Queston for those married who had previously been discerning a religious vocation

[Ora_et_Labora_1]

For those who are now married but had previously been discerning a religious vocation I am interested in knowing what exactly made you realized that you were in fact called to the married life, and not the religious as you had previously believed.

 

[FightingFat]

For those who are now married but had previously been discerning a religious vocation I am interested in knowing what exactly made you realized that you were in fact called to the married life, and not the religious as you had previously believed.

I fell madly, deeply and fully in love with a wonderful Catholic girl. It seemed a clear message from God that my vocation in fact lay in that direction.

 

[Tsuwano]

For those who are now married but had previously been discerning a religious vocation I am interested in knowing what exactly made you realized that you were in fact called to the married life, and not the religious as you had previously believed.

I would first like to point out that discerning a religious vocation is not the same thing as believing that one is actually called to religious life. One enters a process of discernment in order to discover if one is called. My process of discernment has been a constant ongoing experience, even some 28 years after I left the religious order I had been studying for. I have never felt completely sure that I made the correct choice to leave religious life and there are times when I’m not sure I made the correct choice in entering into married life. What I am sure about is my committment to the choice I have made. I made the choice to be married and, with God’s grace, will remain faithful to that decision. I think many priests and vowed religious probably feel the same way about their vocations. My spiritual director at the time I left my religious life told me he believed I had been given a wonderful gift by God. Namely, God had placed the decision of how I was to serve him in my hands and all I needed to do was to be open to God’s constant support in whatever decision I made. After 28 years separation from my former religious life, I believe my spiritual director was absolutely correct. Again, there are days when I think I should have remained in religious life. I think I would have been a good religious. But I am also thankful to be married to a woman I dearly love and who loves me. In our love, I feel God’s greater love. I suppose this is all to say that discernment is a process which never really ends and involves committment which must be made each day. I don’t really envy those who say they are 100% sure that God has called them to a particular way of life, though I believe it may be true. I think I prefer the gnawing certainty that the means by which I serve the Lord is uncertain, though my faith in his constant presence is not.

 

[kristie_m]

I first began investigating the religious life in high school. I was discouraged from it by the pastor of my parish, and in retrospect, at the time, he was probably right. I was pretty immature. After a period of “sowing my oats” I came back to the church, and began an actual discernment process. It was not long after that that I met and began dating my future husband. He knew that I was discerning, and was actually very supportive of it. We attended mass together, and prayed together daily while we dated. I was scheduled to go on a discernment retreat with the pastor of my new church, and each time one was scheduled, something happened to prevent me from going. Then one night my future husband and I went to a Taize service. At one point, during the prayers, I had a sort of vision. He and I talked about it afterward, and I think it was then that I realized that God was telling both of us the same thing. At that point, I knew that marriage was what we were being called to.

 

[DCNBILL]

For those who are now married but had previously been discerning a religious vocation I am interested in knowing what exactly made you realized that you were in fact called to the married life, and not the religious as you had previously believed.

I was in my first year of college, had gone to a minor seminary and was continuing my studies for the priesthood at a House of Studies at a Catholic College. While waiting for a class to start I looked up as a girl walked into the room, immediatly I thought that this is the girl that I will marry. Two years later she was the girl that I married. 30 years later I was ordained a deacon.