Discerning a Religious Vocation...and a Crush?

[Lynxdk]

As always, those discerning vocations to the religious life need a spiritual director.

Otherwise, I would say being called by God to a religious vocation doesn’t mean that you won’t have any kind of attraction to men.

Need? No. All she ~needs~ is God. God is the Director. God makes people, what they are. God is Alive and Among us now. Something people forget… all too often.

Want? Maybe… Spiritual Directors can ~help~ but only God can discern ~with~ the discerning person.

I am a Jesuit, By and For God, just so you know,

Sean

P.S. You’re right about the attraction part, though =)

 

[judynurse]

As always, those discerning vocations to the religious life need a spiritual director.

Otherwise, I would say being called by God to a religious vocation doesn’t mean that you won’t have any kind of attraction to men.

Absolutely Right!! When I was in the Convent and in my 40’s back in 1992, I noticed that some of the Novices still found young men attractive, as did some of the Vowed who were still in their 20’s, 30’s etc… They simply prayed and ignored it. But attraction is not the same thing as actions. It is simply a normal response to biological signals and must be dealt with by all Religious and Priests. That is a part of the discernment process and must be lived with, unless you enter a Cloister, seeing no one except a Priest through a grill and even then can occasionally be a problem. It is something Religious and Priests learn to deal with and overcome and accept as a part of life. I do agree you need a Spiritual Director – what about your local Priest? He can certainly help you, and every Diocese also has a Vocations Director at the Diocesan Headquarters who also can help with discernment.

 

[Lynxdk]

Absolutely Right!! When I was in the Convent and in my 40’s back in 1992, I noticed that some of the Novices still found young men attractive, as did some of the Vowed who were still in their 20’s, 30’s etc… They simply prayed and ignored it. But attraction is not the same thing as actions. It is simply a normal response to biological signals and must be dealt with by all Religious and Priests. That is a part of the discernment process and must be lived with, unless you enter a Cloister, seeing no one except a Priest through a grill and even then can occasionally be a problem. It is something Religious and Priests learn to deal with and overcome and accept as a part of life. I do agree you need a Spiritual Director – what about your local Priest? He can certainly help you, and every Diocese also has a Vocations Director at the Diocesan Headquarters who also can help with discernment.

At least this is a better answer.

Go back to the front page, where I already answered “give it up to God.”

There is no better attraction to me, than the One Most High.

Sean

 

[Havard]

At least this is a better answer.

Go back to the front page, where I already answered “give it up to God.”

There is no better attraction to me, than the One Most High.

Sean

God bless you for being here, I do appreciate your (name removed by moderator)ut, but the “at least this is a better answer” comment comes off as unnecessarily condescending toward the posters in this thread.

As to SuperLuigi’s comment about spiritual directors, I concur that spiritual direction can be a great boon if a good spiritual director is available and can be met with regularity. I gather SuperLuigi’s usage of word need to be not literal, but rather as it’s used in the colloquialism of conveying a very strong recommendation.

 

[Lynxdk]

God bless you for being here, I do appreciate your (name removed by moderator)ut, but the “at least this is a better answer” comment comes off as unnecessarily condescending toward the posters in this thread.

As to SuperLuigi’s comment about spiritual directors, I concur that spiritual direction can be a great boon if a good spiritual director is available and can be met with regularity. I gather SuperLuigi’s usage of word need to be not literal, but rather as it’s used in the colloquialism of conveying a very strong recommendation.

Thank you, I do have a tendency to get a little caught up in word usage. It’s not my intent to put anyone down.

I apologize for any offense taken from my comments <3

 

[glendab]

Hello Lynx/Sean.

Need? No. All she ~needs~ is God. God is the Director. God makes people, what they are. God is Alive and Among us now. Something people forget… all too often.

Want? Maybe… Spiritual Directors can ~help~ but only God can discern ~with~ the discerning person.

I am a Jesuit, By and For God, just so you know,

Sean

P.S. You’re right about the attraction part, though =)

I was wondering, what level have you been to so far. Are you Ordained and have you taken Vow # 4 yet? How long a Jesuit? Perhaps you could share your discernment process here.

Glenda

 

[Lynxdk]

Hello Lynx/Sean.

I was wondering, what level have you been to so far. Are you Ordained and have you taken Vow # 4 yet? How long a Jesuit? Perhaps you could share your discernment process here.

Glenda

I’m still working on #4… I have some “issues” with Authority. Comes from a lifetime of being “bullied by God” (Lord Have Mercy).

And as far as my discernment process, I’d rather not look at things in the dry static, step by step sort of way, and say that it’s more or less something that I “knew” about myself, before I knew the words to express it, when I was very young.

The sorts of things that interfere with that are often the well meaning advice and suggestions of friends and family. “You’re good at this, you’re good at that, maybe you should do this for a living.”

And often enough in my life, the less well intentioned sorts of advice, as well. For example, when I was little, 3 years old I can remember fairly easily, I used to “talk to God” in my head, all the time, but trying to share that with anyone usually would get me a “look” or even the words “Does He talk talk back?” and when I’d reply “Yes” the next answer would be along the lines of “there must be something wrong with you…”

And that still makes me sad, because I know a lot of people in my family that are struggling with things that would be a lot easier to deal with, if they would just open up little.

So I lost that for awhile, or at least, I thought I had. Looking back now I can see He was always with me, and always will be, and no one can take that away from me, again =)

Yahweh, don’t leave home without Him

Sean

 

[glendab]

I’m still working on #4… I have some “issues” with Authority. Comes from a lifetime of being “bullied by God” (Lord Have Mercy)…And that still makes me sad, because I know a lot of people in my family that are struggling with things that would be a lot easier to deal with, if they would just open up little.

So I lost that for awhile, or at least, I thought I had. Looking back now I can see He was always with me, and always will be, and no one can take that away from me, again =)

Yahweh, don’t leave home without Him

Sean

Hello Sean and thanks for the reply. I know it’s a little off the topic, but why do you prefer to call God Yahweh? I’m a convert and never caught the gist of this name. Can you explain it a little?

Glenda

 

[glendab]

I’m still working on #4… I have some “issues” with Authority. Comes from a lifetime of being “bullied by God” (Lord Have Mercy)…And that still makes me sad, because I know a lot of people in my family that are struggling with things that would be a lot easier to deal with, if they would just open up little.

So I lost that for awhile, or at least, I thought I had. Looking back now I can see He was always with me, and always will be, and no one can take that away from me, again =)

Yahweh, don’t leave home without Him

Sean

Hello Sean and thanks for the reply. I know it’s a little off the topic, but why do you prefer to call God Yahweh? I’m a convert and never caught the gist of this name. Can you explain it a little?

Glenda

 

[Lynxdk]

Hello Sean and thanks for the reply. I know it’s a little off the topic, but why do you prefer to call God Yahweh? I’m a convert and never caught the gist of this name. Can you explain it a little?

Glenda

I guess you could say it’s still on topic, as being part of my discernment. I like that word too, but I like to also say that it’s always ongoing. It’s not a place I get to, and then stop. There’s always more to learn Of and From Him =)

But I’ll also say that it’s because I like to try and keep the Whole Book in mind. Our Father has Many names, and just calling Him “God” all the time is a little too generic for me. Lots of people say they “believe in god”, but they’re not very specific about Which “god”. And while I try not to judge, I myself have gotten off track at times, “worshiping” something else in the sense of becoming too focused on material things, or even people, for example, and while I have, for the most part, “kept god in mind”… sometimes it was more to the back of my mind, than the front

Yahweh also means “he who causes to exist”. YHWH, the God described in Genesis, then revealed as Yahweh in Exodus. I was poking around in a few online bibles, and most of the ones I found went back and changed it to “God” in the earlier books, and use “Lord” in the later ones, but to me Lord is a Title. Yahweh is a Name.

Yahweh is much more personal. He is my best friend and master, but I don’t need to say the title all the time, to remember that. So I like to say it that way, because it reminds me of who I’m talking to, or about. =)

There’s a Lot of resources online that you can find that can give a more complete description than I can here. Elohim is another good name with important meaning as well.

But I think the most Specific reason I call Them that, is because that’s the name they “tackled” me with. I could say “revealed” but that’s too gentle a word to describe those events that it took to get through to me… And I don’t want to talk about those here

I used the plural pronouns, because going back to Genesis, they are described as a plurality, and we as Catholics know Him as Father, Son and Holy Spirit =)

I love my God <3

Sean

 

[glendab]

Hello Sean. Thanks for the reply.

I guess you could say it’s still on topic, as being part of my discernment. I like that word too, but I like to also say that it’s always ongoing. It’s not a place I get to, and then stop. There’s always more to learn Of and From Him =)

But I’ll also say that it’s because I like to try and keep the Whole Book in mind. Our Father has Many names, and just calling Him “God” all the time is a little too generic for me. Lots of people say they “believe in god”, but they’re not very specific about Which “god”. And while I try not to judge, I myself have gotten off track at times, “worshiping” something else in the sense of becoming too focused on material things, or even people, for example, and while I have, for the most part, “kept god in mind”… sometimes it was more to the back of my mind, than the front

Yahweh also means “he who causes to exist”. YHWH, the God described in Genesis, then revealed as Yahweh in Exodus. I was poking around in a few online bibles, and most of the ones I found went back and changed it to “God” in the earlier books, and use “Lord” in the later ones, but to me Lord is a Title. Yahweh is a Name.

Yahweh is much more personal. He is my best friend and master, but I don’t need to say the title all the time, to remember that. So I like to say it that way, because it reminds me of who I’m talking to, or about. =)

There’s a Lot of resources online that you can find that can give a more complete description than I can here. Elohim is another good name with important meaning as well.

But I think the most Specific reason I call Them that, is because that’s the name they “tackled” me with. I could say “revealed” but that’s too gentle a word to describe those events that it took to get through to me… And I don’t want to talk about those here

I used the plural pronouns, because going back to Genesis, they are described as a plurality, and we as Catholics know Him as Father, Son and Holy Spirit =)

I love my God <3

Sean

Your comments say a lot about the man you are. Thanks for sharing them here.

Glenda