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The Harvest is Many |
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Discovering the Real World
“If you only had one hour left to live, what would you do?” asked my 15 year old friend to the group of us who were having lunch together.
“Go to confession.”
“Go skydiving, jump off a plane!” …“Yeah, that sounds like fun!” everyone else piped in. You can probably guess which answer was mine.
From the time I was little, I grew up in a Catholic family in Philadelphia. I have two sisters and a brother. Even though my parents got divorced when I was five years old, they would always take us to Sunday mass and teach us to be respectful. I attended Catholic school almost all my life, except for one 8th grade semester at a public school. It was the first school I attended when I moved to Colorado with my mom and younger sister in 1993.
We would always pray the rosary together and my mom was a very faithful Catholic, but other than that, I didn’t think REAL CATHOLICS actually existed. I didn’t know anyone else who actually lived what they said they believed. I began a search for the truth when I was 14 years old after watching “The Fiddler on the Roof”. In one scene of the movie, a Jewish father renounces his daughter because she marries a man of Orthodox faith. I thought, “How can I be so convinced of Catholicism if he is so convinced of Judaism? How do I know where the truth really lies?”
For me, high school was a time of probing, exploring, of friendship and of disappointments… It was a search for happiness and a search for truth. Life was pretty good. I had good grades. I had a job. I was involved with student council, organized school events and I was voted prom queen. I enjoyed spending time with friends, dancing and discussing lofty ideas at coffee shops. Most of my “coffee shop friends” were Protestant. When I was 15 years old, I became good friends with a Catholic girl, named Erin, who was a REAL Catholic. She loved her faith and defended it during our discussions. She was a social butterfly, always the life of the party and yet, very authentic, she never gave in to peer pressure. Erin was a true friend and a great example for me.
I also had friends who would do some crazy things… start taking serious drugs, get pregnant or get married really young. I had always wanted more for my life and the thing that concerned me most was that they didn’t seem to realize how empty the “party life” was. Did they not realize that there was more to look forward to in life?
In 1997 I had the opportunity to complete my credits and graduate from high school a year early. I began working at a hospital to save money for college. Erin moved to California. A very nice, attractive young man whom I had started seeing was also in California in his freshman year of college. I decided to visit them in March and to my mother’s dismay, I came back with the idea of moving to there to become a flight attendant.
That’s when God entered into my life. In April, my 14 year old sister convinced me to drive her and her friends to Holy Week Missions at a parish 45 minutes away. To my great relief, another friend of mine, Crystalina was there. Before I knew it, she and I became the two 17 year old leaders of a group of missionaries between the ages of 12-15, without knowing what to do ourselves. I had to give what I felt like I didn’t have and came to realize that I had much more than I thought. We went door-to-door to share the message of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection with people in their homes. Some were grateful; some slammed the door in our faces; some ended up in tears and poured out their problems. I encountered God that weekend like never before. I realized how much he loved me personally, how much he needed me to transform this world, full of empty promises. I found the truth I was searching for. I wanted to get to know Jesus as a friend, but I went back to my reality and discovered that all the great resolutions I made lasted no more than a week. I needed Christ and I was thirsting for him!
So I took the next step. In May, I went on a pilgrimage to Rome with Crystalina. We saw the Pope and there I experienced what it means to be Catholic! Catholics from all over the world were convinced about their faith. These people were REAL, living what they claimed to believe and they were happy. I was happy! This did not leave me feeling empty inside. I made the decision then and there to give a year of my life to the Church.
In July, I found myself in the coworker program in Rhode Island. No matter how many difficulties I encountered in my generosity and the times I wanted to turn back, God sustained me with his grace. I fell in love with Jesus Christ, who poured his merciful love over my wounded soul. I found God, I found happiness and I learned how to love.
I received so much that I knew I needed to give God another year in return. I gave a second year, this time willing to sacrifice and to live with greater conviction. It was during these two years that God asked me for my life. I said “yes”, and then I said “no”. I clung to my dreams, my freedom, my own desires… but his love was so attractive. He was so faithful. He kept approaching my heart in his own silent, but penetrating way.
As time went by, he helped me to take steps of greater generosity, choosing his ways over my ways. Above all, he manifested his great merciful and faithful love… I knew that he was the only one who could fill the emptiness of my heart. I knew that the world needed convinced apostles. I wanted to spend my life with Christ, so I gave it to him and then I found happiness! I found interior peace. My life is a gift from God and I discovered that when I decided to lose my life for his sake, was when I truly found it.
I made the promises of poverty, chastity and obedience in August of 2000. I experienced a great freedom and in these past ten years, my consecrated vocation has fulfilled the desires of my heart. It has touched my family and brought many blessings to all of us. I hope that all who may read this discover the gift of God’s love in the plan He has for your life and the happiness that comes when you follow it!
Renee Pomarico can be reached at rpomarico@inteducators.org.
Short Biography (if needed)
Renee Pomarico spent the first three years of consecrated life at Mater Ecclesiae College in RI. From 2003-2007, she did youth ministry in Florida, ministering to middle school, high school and college-age students. Since 2007, she has been teaching Apologetics and Public Speaking at Immaculate Conception Academy in Wakefield, RI, a high school for girls discerning consecrated life in Regnum Christi. |
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