Redemptorist nuns forced to vacate monastery

[cara1]

Well said indeed. We surrender to God and whatever He may ordain knowing that whatever He ordains is for our own spiritual benefit and that of all - as mysterious, even totally defeating, as it can be to human logic and understanding.

All of this is “easy for you to say…” Nothing is certain, it is true. But we don’t have to go out of our way to find uncertainty. Uncertainty will always come to us. I would not think that it would come from one’s own order.

 

[TiggerS]

All of this is “easy for you to say…” Nothing is certain, it is true. But we don’t have to go out of our way to find uncertainty. Uncertainty will always come to us. I would not think that it would come from one’s own order.

Of course uncertainty can come along - this is a human reaction. Faith, however, tells us that in all circumstances we can trust and be confident in God regardless of our human emotions and reactions to circumstances:

Catholic Catechism:

311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil. He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:

For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.

I am very much aware, acutely aware, that this is far easier to write than to accomplish in some circumstances; however, nothing can change the truth content of the truths of our Faith and the necessity to hold to Faith in all circumstances. Easier to write than to accomplish? - most definitely. Sometimes as heroic as it can be, we need to invest in the good that we cannot for the life of us see, but Faith tells us it is so. Will it be a struggle and perhaps a totally difficult struggle? - Yes. I know this from experience - and many, if not all, do.

Sometimes the reason for uncertainty and pain, suffering, can be triggered by the most unexpected even unlikely of all. The lives of our saints attest to this for one and I am very confident that many reading this will also have experienced similar causes.

 

[Dale_M]

My source reports that The Bruderhof are leasing it from the nuns.

Yes, the Redemptorists issued a press release saying pretty much that:
mountsaintalphonsus.org/redemptorist.pdf

Although the Bruderhof name is well known, its official name is now Church Communities. Their website doesn’t even mention the old name, although from the history it provides it obviously is them.
churchcommunities.org/index.html

 

[Hopemercy]

Forgive me, but you are still looking at it from a worldly view. You surrender your life to God…and if it is in the plans that you change monastery, well, you change monastery.Comfortable or not. Read up on the discacled carmelites nuns where the original foundress in Mexico was exiled from Mexico, went to Cuba, had to wear their habit than secular clothes on top of that they would not get killed, about food deprivations big time., etc etc etcI do not think those who entered the convent in Mexico had this in mind.

Anyone who follows the call from Christ will not, in my mind, look at the financial feasibility of the community they want to enter. They may enquire, pass it throught the Lord and Superiors, but when details you mention really do come to mind, I beg to differ to think whether there is truly a vocation in question or just a career…

Surrender to God’s will is paramount…there is nothing else. He ordains all things. The convent that is secure last decade may not be when the postulant becomes fully professed. It is what it is…

Thank you for this. The danger phrase is “and they love it…” ie there must in religious life be detachment. They need to thank God for all of this, for all that they can learn from it. In humility and joy.

 

[TiggerS]

A religious I know has been professed over 60 years now. The changes she has experienced in those 60 years have been very painful and difficult indeed - extremely so. She is still in that original religious order she entered but today it is nothing at all like it was when she entered, journeyed through postulancy, noviciate to her final vows. All the major changes came after that. She no longer lives in a beautiful huge convent and magnificent large garden with over 100 fellow sisters in habit as she did for the first 10 years of her religious life. Nowadays she is in secular clothing and lives in a house on her own - her fellow religious died not long ago.
When she entered quite young, she had no idea what lay ahead, She took it for granted that what she was experiencing in the early years would be forever until her death. God had other plans and they came as a huge shock to her. She was totally unprepared and never anticipated the changes even remotely. She is a cutie and beautiful person, calm and serene and very trusting of God and she now knows - come what may.

 

[Hopemercy]

A religious I know has been professed over 60 years now. The changes she has experienced in those 60 years have been very painful and difficult indeed - extremely so. She is still in that original religious order she entered but today it is nothing at all like it was when she entered, journeyed through postulancy, noviciate to her final vows. All the major changes came after that. She no longer lives in a beautiful huge convent and magnificent large garden with over 100 fellow sisters in habit as she did for the first 10 years of her religious life. Nowadays she is in secular clothing and lives in a house on her own - her fellow religious died not long ago.
When she entered quite young, she had no idea what lay ahead, She took it for granted that what she was experiencing in the early years would be forever until her death. God had other plans and they came as a huge shock to her. She was totally unprepared and never anticipated the changes even remotely. She is a cutie and beautiful person, calm and serene and very trusting of God and she now knows - come what may.

This is the saddest thing here. Sadly this is not God’s doing. Nor His plans. NB maybe the term “cutie” has a different meaning for you, but hardly the word to use for a Sister.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

This is the saddest thing here. Sadly this is not God’s doing. Nor His plans. NB maybe the term “cutie” has a different meaning for you, but hardly the word to use for a Sister.

While I understand what you are trying to say here I think it is highly presumptuous to state that you know for a fact what is God’s doings and what His plans are.

 

[TiggerS]

This is the saddest thing here. Sadly this is not God’s doing. Nor His plans. NB maybe the term “cutie” has a different meaning for you, but hardly the word to use for a Sister.

Sorry! Culture divide possibly. Sister is a gentle, sweet and loving religious - no trace of bitterness or regret. Joyful in life and circumstances.
All that is negative and not good in our world comes about through God’s Permissive Will (the theological term for what God permits). All that is good and positive in our world comes about through His Direct Will.

324 The fact that God permits physical and even moral evil is a mystery that God illuminates by his Son Jesus Christ who died and rose to vanquish evil. Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life.

**311…**For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself. "

Also see newapologia.com/what-does-god-all-powerful-mean/

- and New Advent:
newadvent.org/library/almanac_rumble.htm
"We must distinguish between God’s positive will, and His permissive will. He positively wills all the good that happens. Suffering He permits to occur, and this only when he foresees that good can result from it. He positively wills that I should be holy. If He foresees that I will make use of good health to sin and to lose my soul, He may mercifully permit my health to be ruined, and thus lead me to Him where He would otherwise lose me. There would have been no diseases had men not sinned. God did not will sin, but having made men free, He permitted it and its consequences. This permission was a less serious thing than would have been the depriving us of our freedom. "

A general comment addressed to no one in particular: please do not misconstrue the above quotation from New Advent. If a person looses their health, it is not necessarily to avoid some negative factor if God had willed that good health be retained throughout life.

As the quotation from the Catholic Catechism states, we cannot categorically know the reasons God permits or wills whatever He may in the life of a person. We will only understand in Heaven.

 

[Trishie]

This is an old thread from June 2011.
For further discussion it would be in line with Forum policy to begin a new thread

 

[Hopemercy]

While I understand what you are trying to say here I think it is highly presumptuous to state that you know for a fact what is God’s doings and what His plans are.

That is a very personal attack indeed and an apology is needed from you please.
.
Amazed that someone in religious life can speak like this also, as I would have thought you knew the reasons for religious orders being in the state they are in.

Which is certainly not in any plans God could ever make.

His plan is perfection; that all religious should live as they vow. They have not done so, and so the orders are fragmented.

That is the fact of the matter that we are facing daily hee in Ireland and unless and until we accept that the plans of God have been diverted from in the worst possible way then nothing is going to improve, Speaking truth is needed and is not presumptuous! REALLY!

 

[Hopemercy]

Sorry! Culture divide possibly. Sister is a gentle, sweet and loving religious - no trace of bitterness or regret. Joyful in life and circumstances.
All that is negative and not good in our world comes about through God’s Permissive Will (the theological term for what God permits). All that is good and positive in our world comes about through His Direct Will.

Also see newapologia.com/what-does-god-all-powerful-mean/

- and New Advent:
newadvent.org/library/almanac_rumble.htm
"We must distinguish between God’s positive will, and His permissive will. He positively wills all the good that happens. Suffering He permits to occur, and this only when he foresees that good can result from it. He positively wills that I should be holy. If He foresees that I will make use of good health to sin and to lose my soul, He may mercifully permit my health to be ruined, and thus lead me to Him where He would otherwise lose me. There would have been no diseases had men not sinned. God did not will sin, but having made men free, He permitted it and its consequences. This permission was a less serious thing than would have been the depriving us of our freedom. "

A general comment addressed to no one in particular: please do not misconstrue the above quotation from New Advent. If a person looses their health, it is not necessarily to avoid some negative factor if God had willed that good health be retained throughout life.

As the quotation from the Catholic Catechism states, we cannot categorically know the reasons God permits or wills whatever He may in the life of a person. We will only understand in Heaven.

You will have to excuse me as I do not believe in theology.

See my words on religious orders above this.

SIsters make choices like everyone else. None of us can blame God for our wrongdoings. You need to look at the person;s history.

 

[Shoshana]

That is a very personal attack indeed and an apology is needed from you please.
.
Amazed that someone in religious life can speak like this also, as I would have thought you knew the reasons for religious orders being in the state they are in.

Which is certainly not in any plans God could ever make.

His plan is perfection; that all religious should live as they vow. They have not done so, and so the orders are fragmented.

That is the fact of the matter that we are facing daily hee in Ireland and unless and until we accept that the plans of God have been diverted from in the worst possible way then nothing is going to improve, Speaking truth is needed and is not presumptuous! REALLY!

There is nothing that Bro said that was offensive.

Perfection has to do with your journey in Christ…perfection of various virtues but especially perfect surrender to God. That includes each and every circumstance that happens outside of our own control. This is basically the thought of people who journey their whole life with God. Or it is supposed to be. You enter a religious life to be in union with God whether it is in a plush convent or in dire poverty. It shouldn’t matter to the religious. And if that plush convent is wanting…count it all joy! Hopefully, they see every circumstance as being God’s will for them. Any other worldly thought is not worthy of a religious. To give everything up for for God means exactly that.

His plan is perfection…this is true…whether the plan is positive or negative! He allows things to happen for their holiness…and ours! One becomes patient by ‘practicing’ the virtue. It does not come on a golden platter!