Impossible to pick wrong vocation?

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FortressGiant

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Greetings everyone,

Is it possible to pick the wrong vocation? This question comes from a curiosity and from a personal struggle I have been dealing with for years. I am now married but at one point years ago I strongly debated becoming a monk and was ready to call off my engagement. Around a year or so ago, I discussed this with a spiritual director who kept saying “the best way to know you’re following the right vocation is by being in it” or something similar. When I asked him to elaborate what this meant, he explained several important things including:
  1. Once you are in a vocation validly, you know that you are in the right vocation and you need not think about whether you made the wrong decision or not
  2. It is impossible to pick the wrong vocation
It is number 2 that confused me greatly. We got to talking and the monsignor explained that a priest, for example, could not keep jumping from diocese to diocese and bishop to bishop until someone is willing to ordain him. He said that God would not allow this to happen because it wasn’t the person’s calling. Therefore, he could never become a priest.

Has anyone found anything that says this is true? It goes against what I have learned over the years about Catholic teaching but I might have misunderstood or misread something. If it were true, discernment and praying for more priests becomes much less important as God would make sure that nobody joined a vocation they weren’t supposed (the exception would be single people whose vocation isn’t being single; since this is our natural state we have to actually take action to leave it if God is calling us to marriage, holy orders, or religious life).

Any thoughts?
  • FG
 
I think what your spiritual director meant is that you can go to Heaven on any of those paths, whether it’s as a father or a priest or a monk. But some paths make it easier than others. So while there isn’t a wrong choice there is a best choice.
 
It’s more like this:

God will provide graces for whatever vow you take on.

You cannot forego God’s graces simply by “choosing” the wrong thing. Even if you act directly against what you have discerned is God’s Will for you, He will not abandon you and will provide what you need to live that vocation.
 
I’m sorry you feel you might have lost a religious vocation, for any stress this causes you.

I spent some time fretting with my spiritual director over my own vocation and he gave me this gem, which is basically what Fauken said: “No matter where you go, there will always be a path to sainthood.” Personally, I disagree with your spiritual director (I’m just a lay Catholic with an opinion, I can be so very wrong!!) on point#2. I feel a person who loves God can serve Him well on any number of paths. Let’s say that, for a certain hypothetical young man, the path that will bring God the most glory, the best path for him, is to be a Carmelite priest. The way I see it, he’s invited but free to say no. Let’s say he does, choosing instead to be a Franciscan because there happens to be a community closer to home. That’s fine. He can still serve God and be a saint as a Franciscan. Or if he chose to be married, or to be single, the path to sainthood is still there, just in different forms.

Maybe you had a religious vocation. Maybe you didn’t and would have found that out if you did call off your engagement and spent some time with the monks. But right now, you’re married, so that’s your vocation. You’re called to be the best Catholic and the best husband you can be. Try not to worry yourself by discerning backwards. Your path to sainthood is right in front of you. I wish you all the best in it, and may God bless you always!
 
Hello Talitha,
Thank you for your reply. I have a hard time not discerning backwards as you put it. Sometimes I start questioning whether my marriage was even valid and whether I should pursue an annulment to try to become a monk but I know how I feel without my wife for even an extended portion of the day. I just can’t be alone, I have to have someone to share everything with and I don’t think fellow monks would have been enough. There has never been a desire in me to become a priest so it’s just a monk vs married person problem. Does choosing the wrong vocation count as a mortal sin? Are we required morally to pursue a certain vocation and if we deviate we repent and make the best of it? I’ve never found anything concrete in Catholic teaching that adresses this and if anyone knows of a line from the Catechism it would be a great help. If I reflect on it and realize that being a true monk was my calling, should I then pursue an annulment or separation to try to become a monk? This doesn’t really seem fair to my wife but I don’t know what is required of me and I am filled with confusion.

-FG
 
It is possible to fail to pursue one’s true call, yes. Pope Pius XI spoke both of how parents can abuse their influence to manipulate a son into seminary or else too strongly dissuade him from entering the priesthood out of wrong-headed motives:

“Yet it must be confessed with sadness that only too often parents seem to be unable to resign themselves to the priestly or religious vocations of their children. Such parents have no scruple in opposing the divine call with objections of all kinds; they even have recourse to means which can imperil not only the vocation to a more perfect state, but also the very conscience and the eternal salvation of those souls they ought to hold so dear. This happens all too often in the case even of parents who glory in being sincerely Christian and Catholic, especially in the higher and more cultured classes. This is a deplorable abuse, like that unfortunately prevalent in centuries past, of forcing children into the ecclesiastical career without the fitness of a vocation…A long and sad experience has shown that a vocation betrayed - the word is not to be thought too strong - is a source of tears not only for the sons but also for the ill-advised parents; and God grant that such tears be not so long delayed as to become eternal tears.”
–Pope Pius XI, Ad Catholici Sacerdotii, Encylical on the Catholic Priesthood, 1935

He was not at all talking about the case where someone pursued the will of God in good faith, however. He was talking about those who had good reason to sincerely know what they were or were not called to do, but were turned away from following the call they would have followed because of undue pressure from the outside.

The search for one’s call from God is not an Easter egg hunt with some Sword of Damocles hanging over it.
It is more reasonable to believe it follows the prayer of Thomas Merton:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always,
though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Certainly St. Paul had not been called in his zeal to please God to persecute Christians. He misunderstood what he ought to have been doing to please God. Did that mean he had “missed” his call? By no means. There is always today to folllow the will of God. It is never too late. Do what you can do today, whether that be to look ahead or to make amends for past sins, but don’t dwell on past choices that cannot be undone.
 
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God probably won’t have you live in the belly of a fish for three days if you don’t go to seminary, or the monastery/convent, or don’t marry that guy/girl.

God created each of us for a particular vocation, desiring us to pursue that one- but knowing we have the power to choose another. If we pick the “wrong one”, God will provide for us anyways.
 
Hello again, FortressGiant,

Like I said, I’m just a lay Catholic with an opinion, so I’m afraid I don’t know of anything concrete about this in Catholic teaching. My opinions are based partially on the writings of saints and partially on my own spiritual director, so I don’t claim to be right.

So, continuing along the lines of my own opinion, I do NOT believe living “the wrong vocation” is a mortal sin, maybe not even a sin at all, especially if it was a decision made in good faith rather than a deliberate denial of God’s Will. Don’t forget, a mortal sin requires grave matter, full knowledge, and consent of the will. But since it’s causing you so much stress and I’m a poor substitute for real guidance, I would suggest talking to a priest or religious you trust about it. Honestly, if I were you, I’d see if I could find a monk who either is or has worked as a vocation director. He would have the experience and knowledge.

As long as there is any confusion or doubt in your heart, I strongly advise you against pursuing any annulment. Decisions like this need clear heads and certain hearts.

If anyone out there more learned than me is reading this, feel free to jump in! And you’re in my prayers, FortressGiant, God bless you always.
 
How old are you anyways? There are plenty of religious orders that do not require men to be 35 or younger or whatever the case may be.
 
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I think it’s much easier to find an order for men who accept people aged 35+ than women at that, so it’s definitely possible!
 
Hello PetraG,

What you said makes a lot of sense and I like the prayer you brought up. I use it every so often, I never knew who it came from.

Thank you for your reply!

FG
 
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Definitely younger than that and definitely smarter than I was years ago when I was going through this struggle to pick the right path.

FG
 
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