Please help me find an order

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grainofwheat

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Hello all, peace be with you!
I’m new here at the Catholic Answers forums but have been ‘lurking’ around here reading up on vocations for a few months. Anyway, I feel I may be called to religious life and was wondering if anyone could suggest a few religious orders to me that fit my natural interests? If it helps I’m a 24 yr old Catholic male and believe to be in good physical/mental condition.

To sum it up, I feel I’m most attracted to: prayer/contemplation/study and working directly with the poor, sick, homeless (shelters and whatnot), ascetic practice, possible spiritual direction

And least attracted to: preaching/teaching, evangelization, etc

If anybody can help suggest some order for me it would be greatly apprectiated! God bless.
 
grainofwheat said:
Hello all, peace be with you!
I’m new here at the Catholic Answers forums but have been ‘lurking’ around here reading up on vocations for a few months. Anyway, I feel I may be called to religious life and was wondering if anyone could suggest a few religious orders to me that fit my natural interests? If it helps I’m a 24 yr old Catholic male and believe to be in good physical/mental condition.

To sum it up, I feel I’m most attracted to: prayer/contemplation/study and working directly with the poor, sick, homeless (shelters and whatnot), ascetic practice, possible spiritual direction

And least attracted to: preaching/teaching, evangelization, etc

If anybody can help suggest some order for me it would be greatly apprectiated! God bless.
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You need to get a good spiritual director.

I would also point out that those things you listed as feeling attracted to and those things you listed as feeling least attracted to are the same things.

prayer/contemplation/study — can be part of preaching/teaching

working directly with the poor, sick, homeless (shelters and whatnot) — is can be part of evangelization

possible spiritual direction — is preaching/teaching

As for feeling least attracted to “etc”, I do not know how to help you out there.
 
It all depends on exactly what you feel called to. Based on your description, you should probably look more toward the Franciscan Orders. This is due to the fact that Franciscans stress service and living in the world as opposed to apart from the world like the cloistered orders.

Whether it be a First Order group like OFM or OFM Conventual depends on whether you are interested in living in a monestary or not. There are also many Third Order Franciscan groups that live in community and serve particular communities (i.e. hospitals, poor, schools, telivision networks, etc.) that may be of interest.

If living in a monestary interests you search on OFM, OFM Conventual or OFM Capuchin. If service directly to a particular community interests you either look for the community and find who serves it or search on TOR (Third Order Regular). If you are interested in following a lay, secular path then SFO may be for you.

Here is a good list of Franciscan links:
nafra-sfo.org/links.html
 
grainofwheat said:
Hello all, peace be with you!
I’m new here at the Catholic Answers forums but have been ‘lurking’ around here reading up on vocations for a few months. Anyway, I feel I may be called to religious life and was wondering if anyone could suggest a few religious orders to me that fit my natural interests? If it helps I’m a 24 yr old Catholic male and believe to be in good physical/mental condition.

To sum it up, I feel I’m most attracted to: prayer/contemplation/study and working directly with the poor, sick, homeless (shelters and whatnot), ascetic practice, possible spiritual direction

And least attracted to: preaching/teaching, evangelization, etc

If anybody can help suggest some order for me it would be greatly apprectiated! God bless.
Click to expand...
You sound fit for the Franciscan lifestyle. Check out the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. They are an AWESOME order!

franciscanfriars.com
 
grainofwheat said:
Hello all, peace be with you!
I’m new here at the Catholic Answers forums but have been ‘lurking’ around here reading up on vocations for a few months. Anyway, I feel I may be called to religious life and was wondering if anyone could suggest a few religious orders to me that fit my natural interests? If it helps I’m a 24 yr old Catholic male and believe to be in good physical/mental condition.

To sum it up, I feel I’m most attracted to: prayer/contemplation/study and working directly with the poor, sick, homeless (shelters and whatnot), ascetic practice, possible spiritual direction

And least attracted to: preaching/teaching, evangelization, etc

If anybody can help suggest some order for me it would be greatly apprectiated! God bless.
Click to expand...
 
A friend of mine is in the novitiate and attending seminary with the Order of Mercy (O. de Merc.) and absolutely loves it there. I haven’t been able to visit him yet, but some of our friends have and apparently all the brothers and fathers are absolutely fantastic. Not to say that means it’s necessarily the place for you, but I’d definitely suggest you check them out.

If you google them their website will pop-up. They take a fourth vow to reach out to those who need ransoming, a blood vow to ransom those Christians in extreme danger of losing their faith. That originally meant working to ransom (with money or their own lives) Christians captured during the Crusades, but in the modern day means working with the ill, especially those with communicable conditions, and working in schools in poor areas of the world such as India.

The Lord be with you as you discern your vocation within His Church.
 
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