I’ll be honest. I am pretty discouraged at this point. I realize that most orders will turn me away because of my past history of mental illness. I don’t even know if I should pursue the religious life because I have mental illness. It really sucks. I want to be like one of the saints. But it seems that all of the saints were involved in a religious order. Were there any lay people who were canonized as saints? I want to live a saintly life is what I mean. I do not dare presume that one day I will be canonized as I know that is highly improbable. Besides, I am far too much of a sinner to presume that I would one day be canonized. I do, however, hope to make it to Heaven one day.
I also feel called to spread the Gospel that Catholicism teaches to those who are lost. I don’t really know how to go about doing this though. I have wanted to be a missionary for a long time but again, I am not even sure if a lay person can be a missionary or not.
God has put this burden on my heart for Protestants and other people who do not have the fullness of the Truth to share with them the fullness of the Truth. I don’t really know how to go about doing that though. I try to pass out Catholic tracts from time to time and to teach people the Catholic faith to the best of my ability when I can but it seems like I am always failing. This really discourages me.
What can I do? Any further advice that you all have to offer me?
You sound just like me Holly lol… Lay Catholics can be missionaries, Lay people also play important roles in the structures of the church.
How? Well, the Catholic church is a living organism. The word lay derives from the Anglo-French lai (from Late Latin laicus, from the Greek λαϊκός, laikos, of the people, from λαός, laos, the people at large).
The term laity is here understood to mean all the faithful except those in holy orders and those in the state of religious life specially approved by the Church. These faithful are by baptism made one body with Christ and are constituted among the People of God; they are in their own way made sharers in the priestly, prophetical, and kingly functions of Christ; and they carry out for their own part the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the world.
The Second Vatican Council taught that the laity’s specific character is secularity, i.e. as Christians who live the life of Christ in the world, their role is to sanctify the created world by directing it to become more Christian in its structures and systems: “It belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in the affairs of the world and directing them according to God’s will,” stated the Council in “Lumen Gentium.” The laity are full members of the Church, who fully share in Church’s purpose of sanctification, of "inner union of men with God,"acting with freedom and personal responsibility and not as mere agents of the hierarchy. Due to their baptism, they are members of God’s family, the Church, and they grow in intimate union with God, “in” and “by means” of the world.
It is not a matter of departing from the world as the monks and the nuns do that they sanctify themselves; it is precisely through the material world sanctified by the coming of the God made flesh, i.e. made material, that they reach God. Doctors, mothers of a family, farmers, bank tellers, drivers, by doing their jobs in the world with a Christian spirit are already extending the Kingdom of God. According to the repeated statements of Popes and lay Catholic leaders, the laity should say “we are the Church,” in the same way that the saints said that “Christ lives in me.”
You dont have to be a nun to be holy. There were many saints that were lay people too. Like St. Felicity, and St. Helen and so on. The first saints were martyrs, people who had given up their lives for the Faith. I AM NOT SAYING YOU SHOULD BE A MARTYR. I am just simply point out that you can live the single or married life, in a saintly fashion too. I also suggest you to look at this website as well:
Fisheaters.com.
First Commandment: Thou shalt not take to thyself any graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing in heaven above, nor in the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth: thou shalt not adore them nor serve them.
Second Commandment: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Third Commandment: Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath Day.
Fourth Commandment: Honor thy father and thy mother.
Fifth Commandment: Thou shalt not kill.
Sixth Commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Seventh Commandment: Thou shalt not steal.
Eight Commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Ninth Commandment: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.
Tenth Commandment: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.
Each one of the ten commandments, whether it be expressed by way of command to perform some good, or a prohibition to commit some evil, contains both a command and a prohibition.
Q. Why do you say the first table contains only three commandments?
A. Because, though some people divine the first commandment into two, and by this means make four in the first table; yet in reality it is only one and the same; for when God says, “thou shalt have no other gods but me,” he plainly forbids to worship any other being whatsoever as God, but himself alone; and when afterwards he says, “Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven thing. &c. Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: for I am the Lord thy God,” he only explains in particular what he had before declared in general terms, and forbids the worship of idols as gods.
Q. But what need was there for this particular explanation?
A. Because as the worship of idols was prevailing every where, and the people of Israel were steeped in this sin, God thought it proper, by the above explanation, to caution them in particular against this detestable breach of it.
Q. How then do you make out all the ten commandments if all be joined in one?
A. Whose who divide the first command into two, are obliged to join the two last into one; for “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife,” and “Thou shalt not covet they neighbour’s goods,” which they join in one, are manifestly two distinct commands.
Q. How can this be shown?
A. Because they forbid the internal acts of two different and distinct sins; the one a sin of lust, the other a sin of injustice; and, as the external acts of these sins are forbidden by two distinct commands, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” because they are two distinct sins so the inwards acts, or desire of these vices being equally two distinct sins, equally require to be forbidden by two distinct commands.
Q. Are we strictly obliged to obey the law of God as found in the ten commandments and the gospel?
A. Yes; First, God, who is a lawgiver, is our sovereign Lord and Master, who created us out of nothing, and gave us all we are and all we have, who has the most absolute dominion over us, and can do with us whatever he pleases; consequently, we are wholly at his disposal, and, therefore, are strictly obliged to do whatever he requires of us.
Second, We have seen above, that he has made our obedience to his law one essential condition of our salvation; and, consequently, if we refuse this obedience, we shall be punished with eternal misery.
Third, Because the scripture assures us, that “the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with the angels of his power, in a flame of fire, yielding vengeance to them who know nt God, and who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall suffer eternal punishment in destruction,” 2 Thess. i. 7.
Q. re we obliged to obey the whole law in order to be saved?
A. We are; for the holy scripture says, “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, but offend in one point, is become guilty of all,” James ii. 10; that is, he becomes a transgressor of the law in such a manner, the observing of all the other points will not avail him to salvation.
Q. Are we able, by the strength of nature alone, to keep the commandments of God?
A. By our own natural strength alone, without the help of God’s grace, we are not able to keep the commandments, nor, indeed, so much as to think a good thought towards our salvation. Thus the scriptures declare, “that we are not sufficient to think any thing of ourselves, as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,” 2 Cor. iii. 5. “And no man can say, the Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost,” 1 Cor. xii. 3.; that is, no man can say it, so as to be conducive to his salvation. And our Savior himself, to show our total inability of doing any good of ourselves, and without his divine assistance, says, “Without me you can do nothing,” John xv. 5.; and he confirms the same truth by the similitude of a vine, and its branches, saying, “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me,” verse. 4.
Q. Are we able to keep the commandments by the help of God’s grace?
A. Yes, we are; and God, who requires us to keep his commands, is never wanting on his part to give us sufficient grace for that purpose. The truth of this is shown.
First, The scriptures are full of the warmest exhortations to all to keep the commandments, which certainly would be unbecoming the divine wisdom, if it was impossible to keep them with the help of God’s grace, or if that grace was ever refused us.
Second, God every where obliges man to keep his commandments, under pain of eternal punishment.
Now, it is totally inconsistent with his justice, and makes God a cruel tyrant, to say he would punish us for breaking his commandments, if it was impossible for us to keep them.
Third, We read of several in the scripture who actually did keep them perfectly, and are highly praised on that account, such as Abraham and job, and particularly the parents of St. John the Baptist, of whom the scripture says, that “they were both just before God, walking in ALL THE COMMANDMENTS and justification of the Lord, without blame,” Luke. i. 6.
Fourth, God himself declares, in the very first command, that he shows mercy to thousands of those that love him and keep his commandments," Exod. xx. 6.
Fifth, St. Paul assures us, that God is never wanting on his part to give us all necessary assistance to keep them, saying, “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able to bear, but will make also, with the temptation, issue,” (that is, a way to escape)" that you may be able to bear it." 1 Cor. x. 13.
[SIGN]They who preach the gospel should live by the gospel[/SIGN]
I also suggest you to got to
Catholicdoors.com/teaching:thumbsup: 
Good luck…
If you ever have a feeling that God is talking to you. Read the scriptures, study the lives of saints, and different orders, also pray pray and pray even go to cofession. Get a spiritual director too. Go 2 Church more often.God is with you at this very moment calling you to himself. Holly God only knows. All of us are called to use our unqui gifts and talents that was given by the Lord, Go to IsGodcallingyou.org and take the test you may be right and called to become a nun. I have been discerning for 14 years straight.