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benedictus2
Guest
Bravo!
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PAboy57
Guest
Dear Laurie55,
Nothing worth having is ever easy. You have a very big decision to make and only you can make that decision. May the Lord and Blessed Mother help you in your process.
VOCATION PRAYER
Lord, Let me know clearly the work which you are calling me to do in life. And grant me every grace I need to answer your call with courage and love and lasting dedication to your will. Amen.
HAIL HOLY QUEEN
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning, and weeping in this vale of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, your eyes of mercy toward us; and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of your womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary!
(V) Pray for us O holy Mother of God. (R) That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Amen.
Nothing worth having is ever easy. You have a very big decision to make and only you can make that decision. May the Lord and Blessed Mother help you in your process.
VOCATION PRAYER
Lord, Let me know clearly the work which you are calling me to do in life. And grant me every grace I need to answer your call with courage and love and lasting dedication to your will. Amen.
HAIL HOLY QUEEN
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning, and weeping in this vale of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, your eyes of mercy toward us; and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of your womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary!
(V) Pray for us O holy Mother of God. (R) That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Amen.
S
saieditor
Guest
It is called attachment
You are in a position to enter when* the primary relationship in your life is with God*.
The Ego does not like competition.
It is only the mind and its attachments. The mind is a bundle of thoughts; observe the thoughts and do not get entangled.
The world is the problem;
God is the solution
You go with the path that makes you feel closest to God.
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BigRedpg51
Guest
Laurie, you feel that you are being called to the religious life…and that should be where your focus should be. This attraction to the gentleman is perhaps a test and/or stumbling block permitted by Our Lord. There are NO accidents.
If you can manage to overcome your hesitancy to entering the religious order – and, at the same time – give up your ‘claim’ to this gentleman (as unofficial as it is)…then you will be sure of doing the will of God.
You might want to reflect on this: If I wish to enter a religious order, how could I justify NOT doing the will of God?
If you can manage to overcome your hesitancy to entering the religious order – and, at the same time – give up your ‘claim’ to this gentleman (as unofficial as it is)…then you will be sure of doing the will of God.
You might want to reflect on this: If I wish to enter a religious order, how could I justify NOT doing the will of God?
R
remjsmom76
Guest
Just becasue you felt the “call” to vocational life does not mean that is what you are called to it FOR SURE! You can still serve GOD in married life.
Ex. Before I met dh I had gone to california for a youth camp. I felt the call there to become a sister. I was 18…I had a boyfriend, so I was there thinking I was going to break up with him and follow into sisterhood. Ok…I come back. We have a farewell party for a priest of ours who was being sent away. I was going to be part of a good friends court for her debutant ball. I needed an escort and my brother and a friend asked my now husband to be my escort. I had mentioned he was goodlooking. So they went to ask him for me.
Bio on my husband: before he met me HE TOO went to a retreat we call Cursillo. Its a 4 day retreat and he came out really wanting to be a priest. His dad reacted really bad to it and started to verbally bash him when he was trying to be following Jesus’ example. Then he meets me. We hit it off…he is my best friend. I wanted to be a sister, he wanted to be a preist. Obviously neighter one of us became any of those vocations and we have been very happily married for nearly 13 yrs. We have 4 beautiful girls, we are still very active in church, he is the choir director for our English masses he used to teach CCD for communion and I for confirmation. Our girls are very involved and have a better understanding of the church than most adults do.
maybe you are being called to become a mother of GREAT catholic people. Just a thought…I always say God was our matchmaker, cause dh and I met at church…where he was an altar serer and I was a lecture.
Ex. Before I met dh I had gone to california for a youth camp. I felt the call there to become a sister. I was 18…I had a boyfriend, so I was there thinking I was going to break up with him and follow into sisterhood. Ok…I come back. We have a farewell party for a priest of ours who was being sent away. I was going to be part of a good friends court for her debutant ball. I needed an escort and my brother and a friend asked my now husband to be my escort. I had mentioned he was goodlooking. So they went to ask him for me.
Bio on my husband: before he met me HE TOO went to a retreat we call Cursillo. Its a 4 day retreat and he came out really wanting to be a priest. His dad reacted really bad to it and started to verbally bash him when he was trying to be following Jesus’ example. Then he meets me. We hit it off…he is my best friend. I wanted to be a sister, he wanted to be a preist. Obviously neighter one of us became any of those vocations and we have been very happily married for nearly 13 yrs. We have 4 beautiful girls, we are still very active in church, he is the choir director for our English masses he used to teach CCD for communion and I for confirmation. Our girls are very involved and have a better understanding of the church than most adults do.
maybe you are being called to become a mother of GREAT catholic people. Just a thought…I always say God was our matchmaker, cause dh and I met at church…where he was an altar serer and I was a lecture.
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Father_Bill
Guest
Wholesome attractions to the opposite sex are not going cease after you enter the convent, but they should become manageable as you are more espoused to Christ and less immersed in the world. I liked what Sr. Rose said. I had to go to the Persian Gulf on a warship to get far enough away from the “usual scene” before I could surrender completely to the vocation to priesthood.
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benedictus2
Guest
May our Lord continue to give you the grace to be faithful to your wonderful calling. May Our Blessed Mother keep you faithful in your service to her Son.
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SHANTARAM
Guest
Ask him out on a date.
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benedictus2
Guest
Bad advice!
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SHANTARAM
Guest
How so? Sounds like it is exactly what she wants. Perhaps the means to the ends of her asking him is a bit different, but you rarely get what you don’t ask or go for.
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benedictus2
Guest
Because it is NOT exactly what she wants. Read the other posts in detail.
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SHANTARAM
Guest
I know, she doesn’t state anything that she wants.
She is attracted to a seemingly perfect guy, but can’t be with him for reasons unknown – are there really any?
She is being ‘called’ to be a nun, which she has nothing good to say about only bad. Like her worrying about disappointing Jesus/God. Her reasons other than her just ‘knowing’ to be a nun are as well unknown – are there really any?
You know what I got from reading that? I got:
“Yadda yadda guy is perfect perfect perfect, yadda yadda yadda, I am called to be a nun, Saint says I won’t have a happy life – ugh, yadda dah.”
And then cue everyone rationalizing her feelings towards the man, when it seems like that is what she should be going after, unless she comes here with some good reasons on why she wants to be a nun, other than just knowing.
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benedictus2
Guest
We are not rationalizing her feelings. It could very well be the case that God may be leading her down that track. But from what she has written it very much looks like she is being called to the religious life.
I am not sure what your religion is but it will be very hard for someone outside of that church to understand a calling. Even those in the church do not get it sometimes.
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Friar_David_O.Carm
Guest
We can not make any such determination on an anonymous forum.
The best we can do is encourage her to get a spiritual director. Someone that can know her personally and that can help her discern what God is calling her to.
There is nothing that we can tell about where God is calling her to be though this medium.
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JReducation
Guest
I have said this before on other vocation threads and I’ll say it again. I’m speaking from personal experience. I do formation work for my religious community. Actually, I’m the novice master. But that’s another story.
I realize that we become very enthusiastic when we hear of someone who wants to become a priest, nun, sister, brother, deacon, monk, friar and so forth. I also understand the hunger that the laity has. I am very sympathetic to the laity’s fear that there are not enough priests and religious to meet your needs. But I have to remind you, who are lay, of several things.
The way to go is to give proper feedback. Encourage the person to pray, to seek spiritual direction and to remain in touch for moral support, no matter which way they go.
I really hope this helps the other posters.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
I realize that we become very enthusiastic when we hear of someone who wants to become a priest, nun, sister, brother, deacon, monk, friar and so forth. I also understand the hunger that the laity has. I am very sympathetic to the laity’s fear that there are not enough priests and religious to meet your needs. But I have to remind you, who are lay, of several things.
- Jesus Christ will never leave his Church without priests and religious. He has promised to be with the Church until the end of time. This means that there will always be priests.
- Jesus Christ has also promised that there will always be consecrated men and women religious. There will never be a time without any.
- The call to either Holy Orders or the religious life (men and women) is not made through the individual. The individual is prompted by grace to inquire, to discern, to pray, but the call is always made through either a bishop or a religious superior. The laity can never speak for Christ in this matter, in other matters yes, but not in the arena of vocation. That power and authority is strictly reserved by Christ himself for the bishop of a diocese or the religious superior of a community. Therefore, lay men cannot say that a person has a calling to the religious life or Holy Orders. The best that lay people can do is to point the person toward a spiritual director or a vocation director. That being said, let’s look at the next point.
- No vocation director or spiritual director can say that someone has a call. They do not have that authority. Only a bishop or religious superior have that power. They can suggest that a person give it a try. Even those of us who do formation work, do not have that power. As novice master, at the end of the novitiate, I recommend that a novice be accepted for vows. The final voice is the major superior. Christ speaks through him, not me. I’m a nobody. My opinion is only good when my superior says that it is. I have had cases where the major superior has overruled me, without ever having met the novice. It is Christ’s voice. Those are rare cases, but it happens. That’s how seriously religious communities and bishops take this.
- This enviornment, the internet, is the worse place for a person to ask questions about his or her calling. We do not see the person’s face, hear their voice, see their behavior and so forth. As a person who has done formation for many years, I can tell you that you get a lot of information from the body-langauge, tone of voice and the appearance of a candidate. The more you do this work, the better you get at reading people. Sometimes you can spot someone a mile away and say, “No way.” Other times you can spot someone and say, “He has Carmelite written all over his face.” I had a novice whom I dismissed, because he did not have a Francisan vocation. So, I sent him to the O’Carm. He has a very strong O’Carm spirituality. He’ll may make a wonderful Carmelite Friar. If he stayed with us, he would have been miserable and so would we. You get to know this as you work with these candidates.
The way to go is to give proper feedback. Encourage the person to pray, to seek spiritual direction and to remain in touch for moral support, no matter which way they go.
I really hope this helps the other posters.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
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vee8
Guest
Wow Br JR that was a fantastic explanation and it helped me at least.I have said this before on other vocation threads and I’ll say it again. I’m speaking from personal experience. I do formation work for my religious community. Actually, I’m the novice master. But that’s another story.
The way to go is to give proper feedback. Encourage the person to pray, to seek spiritual direction and to remain in touch for moral support, no matter which way they go.
I really hope this helps the other posters.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
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Cominghome89
Guest
To the original poster,
May God bless you in your discernment process. I am going through discernment, and I know how the mixed feelings and temptations can be so utterly confusing. Which is why seeking advice on the internet regarding your vocation is a bad idea. Read Brother JR’s post above, he, as he often does on the forums, hit the nail right on the head.
The people who are giving you advice here (and some of it was very wise) do not know you. You should find a good, solid spiritual director who you are comfortable being honest with, spend a lot of time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, and trust that, in His perfect time, God will lead you to the vocation that will bring you peace. Whether you are meant to be single, married, or in religious life, just trust Him. As the wonderful St. Padre Pio said, “Pray, hope, and don’t worry! Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer. Prayer is the best weapon we have; it is the key to God’s heart.”
Please don’t stress, God will take you where you belong, just trust him. I will pray for you, I understand how trying the discernment process is.
Peace and blessings,
Frank
May God bless you in your discernment process. I am going through discernment, and I know how the mixed feelings and temptations can be so utterly confusing. Which is why seeking advice on the internet regarding your vocation is a bad idea. Read Brother JR’s post above, he, as he often does on the forums, hit the nail right on the head.
The people who are giving you advice here (and some of it was very wise) do not know you. You should find a good, solid spiritual director who you are comfortable being honest with, spend a lot of time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, and trust that, in His perfect time, God will lead you to the vocation that will bring you peace. Whether you are meant to be single, married, or in religious life, just trust Him. As the wonderful St. Padre Pio said, “Pray, hope, and don’t worry! Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer. Prayer is the best weapon we have; it is the key to God’s heart.”
Please don’t stress, God will take you where you belong, just trust him. I will pray for you, I understand how trying the discernment process is.
Peace and blessings,
Frank
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benedictus2
Guest
You are right there. I suppose what I was trying to say is that since she has stated that she feels called to the religious life she should be open to that and give it her best shot. And yes, at this stage what she needs is a good spiritual director not a date
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Cominghome89
Guest
Hahaha, very true. This made me laugh, but absolutely. Nobody even considering a religious vocation should be dating. If just being around this man at work is a confusing temptation, going on a date would be a pretty bad idea, IMHO.And yes, at this stage what she needs is a good spiritual director not a date
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Friar_David_O.Carm
Guest
I can see what you are saying but this individual should make his intentions/attractions/whatever you want to call them, known to this woman as this could be a sign that she is not called to religious life.You are right there. I suppose what I was trying to say is that since she has stated that she feels called to the religious life she should be open to that and give it her best shot. And yes, at this stage what she needs is a good spiritual director not a date
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