Can you help in discerning between a religious or marital vocation?

[bennett]

I’m 20 years old, and I don’t feel a vocation to the Church. I would really like to marry, but I don’t yet feel a specific vocation to marriage, and I doubt that I will until I fall in love. However, I doubt that I’ll fall in love unless I date, but I fear that by dating I will fall in love and get married, closing myself off to the possibility of a vocation to the Church. I worry that perhaps I’m not giving God enough of a chance to call me, and that I’m just taking the easy out by saying “No way am I holy enough to have a vocation!” Is there anything I can do, (equivalent to dating, or a discernment program for those who don’t feel a vocation) that might cause me to fall in love with being a nun, so that if I do, I could serve God in my vocation, and if I don’t, I would be able to pursue marriage with full confidence that I am called to marry? Or are those who pursue marriage supposed to be burdened with the possibility that they are not serving God to the best of their ability?

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi,

Forget everything that you said after: “…I don’t feel a vocation to the Church. I would really like to marry…” That’s all you need. Second guessing yourself can become very confusing. Grace builds on nature. If your inclination is toward marriage, it’s there because God put it there. You don’t have to have any person in mind to know that your vocation is marriage. The first sign of any vocation is the desire for it. At this point your desire seems to be that you would really like to be married. You are in my prayers.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.