If you think telling your parents is tough, try telling your children that you’re entering religious life. I say this not to make the OP feel badly, but to put things in perspective. Often people have some idyllic notion that we’re always going to be there for them.
When my son was four and my daughter nine, my father, wife and older son were killed by a drunk driver. I raised my surviving children by myself. It was not a bad life. I had a good education and we traveled quite a bit, etc. We had a wonderful family life. When they reached adulthood I decided to enter the Franciscan Friars of Penance. You would have thought that I had announced that I was going to die that night. By this time my daughter had a Master’s degree and was living and working in another state. My son had a Bachelor’s degree. Even though he was living at home, he did not have to move into the street. As a Franciscan I could not keep anything. So all of our property, assets, bank accounts, etc etc were transferred to them. He got to keep the house, three cars and a lot of money, because his sister was not interested in the house or the cars. It was not like he was going to live under a bridge.
Nonetheless, between them and my family the questions and the guilt trips were incredible. I was hit with every question. Why are you abandoning your children? Don’t you know that they have no one else but you? Why are you going back to school at your age? Why are you leaving a career, after you put so much into it? Why are you going to starve yourself and live in dire poverty, when you have such a nice home? Now you can finally get married again; afterall, your children are adults? That statement always made me smile. I could get married again, because they were adults, but I could not become a religious. HUH?
The one about leaving my children while my daughter was living 1200 miles away made as much sense as why are you walking on the floor?
To make a long story short, years later, no one even remembers having these conversations. My sibblings don’t remember. My children don’t remember. My friends don’t remember. It’s like they all live in a time capsule and they have fogotten it all.
Being a religious is a little more challenging than being a diocesan priest. Diocesan priests can remain in their home diocese. Religious can end up anywhere in the world. I spend six years in Rome studying theology, before returning to the USA. Now, I am fortunate enough that my daughter can travel once a year to visit me. My son lives on the same road as I do, just three miles away, so we run into each other quite a bit, even though we can only visit once a year. Then there is internet and email.
The best advice that I can offer is to let people blow off steam and get over the shock. They will and then everyone will say, “I NEVER SAID THAT.” lol
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
)
I pray Mary would take care of you always and lead you according to God’s will. It’s true that you’re sharing in the Cross but this can really strengthen your faith, as your spiritual director said! Hope everything goes well