Thread for Women Discerning Religious Life

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Lydia - I’m glad to hear that you took the next step in discernment. I have received a lot of information from various places. It has all been very helpful.

C - Congratulations on your decision! I have a friend who is a third order Benedictine. She really enjoys it.

Kira - Thanks for the support. I guess I forget that everyone struggles with sin. Even the people I see as the most “holy” aren’t perfect.

God bless,
Nicole
 
Hilde89 said:
I’m interested in the Dominicans as well.
Do you want to teach?
I feel called to the Dominicans too but also the Fransiscans sisters of the renewal. What to do. I feel also called to the semi-contemplative and to preach the gospel as a youth evangelist. I am 22 years old and no body will respond to me. I have seen the Blessed Mother and she told me I am called to evangelize to the youth. To win souls for Christ. Which order to turn to HELP! The Dominican sisters that I want find interesting is Dominican sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist, and they are in Flemington Nj, which I live in bergen county NJ, and the other order the Fransiscans of the renewal is in Upstate NY. So I need some help can any one help me…:coffeeread:
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nicolep said:
Lydia -

I, too, was raised by in a Protestant Church. Surprisingly, I’ve received the most joking from fellow-Catholic friends/co-workers. I wouldn’t call these people the most devout Catholic’s in the world. My office manager has done the most picking. Although, she admits that she hasn’t been to Mass in a long time. Like I mentioned, it’s just frustrating. I just want to say, “Alright, you can leave me alone about it now!” It’s also part of my personality. I would never intentionally make fun of someone about something they are passionate about…I might not agree and my opinion would be offered if solicated. I like Kathie’s idea of a spiritual director. Someone to discuss my concerns and vent frustrations to would be fabulous!

God bless,
Nicole
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I would suggest that you not talk about your discernment just now. As a matter of fact, not until you quit your job because you’re going to enter! There is no good reason to share it. Your friends and co-workers won’t understand. If you need to take time off to visit, say it’s for ‘family matters’, which it is, or make other excuses that discourage inquiries, such as a ‘private family matter’, which it also is.

when we were dating, I never invited my boyfriend to work gatherings as he would have had to meet a huge number of new people. I told people that I was getting married when we were engaged and I was quitting my job and leaving the area! I think that a lot of people were really surprised that I had been dating at all!
 
LydiaW said:
Hello again ladies!
I’ve been absent from this thread for awhile now, as I have been going through some trials in my life. I have struggling more than before with doubt when I think about becoming a Nun. Back in January, when I was a little bit more steadfast in leaning towards religious life, I went through some of the hardest trials in my life so far. I underwent surgery for a serious issue, had my long time boyfriend dump me, and had serious complications from the surgery being slightly botched. I came very close to actually dying (heart nearly stopped).

I find myself now with split desires. I almost wish I could experience both married life and religious life, but I know that that in it’s literal form would never happen. Since I came so close to death, I find myself thinking about long term goals like never before.

Then tonight, I went on a tour of a local Francisan convent along with my father’s RCIA group (He finally converted this Easter,yay!).
I lately had pushed the thought of becoming a nun to the back of my mind, thinking that with the health concerns I have had, and my desire to make a bigger impact, that I wasn’t cut out for religious life. But as the tour went on, and I saw more and more…I felt such peace as I haven’t felt in a long time. With all the issues that have been going on in my life, including others I have not mentioned here, I have been in personal turmoil. It’s like all of that washed away for a brief while as I was there this evening. The order is an aging one that desperately needs new young women to join, and when I heard a sister talking about it, I felt the impulse to say “I’ll join!” right then and there.

I worry about leaving my father though, who honestly has at times only made it through the trials of life because I was there, helping pick up the pieces. My mother left him when I was 13, and he hasn’t been quite the same since. In recent years, his health has declined more. When I told him several months ago about my thoughts of a possible religious life, he broke down in tears. This from a man who only has cried a few times that I can ever remember, the last being the death of an uncle he was very close to, and 10 years before that at the death of his father.

What to do…I feel in my heart that I need to decide fairly soon. Otherwise, I need to make my way in the world, wether it be college,a long term job, or even possibly marriage.

I apologize for such a long winded post. I just really need to air the worries of my heart out a bit. Thanks for your patience. 🙂
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You have several alternatives. You could research active, so-called ‘updated’ orders near you where you could keep in touch with your father as you discern and even enter and persevere. This is assuming you aren’t going to enter a traditional cloistered Discalced Carmelite or Poor Clare Collettine monastery!

Updated orders take into account the demands of everyday life and will try to accommodate entrants that they feel are called otherwise to their orders.

Most updated orders prefer entrants with college or work experience anyway.

You could become a lay associate or an oblate of a nearby community. You could become a Consecrated Virgin and after your father passes, enter religious life.
 
Carolinagirl411 said:
…

sigh Another thing is that I have my Master’s in Psychology right now on top of a bunch of loans. You can’t join an order until your debts are clear…seeing as I am 24 and they don’t accept anyone over 30…I doubt I can pay off all those loans before then. Another sign?
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Well, for what it’s worth, the Laboure Foundation takes care of loans of persons entering into religious life.

Check it out:

labourefoundation.org/
 
I am 48 and looking at Carmelites and Poor Clares mainly. I forget which page a poster put but the Poor Clare Colettines in Cleveland, OH has an age limit of 45 and has taken older - as in myself as I have visited them twice and have written for a long time.

I am waiting to sell my blasted house! Then I will be free to enter.

I am looking only for traditional orders that are in line with Rome and their founder’s ideals for the order and that where the full length, full traditional habit of the order and at the cloistered/monastic orders.

I posted last night a long post of various orders in the US, England and Ireland in thread “sisters in traditional habits”. I have written to many US orders that have age limits of 35 or 40 and ask if they would consider older women and many said yes so you can’t always just go by the stated age limit. Now the few I’ve seen that said something like, “Age limit is firm” etc., I did not write and annoy them!

Mary
 
TeresaBenedicta said:
I am 48 and looking at Carmelites and Poor Clares mainly. I forget which page a poster put but the Poor Clare Colettines in Cleveland, OH has an age limit of 45 and has taken older - as in myself as I have visited them twice and have written for a long time.

I am waiting to sell my blasted house! Then I will be free to enter.

I am looking only for traditional orders that are in line with Rome and their founder’s ideals for the order and that where the full length, full traditional habit of the order and at the cloistered/monastic orders.

I posted last night a long post of various orders in the US, England and Ireland in thread “sisters in traditional habits”. I have written to many US orders that have age limits of 35 or 40 and ask if they would consider older women and many said yes so you can’t always just go by the stated age limit. Now the few I’ve seen that said something like, “Age limit is firm” etc., I did not write and annoy them!

Mary
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Dear Mary,
The Carmelites in Springfield, Missouri, are in need of vocations. Don’t let the age limit stop you on this…as you know, even though there is a limit, often they accept someone older.
Kathie
 
Dear Kathie,

Thanks for your email. I am writing these Carmelites and am going to visit them in June! I have posted in the thread “sisters in traditional orders” or something like that a million order links and the ones I’m visiting. I have been writing to these nuns for awhile and can’t wait to visit them!

I am also excited about visiting the Carmelites of Cristo Rey in San Francisco (no website) and the Tyringham (vistyr.org/index.html) and Toledo Visitation (toledovisitation.org/) sisters and the Menlo Park Dominicans (nunsmenlo.org/index.html)).

I have checked out so many orders with and with websites for the pat 14 yrs! That long because Our dear Lord called me when my 2 kids were young! But He did because He needed to work on me these past years and now I am waiting for my house to sell or I can be free to enter. But I have checked so many orders it would make your head spin! lol!

Mary
 
Nicole,

That’s great news! I will pray that you have a successful visit and know where you are called.

Mary
 
It is a blessing to see that so many ladies are discerning if they are called to consecrated life. I am 25 years old and also in discernment of religious life. I have been discerning (with a spiritual director) for two years now.

As I read through the thread, one recurring topic was the difficulty in finding a spiritual director. I think, if this situation happens, we have to bring it to our prayers, be open and attentive to things happening inside and around us, wait for the person(s) whom He sends to guide us with faith, trust, patience, and humility. God’s call for us is so personal that each of our vocation story is probably quite different. There are certain things we can do, such as attending vocation discernment retreats or speaking to a priest or religious about our yearnings. Yet, nobody can guarantee when and how exactly He reveals to us His loving Plan for us. Yet, we can trust completely that if it is His Will for us to consecrate our life to Him (and if it is also our yearning to consecrate our life to Him, which I assume people participating in this thread do share to a certain degree this same desire), He will not abandon us but to guide us along the way. 🙂

To share a little bit about my experience with spiritual direction… At the beginning when I have this thought “maybe I am called to consecrated life?”, I did not know really any sister/nun, but I know that I thirst to get closer and closer to Jesus… so I doubted that maybe it is just me wanting instead of what He wants… Because of this thirst for Him, I joined a mission trip to Peru with a group of university students, organized by the university Catholic chaplaincy. And in this trip, I was exposed to A LOT of consecrated people (consecrated lay women and also the religious sisters in the same spiritual family). One of the event before we started on missionary work with the locals, we visited the formation house of the religious sisters. During the visit, I had a chance to speak with a sister in formation. I asked her for her vocation story and I was very shocked when I found myself identified with so many things she shared with me, such as her deep yearnings to give all to the Lord! At that moment, I decided that I have to look seriously if I am called to consecrated life.

This thought never leave me for the two weeks while I was doing the mission. I need to talk with somebody, so I ended up speaking with a “fraterna” (a consecrated lay woman and that’s how they call themselves because of the name of their community). She then became my first “spiritual director” (I learned later on that “spiritual director” traditionally refers to only priests). Later on after I returned to my country, I joined a vocation discernment retreat where different religious communities (also priests and brothers because it’s a retreat for both men and women discerning consecrated life) from the diocese all sent representatives to attend. From that, I learned more about different orders here and also a priest who eventually became my next spiritual director (because the fraterna lives in the States and it is sometimes difficult to communicate via phone/internet).

With time through prayers and conversing with my directors, I discovered that it is the time to take the next step – to look for the community. My heart was somehow drawn very much to want to know the religious community which I met in Peru – the Servants of the Plan of God. About a year and a half ago, I took sometime off to return to Peru to visit the community for a week. Within the week, lots of things happened that led me to take the next step – I made a promise to become a candidate to continue my discernment particularly with this community. Since then, the vocation director of the community, a servant (how the sisters call themselves) , became my director. After I became a candidate, I stopped the regular sessions with the fraterna but instead, begins to meet regularly with the servant.

I am not sure if my case fits the definition… but from the vocation discernment retreat, I learned that there is a “spiritual director” and also a “vocation director”. While a “spiritual director” can be more general for all spiritual matters (e.g. one does not need to be discerning a vocation to priesthood or religious life but anyone can look for a “spiritual director” to help guide them in their spiritual growth). A “vocation director” is more specific when one is looking more closely into a particular order (e.g. the servant in my case). I suspect that the two may overlap. These are just terms and definitions which ultimately not the essentials…

What is essential is that throughout this process of our search into how to cooperate with His loving Plan for all humanity – through responding to His particular Plan for each one of us (aka. our vocation), we fix our gaze on our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask not what I like or dislike; we ask not what he/she (people around us) likes or dislikes; but only what He wants of us.

“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:9)

In Christ and Mary,
Jessica
 
We’ve all been very quiet lately.

I am so excited about my retreat on June 27th. There is some unfortunate timing involved though. Both of the priests at my parish are going to new assignments. Their receptions are that weekend and I won’t be able to go. Small price to pay though I suppose!

How is everyone else coming with their discernment? Anything interesting been going on?
 
I will be staying with the Carmelites of Cristo Rey in San Francisco on June 20-22 and then while in California, I will be going south to stay with the Menlo Park cloistered Dominican nuns from June 22 to 27th. Then I will visit the Carmelites of Springfield, Missouri in early July. 🙂

I am 48 yrs old with 2 grown kids (married/divorced/annulment) and these Carmels are open to me - for anyone in a similar situation to mine who feels called to great, traditional and full habited Carmels.

The Carmel of Springfield is a wonderful Carmel and on 5/27 lost their former prioress who was sick for awhile. They are now down to only 3 but they are still fairly young - the current prioress, Mother Marya is about 46 and the other two are around that age or a bit older so they are not a doddering old community! They are not closing but please call or write them if you have a Carmelite vocation. They don’t have a website but when I visit I hope to change Mother Marya’s mind as that my help me alot.

The Carmel of Cristo Rey has 35 as an upper age limit in their IRL profile, but they do and have excepted older when the woman has good health and a vocation to Carmel and their monastery. This is a bilingual community (the recreation and Divine Office is in English for 2 wks, then both are in Spanish for 2 wks). They came from Mexico over 75 yrs ago. They were founded from a Carmel in Mexico that was founded by a Carmel in Spain that St. Teresa of Avila founded herself! Wonderful history. 👍

As I am making sure I AM a Carmelite vocation :confused: , I would still like to visit the Visitation monasteries of Toledo and Tyringham (if these monasteries are to be my “home”!) and may go to England to visit and stay with the Colwich Benedictines and visit the St. Helen’s Carmel and the Wolverhhampton Carmel possibly. 🙂
 
TeresaBenedicta said:
I will be staying with the Carmelites of Cristo Rey in San Francisco on June 20-22 and then while in California, I will be going south to stay with the Menlo Park cloistered Dominican nuns from June 22 to 27th. Then I will visit the Carmelites of Springfield, Missouri in early July. 🙂

I am 48 yrs old with 2 grown kids (married/divorced/annulment) and these Carmels are open to me - for anyone in a similar situation to mine who feels called to great, traditional and full habited Carmels.

The Carmel of Springfield is a wonderful Carmel and on 5/27 lost their former prioress who was sick for awhile. They are now down to only 3 but they are still fairly young - the current prioress, Mother Marya is about 46 and the other two are around that age or a bit older so they are not a doddering old community! They are not closing but please call or write them if you have a Carmelite vocation. They don’t have a website but when I visit I hope to change Mother Marya’s mind as that my help me alot.

The Carmel of Cristo Rey has 35 as an upper age limit in their IRL profile, but they do and have excepted older when the woman has good health and a vocation to Carmel and their monastery. This is a bilingual community (the recreation and Divine Office is in English for 2 wks, then both are in Spanish for 2 wks). They came from Mexico over 75 yrs ago. They were founded from a Carmel in Mexico that was founded by a Carmel in Spain that St. Teresa of Avila founded herself! Wonderful history. 👍

As I am making sure I AM a Carmelite vocation :confused: , I would still like to visit the Visitation monasteries of Toledo and Tyringham (if these monasteries are to be my “home”!) and may go to England to visit and stay with the Colwich Benedictines and visit the St. Helen’s Carmel and the Wolverhhampton Carmel possibly. 🙂
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Dear Theresa,

I will pray for your discerning.
God bless
 
Teresa -

It sounds like you have a lot going on with your discernment! Good for you. There are times that I feel like I should be doing more…visiting more places, praying more, etc.
 
Well, I AM 48 and I am NOT getting any younger so I have to move and get going quickly! lol! 😃

I’m a nurse and can get busy, but I do try to get in mental prayer every day and 5 or more of the Divine Offices every day - I bought that 4 Volume set of Divine Office books. I LOVE the Divine Office and I feel awful and incomplete when I can’t even say 5! On my off days I can do all 7. :highprayer:

And if my parish church had more Adoration days and hours I’d be there too! :gopray2: :bowdown:

It is definitely getting harder to get up every day and having to face a in the world and NOT the monastery. I am harrassing Our Lord, Our Lady, St. Joseph, St. Teresa Benedicta, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Therese so badly to get me into the monastery, they JUST have to soon just to shut me up! :byzsoc:
 
I also pray The Liturgy of the Hours five times a day. I’m lucky to have a Perpetual Adoration Chapel at my parish. I usually go at least once a week, but try to make if two or three.

I have trouble facing a world not in a monastery everyday. I work hard to keep God in my thoughts all of the time…in everything I do at work and in my personal life. I just feel like there is more I can do. I’ll probably be happier if I visit a few more places over the weekend. I’m going to force myself to sit down and make contact with some places close to my house.

I’ve also taken on a few responsibilites at my parish. So my free time isn’t what it used to be. I still feel like I’m on the right track. It’s like I want things to happen quicker with my discernment. I constantly have to remind myself that I’m doing this in God’s time, not my own.
 
I’m fifteen years old and seriously discerning a religious vocation. The congregation I feel called to join is the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia Congregation, better known to the “discernment world” as the Nashville Dominicans. I am extremely blessed; I attend one of their schools and it is there that I first came in contact with religious life. I have to say that I have learned the basics from the best possible sources - actual sisters themselves. The beauty of the life appealed to me, and I found that, looking back on my life, ever since I was a little girl, I’ve had simple yet strong desires that never were fulfilled. I only had been exposed to religious life in the form of The Sound of Music, even though I’ve gone to Catholic school since kindergarten. I was never a bad kid, but never a religious one, until I went on my first retreat that was held in our school over a weekend; I heard the call during Adoration and was definitely freaked out, to say the least. I was inconsolable for the next day or two, until I started to actually take into consideration what religious life meant: the espousal of Christ! Since then, I’ve been at peace with what I strongly feel to be my vocation to religious life. There are bumps in the road which I come face-to-face with every day. One of the greatest thoughts I can leave with any discerner, or any person in general, is that in prayer, God doesn’t speak in the form of questions. That is often the only thing that keeps me from despair, being the weak little soul I am. So to sum up, I do a lot of research into different orders, communities, etc. and try to also remain open to the possibility of married or single life. It’s tough though, because for me it seems hard to believe that one could ever turn down Christ’s offer to be His Bride.
 
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