It’s hard to
believe that one year ago today, on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, my
dear sister in Christ, Michele Morris held the début of Teresita, the one woman,
one act play she wrote based on the life and vocational discernment of St. Teresa of Avila. Michele’s academic and
professional background is in theater, acting, and directing, as well as
evangelizing through plays and skits.
In Search of the Right Saint
For a while, Michele
had considered writing a play about another saint, someone far more obscure
that she’d have to dig hard to find out about, but when she spoke with Fr. Dan
Brady, a local priest who has performed the
one-man play Damien written by Aldyth Morris a number of times in our
area, he suggested she write her play about St. Teresa of Avila. With that suggestion and inspiration, she
gathered a variety of resources about the saint’s life, including information
about her personality, family relationships, vocational discernment, faith,
education, and perseverance in entering a religious community as soon as
possible. She researched St. Teresa of
Avila’s life through books, letters, poems, biographies, and historical
information in preparation for writing her original play named Teresita.
Asking the Tough Questions
As Michele Morris
has been discerning her own lifelong vocation, she has asked the Lord many
times
throughout her life a question that appears over and over in her play:
“What do You want of me?” This question
is the refrain directly from a poem written by St. Teresa of Avila called “In the Hands of God.”
throughout her life a question that appears over and over in her play:
“What do You want of me?” This question
is the refrain directly from a poem written by St. Teresa of Avila called “In the Hands of God.”
The poignant poem
and pertinent refrain are ones I’ve returned to often over the past year as I
spend time in prayer discerning what the Lord wants of me in my life, where He
is leading me and my husband in our vocation of marriage, and how that changes
what we do now and how we prepare for the future.
In response to the tough questions Michele has asked the Lord and the answers she's received from Him, she left Richmond, Virginia, for good on Sunday, July 14, 2013 after living here for eighteen years. After signing over her car and visiting some friends, she'll be heading down to her hometown of Deland, Florida. From there, she and her mom will fly out to the West Coast. On August 6, 2013, Michele will officially enter the Carmelite Sisters by the Sea cloistered monastery and become a postulant. I plan to publish some more posts regarding her faith journey, the play she wrote, and the many ways she has touched people's lives in profound ways, so please check back for more.
