If any of you saw that recent movie about St. Therese (I’m guilty of not having read “Story of a Soul” yet), I’m kind of in the same situation as St. Therese’s sister, the one who joined Carmel last, except I’m not
that sure the religious life is my vocation… I certainly feel a pull, and there’s this restlessness, this… I can’t explain it, but it definitely has turned my world upside down (or, really, right side up
). It all really started when I began to attend weekday Mass about 8 months ago, and now… I’m so torn… I have no idea what I’m supposed to do…
It doesn’t help that my family wouldn’t be too supportive of a decision to up and enter a convent… They have asked that I remain close to them, and unlike with marriage, if one chooses the religious life, one is completely cut off. I would be abandoning them when their hope is that I will care for them in their later years… And I would be honoured to do so, such is my hope as well, buuuut…
Would it be selfish to leave them for my own happiness, even if it is God’s will? Would the Lord truly ask such a thing? Whose promise do you keep???
And then there is the question of whether a convent/congregation would actually take me…:whacky:
Anyway, if my dilemma gets resolved and I end up discerning that God wants me to be a nun or a sister, then I think I would like to join either a Dominican order or a Benedictine order (haha, quite the opposites
)… I’m not sure what it is that attracts me to them, though. But, after all, if the Lord decides that I should be a Carmelite or a Franciscan or something else, then He’s the Boss!