and made her first visit to a Carmelite monastery during\u00a0 Christmastime of last year.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cSince I had never envisioned this future before, the suddenness of it helped me conclude that it wasn't just my own idea,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\tGilbert knew that if she did have a religious vocation, she needed to look into the Carmelites, or as she calls them, the \u201cMarines of the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tShe felt drawn to those who live with an \u201cemphasis\u201d on \u201ctotal union with God in contemplative prayer.\u201d In this way, she said, Carmelites strive to \u201cdevote our whole lives to being the contact point between Heaven and Earth, drawing down the graces that priests, missionaries, and families distribute to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAnd although she is giving up writing for a living, Gilbert believes that working in the news was a \u201cbrilliant way of getting to know what to pray for\u201d in the convent. Gilbert will also take with her all the relationships she \u201ccultivated in the pro-life world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAlthough she will no longer be working for the news agency, Gilbert hopes she can still help LifeSite as their \u201cstaff nun\u201d who will be working \u201cfull-time in the higher echelons of power.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tUltimately, Gilbert hopes that her work as a journalist will have \u201csaved even one unborn child's life, or softened the heart to the dignity of the human person, or given another a little spark of hope that set it on a path to true freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIf I've done that,\u201d she said, \u201cwell, I win.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n
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Front Royal, Va., Oct 12, 2012 \/ 12:11 am (CNA).- After years of working as a pro-life news reporter, a Catholic journalist discovered that she had a vocation to be a contemplative nun and that God had been using her work to prepare her to answer the c…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\n
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