My parents might not support religious life?

[laplaceelvis]

Hi! I’m a young Catholic who believes that religious life is what God is calling her to do. While I am young I am very certain about this, but will go to college before discerning with any specific community. While my parents say they want me follow God’s will, every time I bring it up they say things like, " oh you’ll meet a nice boy in college and change your mind". They think I have made this decision myself and will eventually change my mind.

I don’t know if they truly support me or just say it to make me feel better. How do I make them understand that its not a decision i made, but a call from God?

 

[Lee1]

Well, you could try describing to them how you received this call from God to dedicate your life to His service? I’d certainly be interested to know.

Your parents are gently reminding you that you’re young to make such a serious decision and perhaps may change your mind as you grow a little older. It’s nice and balanced in my opinion.

You might speak to a priest about your ideas and share your aspirations with him and seek his counsel in the matter.

God bless and guide your steps on the great journey.

 

[KD8TZC]

I don’t know how old you are, but lets say you are older than 18, and you came home with a nice guy and told your parents that you were going to marry him, they would be saying similar things about making sure this is the choice you wish to make. I think the way I would read this is your parents are telling you they love you and don’t want to see you make an impulsive decision, but to pray over it and discern it.

 

[chessnerd321]

" oh you’ll meet a nice boy in college and change your mind"

If you’re like me, then in college you’ll gain independence as well. Of course you should still love and honor your parents. But when you get to a certain age you become ok with not doing exactly what they want, even if it still sucks because you care for them. For now do as they ask, and think hard about all their advice. They love you a lot, and quite honestly probably still do know better about most things.

I’m sure you’ll end up in the right place.

 

[otjm]

For starters, laplaceelvis, you need to quit trying to change your parents. That is not only not your job, but also the issue you bring up - their response, is generated by your insistence on bringing up the subject.

You may well have a vocation. Or you may not, but the matter of testing that vocation by “look and see” with some orders is not going to occur until you are 18 and out of the house, and perhaps not for another ten years after that.

If you are capable of college - and I presume you are - then both common sense and a respect for God’s Providence would indicate you should get into a college. Don’t expect that any order of sisters, or order of nuns, is going to pay for your college education; the likelihood is somewhere between nil and none. Most orders are not well off enough to send you to college to earn a degree from which they might benefit.

I do not say this in a negative way; just as an observation; many try out a vocation to the religious life, and some are called and some are not. Whatever you do, you need to be wise about; meaning, if you do go to college, you may want to get a degree in something you can use should you try out the religious life and find it is not your calling. that is not doubting a calling; it is wisdom. That order which you might join might need the skills you learn in college - whether that is a two year or a four year degree.

Understand also that whatever you do about college, you will need to pay for it (or your parents, etc.) as it is likely that an order will not be interested in you joining and bringing in college debt. Most have enough of a struggle to pay operating expenses and care for their elderly. Thus, you might get a degree and have to spend several years paying off college debt; remember this when you start to investigate colleges.

I thought in the 8th grade I had a vocation and wanted to enter seminary. My pastor told my parents I would enter high school seminary over his dead body (and given the amount of sexual abuse cases, perhaps he was extremely wise). I entered seminary college, spent two years, and it was clear to me that was not what I was called to do.

Currently you live in your parents’ house, under their rule. Understand that in entering an order, you will be living under the rule of the superior of the order, and perhaps under the rule first of a novice master, and later under the rule of someone else for a period of time. Learning how to live in peace under another’s supervision and rule is part of the lessons you are now faced with in your family.

I would suggest that you not only attend Mass as often as may be available to you through the week, but also pray; the rosary if not the Liturgy of the Hours (which you may be praying in the future, depending on the order you choose); and that you learn to stop talking about something that only ends up aggravating you - that is, stop trying to change your parents. Your continued bringing up the subject is stirring the pot - put down the spoon. That does not at all mean not pursuing the possibility of a vocation; it means stop trying to change your parents. That is the best advice I could give.

 

[angel12]

How do I make them understand that its not a decision i made, but a call from God?

By continuing to live as a faithful Catholic, and pursuing knowledge about your vocation. You won’t be able to argue them out of it. Just let them see that you are committed to this.

 

[PetraG]

A lot of Catholic parents are uncomfortable at the thought of a child being called to the religious life, because of course there won’t be grandchildren.

This is what Pope Pius XI said about this problem in his encyclical Ad Catholici Sacerdotii (1935)
“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. It hardly does honor to those higher classes of society, which are on the whole so scantily represented in the ranks of the clergy. The lack of vocations in families of the middle and upper classes may be partly explained by the dissipations of modern life, the seductions, which especially in the larger cities, prematurely awaken the passions of youth; the schools in many places which scarcely conduce to the development of vocations. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that such a scarcity reveals a deplorable falling off of faith in the families themselves. Did they indeed look at things in the light of faith, what greater dignity could Christian parents desire for their sons, what ministry more noble, than that which, as We have said, is worthy of the veneration of men and angels? 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.”

Your parents may only want to be sure that you do not feel pressured to join a religious community to please them. It is very important that parents not exert pressure on adult children to follow one path over another, but rather make it clear that it is up to the child to follow his or her call and that a change of heart won’t be held against them.

In any event, follow your call diligently without concern about whether or not it will please your parents. Listen to what Our Father in Heaven is calling you to do, or not calling you to do. The rest will take care of itself, if you get that right. If you don’t, there will be tears. Why? Because to find your call is really to find yourself, the best version of yourself that you were made to be. It isn’t an Easter Egg hunt, it isn’t a command performance. It is the discovery of what you look like when you are filled with the Holy Spirit. That is a journey of a lifetime.