I’m a high school junior (class of 2011) and I don’t know if I’m being called to the religious life or not!! How do I know?!? I haven’t ruled out the religious life by any means, but naturally I’m already looking at colleges and sort of planning my life…and that life doesn’t involve me being a nun. Although like I said, I’m not ruling out religious life.
And honestly, I’ve been Roman Catholic all my life, but I’ve never heard God’s voice, so will I hear God telling me “Abby, you need to be a nun” or something like that? haha okay so that was probably exaggerated a bit, but you get my point!
so basically…
how do I know if I’m being called or not?!?
HELP!
Dear mgobluegrl93,
May the peace of Christ be with you as you follow Our Lord’s will in your life.
Below is an exert from
religious-vocation.com, which you may find helpful in your discernment;
Discerning Religious Life
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux once estimated that about one out of three Catholics (~33%) have a vocation to the consecrated life. Yet today, less one in every twenty-thousand Catholics (~0.005%) are consecrated religious. These statistics, if even remotely accurate, help us to better understand the difficulty Catholics face today when discerning a religious vocation, that is; that many either do not hear the call of God, or hear but do not listen.
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**A Natural Desire for Marriage **
What then, is the reason for such a disparity? First, we may observe that, in terms of discernment, marriage has an immediate “advantage” over celibacy, in that it is in accord with man’s natural desires. All men and women have a deeply ingrained desire to be loved by another person and to raise a family. It is therefore easy for someone to mistakenly believe they have a vocation to marriage, when in fact they might not. This natural inclination is further exacerbated by the society in which we live, which obsesses on dating and relationships to near compulsion. The institution of marriage is often viewed as the natural
next step in one’s life that everyone is expected to
perform. In brief, discerning a religious vocation today is nothing less than difficult. It requires one to say “no” to what is natural, tangible, and before our eyes, and “yes” to a seemingly remote ideal (it should be no surprise why the Catholic Church prays for vocations with such frequency).
http://religious-vocation.com/images/img_capuchin1.jpg **
“The Heart is Deceitful”
The prophet Jeremiah tells us, “The heart is deceitful above all things. Who can know it?” (Jer 17:9). It is thus how one should approach discernment, that is; to place little emphasis on feelings, and greater emphasis on reason, in view of the counsel of Holy Mother Church. Therefore, if the Church considers the married state to be a
good, and the consecrated life of celibacy to be a
better good (see;
A Higher Calling), right reason dictates that we ought to prefer the
better good by default, unless/until God reveals otherwise. Saint Ignatius exhorts us in a similar manner; “If a person thinks of embracing a secular life, he should ask and desire more evident signs that God calls him to a secular life, than if there were question of embracing the evangelical counsels; for Our Lord Himself has evidently exhorted us to embrace His counsels.”
Discernment then might be considered a test of the will, that is to say to oneself;
“I love Christ enough to sacrifice what I so deeply desire; marriage. I therefore submit myself to the direction of His Church. I do not trust in my feelings. But I choose the better way, until God reveals otherwise.” This is not, however, to mean that a vocation to the religious life should be forced. Rather, it is acknowledging our human predispositions and allowing the opportunity for the desires of one’s heart to grow, rather than shutting the door before it ever had a chance to open. Saint Paul counsels us in the same manner; *“Are you free of a wife? Then do not look for a wife. If you marry, however, you do not sin…but such people will experience affliction in their earthly life, and I would like to spare you that.” - 1 Cor 7 *
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**Marriage's Ultimate Fulfillment **
It is therefore necessary during one’s discernment to understand that religious life is not a “giving up” of marriage. Rather, it is an elevation of marriage, beyond this world, towards its ultimate fulfillment - it is to live, here on earth, a more intimate union with heavenly reality. Instead of marrying a man - a creature - religious marry Christ Himself, wed to the Church. Instead of raising children, religious priests adopt every soul as their spiritual child. Instead of devoting one’s life towards the salvation of immediate family, religious devote their lives to the salvation of the world, actualized through the rigors of daily prayer, work, and sacrifice. In this way, consecrated life is everything that marriage is, but elevated to a higher dignity and perfection. It redirects man’s natural desire for marriage towards a higher and more perfect end; towards the mystical marriage between Christ and His Church. It is thus that the Church considers the consecrated life an
act of supererogation, that is; for those who want to become
perfect *(Matt. 5:48, “be therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” ), *for it is first by becoming perfect, that one is able to sanctify others to the highest degree possible.
