A problem of vocation

[tabsie3210]

So here’s me: I’m 32, a bit overweight, have my BA and missed getting my MA (in English Literature) by one semester (my father got cancer and I quit school to help out at home while he was in and out of the hospital).

I currently live at home with my parents, work a full-time job that pays decently, and suffer from Major Depression (medical diagnosis - my brain doesn’t fully cooperate with my desire to be happy, go figure. )

Now, I’ve never really considered becoming a nun, though I have suffered from the thought of, “Gee, I’m getting older, I don’t want to die alone. If I’m not married by 35, I should enter a convent.” Ironically, I started having these thoughs when I wasn’t married by 25.

Now that I’m in my 30’s and have a father in poor health, a part of me is starting to feel resigned to discerning if I have a vocation, which is bothering me, not because I don’t want to have a vocation, but because I’m thinking that with my medical and family history, if I do consider that I have a vocation, it won’t be real. It’ll just be me trying to find a substitute for getting married. I’m afraid to even start considering, because I worry that I’m only thinking about it out of desperation.

On the other hand, I constantly feel this sort of flip-flopping about whether I want to be married at all or not. I’ve been in love before (we never got physical - I haven’t always been a good Catholic, but I did manage to keep that much at bay), and while I was in love with him, I very much considered marriage, because I always thought that marriage was the reason to meet and love someone of the opposit gender. And naturally, having children would come with marriage.

But now that I’ve been single for over four years (almost five now), I waffle. I want to be married, I don’t want to be. I don’t have a clue what to do or where to go from here. I know that I would very much like to have a husband, but there are times when I feel fulfilled and not needing one, and those are the times when a vocation as a nun makes sense, because then I’m working out of love of Christ, not out of lonliness. But those will shift, too, and I’ll feel terribly lonely again.

And then there are times when I hear about how there are so few nuns and priests, and I get to feeling guilty because I’m single, and single people are either supposed to find husbands and have children, or they’re supposed to go into the convent. So I worry that if I do decide to become a sister or a nun, I’ll be doing it both out of lonliness and out of guilt. And neither of those is an acceptable reason to become a nun. Jesus wants full service out of a loving heart, not “because I have to.”

Should someone in my position even consider religious life as a religious sister or a nun? Or should I stay away from the consideration?

 

[Ohiomom]

Actually, some people are called to be “single for the Lord”, but one of the outcomes of our current disordered culture is there are those that feel called to marry who can’t find a like person. The discernment process of any order would insure that you would not be admitted for formation if they suspected it was a default choice and not your call. Is there a young adult Catholics group in your parish or diocese? Are you under spiritual direction? I would start there. A young adults group could help you meet like-minded adults and spiritual direction is key in discerning a vocation.

 

[bpbasilphx]

\and single people are either supposed to find husbands and have children, or they’re supposed to go into the convent.\

**Where did you get THAT idea?

It’s in none of the teachings of the Church.**

 

[vee8]

I dont see anything wrong with simply considering religious life because discerning it is a two way street. You look at orders and communities you are interested in and they also look at you. If there is a match it can take up to six years to become a fully professed sister with the option to leave at any time before final vows, so theres no rush. As for your depression be prepared that some communities may not accept you due to that but others might be fine. Dont quote me on this but I think a cloistered contemplative order like the Poor Claires or the Carmelites would be less likely to accept cases of depression due to the nature of the cloistered vocation. Active orders like the Dominicans might be more open to such things as the demands of that life are different.

Find someone a priest or religious to talk to, someone you think is pretty holy and you can open up to, and see what they have to say.

And as always a favorite and very useful article I like to post to help people discern.
lafayettecarmelites.org/god_calling.php

 

[barb_finnegan]

\and single people are either supposed to find husbands and have children, or they’re supposed to go into the convent.\

**Where did you get THAT idea?

It’s in none of the teachings of the Church.**

It may not be in ‘the teachings of the Church’, but it can be an attitude that’s out there.

I’m 55, never been married, and at times I’ve felt ‘left out’ in the Church because everything is ‘couple/group oriented’. Or, as I like to call it, ‘the herd mentality’.

Once you’re past 35, and either not married or in religious life, you are ‘washed up’. You’re NOBODY and NOTHING!

 

[tabsie3210]

It may not be in ‘the teachings of the Church’, but it can be an attitude that’s out there.

I’m 55, never been married, and at times I’ve felt ‘left out’ in the Church because everything is ‘couple/group oriented’. Or, as I like to call it, ‘the herd mentality’.

Once you’re past 35, and either not married or in religious life, you are ‘washed up’. You’re NOBODY and NOTHING!

…among Catholics. Now, if you’re 35 and not married or in religious life, according to the secular world we live in, then you’re probably between lovers. Or you’re divorced for the (insert number here) time. Probably you have a child and are a single parent, or your ex-spouse/ex-lover has your kid and you have some form of visitation or partial or joint custody.

Most of the people I know these days are unmarried at my age only because they’ve never bothered to get married to the people that they were living with, or because they had been married but aren’t anymore. I’m one of the few people I know who is still an unmarried virgin, who has never lived with anyone of the opposit gender.

Now, while there’s no command that you must either live in a convent or be married and raise a family, what is commanded is that we live a life of holiness. In today’s society, shacking up isn’t a temptation - it’s a standard of living. Naturally, we Catholics know that to have sex outside of marriage for the sake of sex, or living together in sin, is forbidden. But have you ever tried dating in the “real world” these days, when you’re sticking to your guns and the number of single males who are obedient Catholics is very low?

In my area, most Catholic people marry young and either give up and go through the same serial divorces as everyone else, or they stay married their whole lives. I’ve been propositioned by Catholic males to date them, with the understanding that they want sex anyway - one guy even told me that although he understood that I was saving myself, he had to have sex, but that was okay, because we could either mutually mastrubate each other or have phone sex or something, as long as he got something, and otherwise we’d be a great pair.

I admit to being lonely. When one does not have any prospects, it’s very hard to not give in and live the way the world lives. I could probably find a guy to marry if I gave in, went clubbing, had casual encounters, got close to one of my “friends with benefits,” and might even eventually convert him, but that would thwart my entire intent in finding a husband who, while very much a sinner like the rest of us, is trying to be a faithful and genuine Catholic.

When compared to that way of living, with temptation forever dangling over my head, being single isn’t a good idea. Thus, single people are either supposed to be in religious life, or married - in religious life to give oneself totally to God, or married to keep the fire at bay inside one’s heart.

So… there’s my reasoning.