Jealous of friars and priests

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Usually, religious people are the same as the rest of us, they have their ups and downs, their talents and weaknesses, their blessings and their crosses,

But ideally: they have chosen to put God and people first, and to refrain completely from anything that is a sin.

‘Far away hills are green.’
Someone’s facebook page or instagram page does not reveal the difficulties/ crosses/ weaknesses/ downs, that a person has. And ALL people have these no matter who you are. And religious vocations have specific difficulties/ crosses/ downs, that other vocations do not have.

There is no vocation where life is all flowers and roses.

There is the vocation that God put on your heart and gave you certain gifts for. It doesn’t mean it will be easy.

The first vocation is ‘the call to holiness.’
Be holy where you are, and ENJOY your life while keeping the commandments. God gave you people, talents, and opportunities in your life, but you must seek those people and use those talents and go to places etc. you cannot just sit and wait, you must ‘do.’
What are you not doing in your current vocation that you should be?
What have you got in your current vocation that you are taking for granted? Have you an amazing family and career that you do not thank God for?

Find God where you are is what you should be doing before anything else.
 
Your ‘jealousy’ is actually just God calling you to look into the religious life.

It means the religious life appeals to you at the moment.

It does not mean it is God’s plan for you.

It may be an opportunity just for you to look into it and then rest in the peaceful thought (now I know I am not called to religious life and can focus on God where I am).
 
MichaelAnonymous said:
Without God I am nothing. Sigh …
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That’s OK, because you were never meant to be without God in the first place, silly. Only Lucifer and his crowd imagined they could make something of themselves apart from God.
MichaelAnonymous said:
I saw a series of photos on Facebook yesterday which show the Ordination of young FSSP priests … and I am jealous of them again … they seem holier than me and more elegant … especially a young man there who’s quite handsome … sigh …
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A) There is something wrong with being jealous that you don’t have something that someone else worked and sacrificed to have and you didn’t or that you, who have talents and gifts of your own, are ungrateful for the ones you have because you covet more. You recognize that. Be gentle when you chide yourself…your spiritual director is, right?

B) Part of your solution may be, when you find yourself jealous, to turn your thoughts to anything else in the universe other than yourself. The humble in this world don’t think they are terrible people. They don’t waste a lot of time thinking about themselves at all. Getting out of the habit of thinking about yourself instead of other topics might relieve a lot of the stress you feel, too. You really don’t have to think about yourself all of the time in order to advance in the spiritual life. Do what you ought to do, and your development as a person will take care of itself much better
 
We’re all going to get old, lose our looks, and eventually die and (except for incorruptible saints) rot.

If you truly love God, a true beauty will shine from you regardless of how you look physically. Mother Theresa would never win a beauty contest, but she was beautiful because of the love and energy that poured forth from her little person.
 
I hope this is is the message that is left for the OP and his complexes, that there expectations for priests who aren’t necessarily cool. Or… in other words… what is being cool? A priest doesn’t have to answer this question imho but if he can that is ok. Either way what we say should not count as much as what the OP’s spiritual director said.
 
Both Pope Pius XI and Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati are Modern in the historical sense. According to the meaning of the word (Latin ‘modo’ just now) considering they are no longer with us and that the fascination for sports is as old as the Earth, neither of them is Modern.
 
Jealousy is regarding the retention of that which is yours. Now envy - that is a vice which, unless opposed by the virtue of charity, will frustrate your vocational search.
 
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Please help me offer up a few prayers so that I can grow in humility and charity. Thank you!
 
Certainly - keeping in mind that humility is an active, conscious decision. The Lord can certainly humble you, but greatly prefers that you do so yourself. The contrast is similar to Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, versus the conversion of the 3,000 souls on that first Pentecost.

Regarding the attainment of Christian virtue, especially humility, an excellent read is the spiritual classic “The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas á Kempis. There are various translations - some being far more accurate and useful than others.

I prefer the above edition done by Bishop Challoner which uses a more archaic English, but which strikes me as a more accurate rendering.

A good and simple daily reflection is the words of Saint John the Baptist: “He must increase, I must decrease.”
 
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