My religious journey (Part 2)

At the end of the week things calmed down and I came into a kind of haven. But the road to baptism was not easy-it took until Easter 1989 until I was received into the Catholic Church.It was a glorious night at the Easter Vigil and I was baptised and confirmed and recieved Holy Communion in the peace which passeth all understanding.

In June 1989 I went back to Israel for the first time in 21 years. It was a momentous time. I made a retreat on the Mountain of Beatitudes with Sr Noboko of the Little Sisters of Jesus.

I also visted Neve Shalom/Wahaat al Salaam/ Oasis of Peace, a community of Jews and Palestinians living together in the Ayalon Valley. Each child learns Hebrew and Arabic in the School for Peace. The community was founded by Fr Bruno Hussar, a Catholic priest from an Egyptian Jewish background. HIs autobiography is called 'When the cloud lifts.' One day it lifted and God spoke and asked him to found a community of Jews and Palestinians living together. A tall order, but he started. At first only a few hippies came to help him and he said to the Lord: 'If you dont send a family of Jews and Palestinians within a week, I'm quitting!'But they came. Fr Bruno led me down to the Dumiyah, a building with a white shaped dome whose name means deep silence. As I stood inside facing Fr Bruno, I felt I had come home.

Later that year I met more of The Little Sisters of Jesus and felt it was my destiny to become one of them. But they finally rejected me in 1998. A month later I went to the Sisters of Pomeyrol in Provence. In the House of Silence I felt I received a call to found a new religious community of women. On my return to Paris I met Cardinal Lustiger and took a vow of celibacy before hime. Then I met Maryvonne le Goanvic and we officially founded The Little Sisters of Joy on the 7 March 1999 in the upper room of 22 Newton Road Cambridge. We hope to start the community in Israel, but Maryvonne told me the following year that she could not continue as she could not live the vow of poverty. I continued to live a normal consecrated life and returned to Israel for 3 months that spring. It was a marvellous time and I felt a reconciliation of opposites within my deepest being.

(To be continued)

Shalom from
Sister Gila