Regretting not going into the priesthood or religious life when it may be too late

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Do you know anybody who regrets not going into the priesthood or religious life now that his (or her) life situation won’t allow it?

Why did they not go in?

Did they try it but leave?

Are they bitter, or do they accept it?
 
Regrets can be a failure to insight the Divine Providence of God and that every point in life one is where God wants one to be. It is not so much about whatever the human heart is hankering after, as where one’s two feet are actually planted and firmly.

Regrets, however, are quite human failings and are experienced on ‘the other side’ as well…regrets perhaps about not marrying and having children. The important thing is to be where I am at … and to try not to get caught up in the “grass is greener” syndrome, which is about all it is. Longings can be a reflection of what St. Augustine spoke of “our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest in Thee.” Our hearts can be almost like that butterfly that St. Teresa of Avila spoke of…and if you watch a butterfly, it flits here and there, then there and here and never staying long in one place…our hearts can be like that flitting around longing for something to hold us more than a few seconds, as it were…that longing can only be fulfilled in God - that is what will hold us forever and our hearts will finally be at Peace and rest.

I have actually entered two convents, one a monastery, in my life of 62 almost 63 years…one in my teens, the other in my forties…now and then I hanker after the peace and quiet and ideal surroundings of it all and that is where my heart is leaning…although my two feet remain firmly planted in this life I live - this fall down, get up, fall down get up life.😃 …and sooner or later I drag my leaning illusioned heart over to where my two feet are planted…sooner or later.

Blessings - Barb
 
BarbaraTherese said:
I have actually entered two convents, one a monastery, in my life of 62 almost 63 years…one in my teens, the other in my forties…now and then I hanker after the peace and quiet and ideal surroundings of it all and that is where my heart is leaning…although my two feet remain firmly planted in this life I live - this fall down, get up, fall down get up life.😃 …and sooner or later I drag my leaning illusioned heart over to where my two feet are planted…sooner or later.

Blessings - Barb
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Don’t be sure it’s too late, Barb. A woman got professed in the Redemptoristine nuns in Esopus NY when she was in her 60’s. She has a well-known blog, now. In surfing the web, I see an awful lot of candidates who are at least in their 50’s and I suspect older. One just made full profession in the Benedictines of Perp Adoration in Clyde, MO.

Older vocations appear to be the norm in England, by the way, if you’d consider this. Most sisters/nuns live a long time-their life span is much longer than the average woman’s.

I think that it helps to be in good health and fit, and do a fair amount of visiting and getting acquainted before Broaching the Subject.

There’s a lady in my aerobics class who is 85 and who does very well, thank you!
 
1234 said:
Don’t be sure it’s too late, Barb. A woman got professed in the Redemptoristine nuns in Esopus NY when she was in her 60’s. She has a well-known blog, now. In surfing the web, I see an awful lot of candidates who are at least in their 50’s and I suspect older. One just made full profession in the Benedictines of Perp Adoration in Clyde, MO.

Older vocations appear to be the norm in England, by the way, if you’d consider this. Most sisters/nuns live a long time-their life span is much longer than the average woman’s.

I think that it helps to be in good health and fit, and do a fair amount of visiting and getting acquainted before Broaching the Subject.

There’s a lady in my aerobics class who is 85 and who does very well, thank you!
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Thank you for this information. Here in Australia there is a total reluctance to accept older females into religious life which becomes the prime impediment - I have looked into all of that here in Australia, while I have noticed since I have had this computer that in the USA certainly some Orders will consider older more mature female vocations. I dont know much about the UK. I have come to the conclusion that I am called to live this lifestyle I am living really through process of elimination, here in Australia anyway.
Doubtless, if there was a monastic Order here in Australia that would consider me, I would give it another try as the monastic Order I entered in my forties was still stuck in the 16th century and I had thought things since V2 would have moved on and it was quite a shock to find things as they were and I was not advised prior to entering, or I probably would not have done so. I had already had in my teens experiences with pre V2 religious life.

Blessings - Barb:)
 
I for one regret the decisions I made in life after leaving the (college) seminary I attended and heading down a pretty dark road of drinking, drugs, promiscuity, a DUI, and having it be all very open to the point where this past would be a cause of scandal, and my own character development from habituation isn’t anywhere near what it would take to even be a candidate anymore.

This past - for reasons I will NOT discuss - largely precludes the possibility of a priestly vocation for me. Having reconciled to the Church, and become active in a parish again, this sometimes bothers me.

What I have resolved to do is to work with a small private group of laity that has a bit of an apostolate praying for vocations.

In my personal blog (below in signature) I make a special effort to promote vocations, and highlight new and growing religious orders, as well as opportunities to support seminarians overseas in places like Kenya, Uganda, Lituania, Russia, Peru and other locations where they desperately need money for their growing seminary communities. I have discovered that in a lot of areas of the world where the Church is growing but the people are poor, what seems like ridiculously SMALL amounts of money can support priests, religious, and seminarians a lot more than you would ever believe. In China $10 supports a country priest or seminarian for FOUR days. In parts of Africa, a $5 Mass stipend will help a priest eat for a day or two. $200 will sponsor a seminarian for a semester in parts of Asia.

I try to promote awareness of this, and when possible, ask those that I serve as a small benefactor to pray for me. It is a source of comfort and consolation to know that I can help dozens - maybe hundreds of men - in my lifetime become priests around the world. It is a greater joy to think that they can repay me by occasionally remember to pray for me at their Masses.

Since I likely will never be a priest, my resolution has been to support in every way possible - especially throug prayer, publicity, and almsgiving - the men and women who are anwering the call.

May God be pleased with my efforts, meager as they may be.
 
BarbaraTherese said:
Thank you for this information. Here in Australia there is a total reluctance to accept older females into religious life which becomes the prime impediment - I have looked into all of that here in Australia, while I have noticed since I have had this computer that in the USA certainly some Orders will consider older more mature female vocations. I dont know much about the UK. I have come to the conclusion that I am called to live this lifestyle I am living really through process of elimination, here in Australia anyway.
Doubtless, if there was a monastic Order here in Australia that would consider me, I would give it another try as the monastic Order I entered in my forties was still stuck in the 16th century and I had thought things since V2 would have moved on and it was quite a shock to find things as they were and I was not advised prior to entering, or I probably would not have done so. I had already had in my teens experiences with pre V2 religious life.

Blessings - Barb:)
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You might enjoy following the blog from Colwich novitiate in England;

www.colwichnov.blogspot.com

Also look up Holy Trinity Monastery in Oxfordshire. They’re Benedictines, also with a blog.
 
I had a choice growing up…the priesthood (with an uncle and cousin already priests) and “carrying on the family name”.

My Grandmother’s assertion that it was my responsibility to carry the family name won out.

I didn’t have many regrets, until I discovered years later that the Church DID allow married priests under certain circumstances.

But, that’s already been worn out (where I’m concerned) on other threads.

Others have suggested the Deaconate to me, but I’ve become too cynical and pragmatic for that at this point in my life.
 
1234 said:
You might enjoy following the blog from Colwich novitiate in England;

www.colwichnov.blogspot.com

Also look up Holy Trinity Monastery in Oxfordshire. They’re Benedictines, also with a blog.
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Hello again 1234!..the link came up as “Page not Found”. And what a jolly looking three nuns greets one on the Holy Trinity Monastery website!🙂
Doubtless if there were a monastic community post V2 modifications here in Australia, I would probably after much careful thought give it a try were they willing to accept a mature age vocation. Since there is not and since I have journeyed a process of elimination path that leads to where I am now, I am far more often joyful and at peace here than I am longing for ‘other pastures’. Sometimes God indicates His Will through this process of elimination - "not there, nor there, nor there but here - which one insights simply because there is nowhere else!!!
I read recently Sister Ruth Borrows OCD book which is a commentary on The Interior Castle in which she states that probably the purely heremetical life chooses the person rather than the other way around…and that gave me a big smile of understanding. This way of life chose me, I did not choose it. It has merely evolved in my path and around me.

There is another Order of interest, not that they would lookat a mature age vocation I dont think - I think it is in the USA. The Carmelite Sisters of Mary who state on their website that there way of life is not as institutionalized as traditional religious Carmelite life and there are pictures on their website of their hermitage which is fully self contained. I am not sure, since their website does not give details, if each sister has her own hermitage or whether they live in community life or rather as hermits in community which is the traditional Carmelite way under the Constitutionof St. Teresa. Nor do they give details of their ‘not as institutionalized’ way of life.

Certainly were I made of the stuffing of a foundress, which I am not, I would look at alternative ways of living the monastic life from the traditional which is very institutionalized and under pre V2 conditions for me unbearably so.

Thanks for the info again…Blessings - Barb:)
 
BarbaraTherese said:
Hello again 1234!..the link came up as “Page not Found”. And what a jolly looking three nuns greets one on the Holy Trinity Monastery website!🙂

Sorry, I correct myself again;

it’s:

www.colwichnov.wordpress.com

most communities won’t ADMIT that they will consider vocs over 50-55, but I’ll bet some of them will in the US and not a few in the UK. Ad I’ve posted elsewhere, the signs on the communities’ websites are;

*No age range listed.

*Mention “each case considered individually” or some such.

*Not too many pics of large novitiates.

*Pictures of those in formation showing that some look to be middle-aged.

A 54 year old just received her habit in a traditional Carmel in the UK.
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Thank you:thumbsup:

From my own perusing, I think that there probably are Orders in the UK and USA that would consider a mature age vocation - the story is totally different here in Australia.

Blessings…Barb:)
 
i am amazed that you were able to find the “Carmelite Sisters of Mary”!

I had never heard of them! They sound terrific, but I think would require one to be mature and possibly already trained in religious life, possibly as a Carmelite in another order.
 
1234 said:
i am amazed that you were able to find the “Carmelite Sisters of Mary”!

I had never heard of them! They sound terrific, but I think would require one to be mature and possibly already trained in religious life, possibly as a Carmelite in another order.
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I think I found the Carmelite Sisters of Mary through another Carmelite site if memory serves. Their website, while looking very interesting, does not give details really of their actual way of life and requirements of an applicant. Hard to tell.

Blessings - Barb:)
 
For any interested, here are links to the Carmelite Sisters of Mary webpage…I see that they do live in fully self contained hermitages:

carmelitesofeldridge.org/carmelitesistersofmaryintro.htm
The Carmelite Sisters of Mary live on 80 forested acres in a Laura-in separate dwellings grouped
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around a central chapel and community building. The Sisters have been drawn into a wilderness to live a stable form of religious life ordered to contemplation and intimacy with God, to a loving community of friends, for transformation in Christ, and for apostolic prayer for the needs of the Church and world. The Blessed Sacrament is reserved in each hermitage, and the Sisters’ charism includes a particular interest in the care of the earth/creation and Beauty.

This is very much the type of religious life were I a foundress I would look at where each lives in a fully self contained hermitage type dwelling grouped around a central chapel and community building and area, and I have already put that much on file here and before I came across the Sisters of Mary site. I see too that the sisters don’t wear veils, and another something I have put into writing - veils only when in Chapel.

Pictures of the interior of a hermitage:
http://carmelitesofeldridge.org/CSMhermitageinside.htm
 
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