'Calling' a setup for failure?

[Oren]

I’ve wondered about this for a long time. Is saying that you have to feel ‘called’ to the religion life a setup for failure? Doesn’t St. Paul say in the Bible that if you can bear it, then you should choose the better life? So, wouldn’t that mean that if you are single and you reasonably think that you can remain single for life, shouldn’t you do it and become a nun or brother etc?
When I read about vocation stories or in threads about vocations, there’s always this theme of signs or being led…but aren’t we all led in that direction to one degree or another? Maybe I just misunderstand what people are saying or how it really plays out in their life. I guess I see things to literally and in black and white…but I also think that some people can be misled by people telling them they have to feel a certain way or be a certain way to be able to enter the religious life.
Couldn’t it be as simple as being able to do it and doing it because it’s the best way of life, not feeling like you have a special calling? It’s like, you have to already be a nun practically in order to enter a religious life…that’s how it seems sometimes to me.

 

[Trishie]

If in the practical manner you suggest, a person moves to pursue religious life, he or she may in fact be called in such a seemingly prosaic way.
A person can even be misled by a more excited and emotional response or recognition of signs, real or not, just as one can be by an act of will.
Each of us is different!
This is where the discernment process that accompanies and follows a response to enter religious life proves its value.
The process occurs with the aid of spiritual direction and assessment.

I didn’t see exploding fireworks when I met the man I married and with whom I raised a family. I simply had an inexplicable quiet conviction that this was the man I would marry. I’m an enthusiastic person, though I can be analytical, but there was no process involved. It was simply a quiet, unemotional conviction.

Whether marriage or religious life, our paths are individual, and there is no particular way in which God calls a person, but working quietly with the Holy Spirit and the spiritual directors involved, the vocation to religious life is tested, and if, like my dear son, that vocation is only the fervent wish of the heart but not God’s call, then you will learn so.
My son was broken-hearted…he had believed himself called for many years, but learned from his provincial and novice-master that it wasn’t his true calling…therefore the onus isn’t completely on the person who responds to what they believe is God’s call.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

I’ve wondered about this for a long time. Is saying that you have to feel ‘called’ to the religion life a setup for failure? Doesn’t St. Paul say in the Bible that if you can bear it, then you should choose the better life? So, wouldn’t that mean that if you are single and you reasonably think that you can remain single for life, shouldn’t you do it and become a nun or brother etc?
When I read about vocation stories or in threads about vocations, there’s always this theme of signs or being led…but aren’t we all led in that direction to one degree or another? Maybe I just misunderstand what people are saying or how it really plays out in their life. I guess I see things to literally and in black and white…but I also think that some people can be misled by people telling them they have to feel a certain way or be a certain way to be able to enter the religious life.
Couldn’t it be as simple as being able to do it and doing it because it’s the best way of life, not feeling like you have a special calling? It’s like, you have to already be a nun practically in order to enter a religious life…that’s how it seems sometimes to me.

You don’t have to be a religious brother or a sister; Paul talked about celibacy not the clergy.

 

[Jesus_123]

… Couldn’t it be as simple as being able to do it and doing it because it’s the best way of life, not feeling like you have a special calling? …

+As God’s children we are each of us created for a specific good and special holy purpose in the plan of God for our lives . . . and prayerfully discovering one’s primary vocational path in life prepared by the Lord . . . whether it is to chastly embrace a blest single life, marriage and a family, or the life of a religious . . . is a portion of discovering our soul’s special niche in regard to the holy purpose and plan of God for our lives as we walk with God day by day . . . and each is a special calling of God and needs to be prayerfully discovered, accepted and embraced in the Lord . . .

Even as in marriage . . . there are two parties in the Lord also in the calling to the life of a religious or a priest . . . and as the bride and groom each needs to prayerfully freely each choose the other . . . so also it is true in regard to a calling to the religious life . . . which involves the individual and a church community . . . that community . . . along with the individual . . . must prayerfully seek together God’s will as to whether an individual’s seeking a vocation within the church . . . is a genuine calling . . . from **God **to such a life with them . . . **or not **. . . such a calling is never just the following of an individual inclination toward a way of life in the Lord by an individual . . . below is from the **Solesme Abbey **in France who follow The Holy Rule of St. Benedict for Monasteries regarding responding to the call of God on a person’s life to the vocation of a religious within our Holy Mother Church . . .

. . . :coffeeread: . . .
The grace of baptism makes us sons of God, in imitation of Christ. And by the action of the **Holy Spirit **who dwells in each baptised person, faith and love progressively transform our natural life. Our view of God and the world are renewed and gradually resemble that of Christ, the only Son of God.

He whom God calls to the monastic life feels attracted by this mysterious discovery of God, and he understands the supreme value of the priceless pearl. To acquire it, everything else must be subordinated to it because only it gives him the plenitude of life and wisdom.

Saint Benedict resumes this program with the expression,** “seeking God”**, and he wants us to verify carefully if this is indeed the intention of a candidate to the monastic life. This is what he writes in the Prologue of his Rule:

«The voice of **God calls out to us each day: ‘Run as long as you have the light of life, for fear that darkness cover you over!’ And the Lord, seeking his **worker in the crowd whom he speaks to, says, ‘Who is the man who wants life and desires to see blessed days?’ If, having heard him, you answer, ‘Me!’ **God **answers you,‘Do you want true life, eternal life? Then keep your tongue from evil and do good, seek peace and keep to it.’ See with what tenderness the Lord shows us the way of life!»

«God seeks man, comments Dom Delatte, and in turn man must seek God. We do nothing else in the monastic life.»

:compcoff: Link: solesmes.com/GB/priere/chercher.php?js=1​

. . . all for Jesus+
. . . Sweet Spirit of our Holy God+
. . . guide and direct+
. . . Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow!
:harp:​

 

[Oren]

Thanks for the responses. I realize you don’t HAVE to be a religious but I just see a lot of people struggling because they don’t have a certain feeling. That’s all.