not called?

[GiannaJ]

What about people who want to live religious life but for some reason are not actually called to do so? Since religious life is such an advantage to those who want to be intimate with God why does He not call everyone who would desire it? Does God love religious more? Will they have a higher place in heaven or be closer to God in heaven like they are here on earth?

 

[Della]

What about people who want to live religious life but for some reason are not actually called to do so? Since religious life is such an advantage to those who want to be intimate with God why does He not call everyone who would desire it? Does God love religious more? Will they have a higher place in heaven or be closer to God in heaven like they are here on earth?

I was one of those people who really felt I would fit the religious life but God said no. And, as I look back on my life (I’m 62) I see he was right. I got married to a very good man and can see how the married state has helped me draw closer to God than I might have otherwise because I have had to learn patience (something I’m not good at) and a lot of other things in order to have a good marriage. That doesn’t mean I think religious aren’t formed within their orders, they certainly are, but it wouldn’t have given me what I needed most, and God knew that. I serve in other ways that a religious couldn’t by being in the world. I don’t miss being a nun at all now.

Religious won’t have a special place just because they are religious, but they will have their own place in heaven according to how they lived out their baptismal promises within the life God called them, just like all of us. And while dedicating ones virginity to God is special, it carries its own pitfalls just like the married or consecrated state. No one gets a free pass to heaven. We are all expected to do God’s will according to the graces he gives us.

 

[TiggerS]

What about people who want to live religious life but for some reason are not actually called to do so? Since religious life is such an advantage to those who want to be intimate with God why does He not call everyone who would desire it? Does God love religious more? Will they have a higher place in heaven or be closer to God in heaven like they are here on earth?

What about people who want to live religious life but for some reason are not actually called to do so?
Because we may want something does not necessarily mean that it would be right and good for us - this can be difficult even very hard at first as many of our wants in life tell us since it is a frustration of our own will.
Since religious life is such an advantage to those who want to be intimate with God why does He not call everyone who would desire it?
Sometimes I think that some can get a bit mixed up about religious life while it is indeed a special calling since it is not the most common of calls. What is far more important is God’s Will which is the highest and holiest we can ever aspire to in life and religious life comes UNDER that. Finally, there is nothing at all the preclude a person from the very highest intimacy with The Lord through following His Call for them and no matter what it may be. With God’s Will will always come all the Graces necessary to fulfill His Will.
Will they have a higher place in heaven or be closer to God in heaven like they are here on earth?/
The short and the long of your question is simply “No”. It is fulfilling God’s Will that is far more important and no matter what His Will may be. And though God’s Will for one may completely frustrate one’s own desires and be very hard to accept at first, to fulfill, embrace and lovingly follow God’s Will will bring Peace and Joy and a sense of fulfillment and happiness even midst the trials and tribulations of this life and our own disappointement at the loss of our own desires. It has to be experienced, I think, to insight and fully grasp. Fulfilling God’s Will is a journey always, rarely an event and if it is an event it verges on the miraculous as human life goes - and sometimes this journey intially is hard and quite distasteful, but it is only a stage in the overall journey.

God’s Will is an unfolding matter in every single one of our days and moments.

Having said that, if you have aspirations to religious life, do not give up until you know you have fully exhausted all means of following that potential call - or you come to insight it is not your call as you had thought.

God richly bless and inspire your seeking - TS

 

[GiannaJ]

Thank you for your answers. I have a further question. I read somewhere that St. Faustina said that the Child Jesus told her in a vision that the souls of religious in heaven will shine like the moon and the souls of others will shine like the stars. (The difference would be that great.) Probably if I look I will be able to find the reference for this. This saying is discouraging to me. It seems like God just prefers the religious to the rest of us…?

 

[Monica4316]

Gianna, it is true that being a religious is a very special calling as Jesus told St Faustina, but it is still possible to become a Saint without being a religious. The way we become Saints is by doing God’s will for us. If it’s not His will for you to be a religious, then your path to holiness is by being a lay person. A canonized lay person you might be interested in reading about is St Gemma Galgani. She was not a nun (though she wanted to be… she never got the opportunity) - yet she regularly saw and talked to Jesus, Mary, her Guardian Angel, she had the stigmata, etc. Of course we should not seek such extraordinary favours because holiness lies in love for God, humility, purity of heart and doing His will. and St Gemma had all these qualities to a great extent. You might also be interested in learning about St Gianna

God bless!

 

[Shoshana]

My spiritual director has said that I have done more for the Church in my married state than I could have in the religious state. ( I was in the convent for a couple of years)

 

[TiggerS]

Dear Gianna,
Firstly, we are not bound to believe either the writings of the saints or their revelations although once canonized for sure what they wrote and what was revealed to them was not contrary to what The Church teaches. Many of the saints writings are open to interpretation and one really needs to get what they wrote into the entire context of the whole body of their writings to understand. The Diary of St. Faustina is beautiful, but I think one needs to read the whole diary, not excerpts from it only. Re what St. Faustina was told by the child, Jesus. Obviously and very sadly not all the souls of religious will shine like the moon just as sadly not all the souls of those outside religious life will shine like the stars. Because the vision of Faustina did not spell this out does not make it a fact and truth and what The Church teaches us about those who will be saved and those who may not.

Consider the heavens for a moment - would they be as beautiful without the stars? While it is the moon that gives light to the night time (religious are a very public witness to the world and us and meant and called to be so), it is the moon and the stars that make it so beautiful and would the heavens be the same without the stars; hence what the vision said to St Faustina re moon and stars is open to personal interpretation since we know that The Lord loves every single person equally and that **is **our Faith which is what The Church teaches - and also that all are called to holiness without exception and can achieve holiness no matter their state in life by following God’s Will. Our Faith also tells us that some religious will attain a higher holiness than those outside religious life AND THAT some outside religious life will attain a higher holiness than those in it.

It is all a matter often of perspective on much of the writings of the saints and of getting an extract into the overall context of the body of writing of a saint as well as the context of what overall The Church teaches us.

If you read the diary, the quotation re religious shining like the moon etc. finishes with “true greatness is in loving God and in humility”. Then in a couple of paragraphs later, the vision again repeats that sentence. It is all open to interpretation, so perhapsp St Faustina was thinking that by living religious life, she could shine like the moon. But the vision corrects that by repeating that “true greatness is in loving God and humility” And we all can love God and be humble and aspire to true greatness even though not in religious life. And if we love God we will humbly embrace and love His Will and attain spiritual greatness.

It is also very true that one of our greatest mystics, St. Teresa of Avila, stated that unusual mystical type phenomena can be very dangerous spiritually, because visions and locutions (visions speaking in this instance) can be very open to deceptions by the devil and hence should not be desired. However, once The Church canonizes a person we can be assured that their writings do not contradict what The Church teaches. Be this as it may, we need to interpret their writings correctly and in the light of what The Church teaches us and sometimes this is where we can confuse ourselves i.e. incorrect interpretations.

The other thing to grasp is that religious life is per se structured in its structure towards love of God and humility (one of the reasons why religious life is called “the state of perfection”). In our life in the world, we need to determine how to love God and be humble and without all the aids that religious do have intrinsic to their lifestyle. I personally am very confident that some faithful lay souls will be shining with religious just like the moon or even greater and I am permitted to state that since there is no obligation on me to hold to the writings of saints as doctrine or dogma in which I am bound to believe.

feastofdivinemercy.com/page/leggi-il-diario-on-line-quad1-01.asp
Quotations from Diary and you can read the whole diary on the above link:

"A Certain Moment, May 12, 1935

424In the evening, I just about got into bed, and I fell asleep immediately. Though I fell asleep quickly, I was awakened even more quickly. A little child came and woke me up. The child seemed about a year old, and I was surprised it could speak so well, as children of that age either do not speak or speak very indistinctly The child was beautiful beyond words and resembled the Child Jesus, and he said to me, Look at the sky. And when I looked at the sky I saw the stars and the moon shining. Then the child asked me,**Do you see this moon and these stars? **When I said yes, he spoke these words to me, These stars are the souls of faithful Christians, and the moon is the souls of religious. Do you see how great the difference is between the light of the moon and the light of the stars? Such is the difference in heaven between the soul of a religious and the soul of a faithful Christian. And he went on to say that, True greatness is in loving God and in humility.

…427A moment later, I again saw the child who had awakened me. It was of wondrous beauty and repeated these words to me, True greatness of the soul is in loving God and in humility. I asked the child, “How do you know that true greatness of the soul is in loving God and in humility? Only theologians know about such things and you haven’t even learned the catechism. So how do you know?” To this he answered, I know; I know all things. And with that, He disappeared."

 

[TiggerS]

The other thing to consider is that if I want to shine like the moon and brighter than the stars in the heavens, then it may be all about me and my spiritual pride. Whereas, if I lovingly embrace God and His Will for me and my life no matter what it may be and with humility, then I can attain true spiritual greatness - indeed true greatness per se, since spiritual greatness overcomes and leaves far behind and an understatement for sure anything this world has to offer, certainly and absolutely my pride.
A final point is that a private revelation is addressed privately to a particular soul and for the good of that soul, while if the private revelation is authentic it will not contradict what The Church teaches.

 

[DaughterOfMary6]

I can definitely relate. There are things that are beyond our control that prevent us from becoming religious and for me, it is my mental illnesses (depression and anxiety). I’ve had these two illnesses since I was 16 and I have been on and off medication since then. I was the one who always initiated the tapering off of the medication because I wanted to go without it. This most recent time, I was off of it since November 2008, but I had to go back on when I lost my job in July 2010. Countless numbers of vocation directors told me that because of my depression, I did not have a vocation, but I was unwilling to listen, convinced that if I could maintain a healthy mental balance without the medicine, I could find somewhere to let me in. I came very close in early 2009 to entering the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus in Milwaukee, WI. I put in an application there after one Come and See retreat, convinced that God was calling me home to this convent. However, the Provincial Superior desired that I work for 6 weeks in their group home to pay off my credit card debt and become familiar with the life of a Carmelite DCJ religious. I was hesitant at first because I was not comfortable staying in a strange place for 6 weeks without being able to see my family. This should have been a red flag right then that I was not ready, but the Superior persisted and I went up in May 2009.

This trip did not last long at all. I was there for less than 3 days when I started experiencing symptoms of anxiety and insomnia. I couldn’t eat or sleep and the thought of working with the children made me nervous as well because I had a bad experience working in a daycare in the past. I tried to work past it, but to no avail. The Superior expressed her concerns and I asked to be allowed to return home. This was probably the most difficult time in my discernment because I thought I was so sure that this was where I was called but I couldn’t handle being with the Sisters because of my homesickness. I loved the Sisters very much, but I began to resent them because I couldn’t see my family when I wanted to during those 6 weeks. So, I went home. I can’t tell you how much pain I experienced in my heart from leaving the convent. I was afraid to face my family and see their disappointment. At that time, I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere–neither home nor the convent. It was awful. Because of this, I was reluctant to discern my vocation anywhere else, but I had to continue trying.

I have discerned with other orders, but with no success. My depression has been a hindrance in all circumstances and I have come to the realization that I was not called to religious life. When this happened, I felt betrayed by God. My prayer life suffered. However, I realized later that God does not love me any less for being in the world instead of being a religious. There are some of us who do not get the great experience of religious life, but God calls us to other things. We may not understand it, but we each have a specific task here on earth. Religious experience this more on a supernatural level.

Don’t beat yourself up if you find out you are not called. It may take some time to come to terms with it, but you’ll feel better about yourself in the end because you know you tried. God likes those who try to please Him as best they can. I don’t feel any worse for having discerned that I am not called.

God bless!