As a very little girl I remember standing at the back of our small country church waiting for my parents to finish talking with someone. As I stood there looking toward the sanctuary, I felt as if my heart and soul were being pulled toward the altar. In that moment I knew my future. I knew it clearly, without thought, without doubt—as a child knows, without words or need for explanation. I knew I was meant to be a priest. Later I learned girls weren’t allowed, but that didn’t silence the insistent voice within me. It didn’t re-direct the compass needle. That needle continued to point toward priesthood as crazy as that began to seem in the years following the deaths of John XXIII and Paul VI.
The author of Hebrews tells us “Faith is the confident assurance of what we hope for, the conviction about things we do not see.” “Confident assurance” is a “solid rock” experience. It’s that KNOWING IN YOUR GUT that simply IS. You just KNOW. Your mind may then try to explain “why” you know or “what” you know, but the knowing itself isn’t the work of your mind. It’s the work of the Spirit, deep within.
And so, I just KNEW, and I knew in a way that was rock solid. As time passed that KNOWING became a HOPE. I had hope that the internal workings of the Church would change and the doors would open for women. Hope was born of that “confidant assurance” in a God whose call was to be honored and obeyed. My task was to follow wherever that invisible road led, trusting that place of inner knowing, and not giving in to disillusionment or despair.