Tons of Guilt...what will happen to me?

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agapeflower117

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Hi all,
I’m asking for prayers and for advice. I’ve always loved God – always. When I was a little girl I wanted to be a nun; I used to check the back of religious magazines to see what orders there were to apply to. In college I went on discernment retreats, and was convinced that was what God wanted for me. I was always worried about my school debt, and my parents were less than supportive.

After college came graduate school, and although I always stayed close to God, working for the Church and involved in a few young adult ministries, throughout the years afterward I decided to date - and eventually marry a wonderful man. He is Catholic too (always has been), and we pray novenas together, attend Mass together.

Although I am married now I do not feel any less close to Jesus; in fact, I feel just as close to Him as I always have. But there are times when I am so afraid that I deserted Him by choosing to marry instead of joining a religious order. I know - although I have trouble believing - that His mercy is boundless and His love is forever, but the guilt is overwhelming.

I am very happy to be married, and it’s not like I wonder about the religious life or what I missed out on, but I want to know I can be forgiven for this. It’s not that I got married instead of becoming a nun, but it’s the fact that I may have heard His voice and ran from Him that I can’t get over. I worry that I will never live up to the plan God had for me originally, and (I know this sounds funny, but) that I won’t be able to see Him in Heaven. The thought tears my heart in two.

Prayers are appreciated! Please help. 😦 Thank you 😊
 
A very good friend friend of mine who happens to be a priest told me once that, “you don’t give up on a vocation by getting married, God put’s that desire on your heart, Going out and getting married (like many who decide against religious life sometimes call it) is not a rejection of a vocation but acknowledgement of another.”
 
That’s a terrible feeling to have–that you feel you turned your back on God and did your own will. Of course the Bible tells us that Jesus loves us in spite of any mistakes we make along the way. I wouldn’t worry about it. You did the right thing and married in the Church, and your husband sounds wonderful. God gives us all free will, and He respects what choice we make. Who knows? Maybe this is exactly what He wanted for you–a sacramental marriage in the Catholic Church. If you’re worried about achieving sainthood, don’t be. Look to Bl. Louis and Bl. Zelie Martin who raised 5 daughters and all of them became nuns, including St. Therese of Lisieux who is a doctor of the Church! Look at your discernment as a possible opportunity to help your future children discern their vocations. Perhaps one of them will be a priest or nun? You never know!

I will pray for you, my dear. Your vocation right now is marriage, so keep close to Jesus (your first Spouse), and continue your wonderful prayer life with your husband on earth. God bless. 🙂
 
I’m involved in formation for my community. I always tell the postulants and novices that God has a plan. From the moment that we were conceived, he had a plan for us. This is not the same as predestination, because we are free to choose another path. But God does not compromise us between two goods. That would be very cruel. He is not a cruel God. He is a loving God, as you have said.

If you have a choice between two goods and you choose, either way you please Goid and you draw closer to him. In religious life we draw closer to God with our brothers or sisters and in solitude. In marriage we draw closer to him with our partner, our children (if we have any) and in solitude. Either way, they are both paths to the same great road.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
I don’t think God works like that. I don’t think God would haunt you with empty guilt over a decision you made that you are now committed to by vows. If your feelings of guilt were coming from God, He would be asking you to repent and stop sinning. Not just haunting you with could of, should of.
God can forgive all things. He can certainly forgive you even if you may have run from Him. We don’t know for sure that He was calling you to religious life. And, most people when they hear what God is asking of them run from Him. You are not allone in this. And God keeps taking us back.
If I were you, I’d go to confession, confess that you may have run from what God was asking of you and resolve not to run from Him again when He asks something from you. Then you’ll have to accept that God has forgiven you and forgotten your sin and then move on.
 
I’m with Sister Rose - talk to the priest in confession about it.

I had a similar concern once, and asked the priest if one thing I didn’t do had been God’s Plan A for me, was He disappointed that I chose Plan B instead. He told me that God knew it would be Plan B all along, and that made me feel much better.

Betsy
 
God’s will for us is never for us to sin. Let’s look at this rationally. The choices were marriage and religious life. Which one of these is sinful? Neither. Both are good and holy. Therefore, whichever one you is pleasing to God. A call is not a command. When God calls us to either religious life or marriage, he is not commanding us. Our free will is still intact. When God lays to options before us and both are good. it’s a win win situation.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
Thank you so much for your kind, compassionate responses, everyone! I feel so much better about myself and about my decision, and God has really shown me over the past few days a lot of things about Him and His mercy and the unfolding of His plan.

So thank you so much for your support and your prayers! God bless you!! 🙂
 
dear Agapeflower
I’m going through something very similar at the moment, except that I don’t yet know if I’m going to be a nun or marry, but sometimes I feel so much fear that I’ll choose the wrong thing.

But I just had a thought… EVEN IF you made a mistake, God can still turn it to good. 🙂 Since you got married, your marriage is right now part of God’s plan, especially since you are both Catholics 🙂 also, there are many people who first thought that they had a religious vocation, but later got married and it was God’s will… for example, St Therese’s parents… both of them discerned with religious orders before they met. It could be that God gave you that desire to be a nun to see if you will be obedient… or for any other reason; we don’t know!! But don’t beat yourself up over this… whether you chose God’s will or not, He hasn’t “given up” on you, and you can still fulfill His will with your marriage. The world definitely needs good Catholic families 😉 perhaps it is the devil that is giving you these fears to distract you.

God bless!
 
Marriage IS a vocation. Seek everyday to glorify God through your marriage and you will never disappoint him!
St. Therese’s parents both wanted to be in the religious life but got denied for one reason or another. Her father felt so bad about not being a priest that he vowed to be abstinent in marriage. Finally, a priest convinced him to consecrate his marriage with his wife.
When he finally made peace with his vocation to be a husband, it resulted in 3 daughters that became nuns (was it all 3, or just 2, I forget)…and of course one of them was St. Therese, the little flower. Think how much richer the Church is for having dear Therese!
 
Trouble comes from the devil. In this world a Christian can expect it. The closer to God, the darker the night of suffering. The darkest part of the night is that which is closest to the light.
Have you heard of St. Benedict Joseph Labre? His life is worth reading: The patron saint of lost vocations.
He is buried in the church that St Therese of Lisieux loved to visit when she was in Rome.
There he is buried in front of the altar. A big marble sculpture of him marks the place.

Sensitive souls seem to be afflicted with scruples.
 
KEVIN_WILCOX said:
Trouble comes from the devil. In this world a Christian can expect it. The closer to God, the darker the night of suffering. The darkest part of the night is that which is closest to the light.
Have you heard of St. Benedict Joseph Labre? His life is worth reading: The patron saint of lost vocations.
He is buried in the church that St Therese of Lisieux loved to visit when she was in Rome.
There he is buried in front of the altar. A big marble sculpture of him marks the place.

Sensitive souls seem to be afflicted with scruples.
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Scrupulosity can also be a mental illness. Some people suffer from obsessive thinking and it can be a very paintful and debiliating mental condition. This is best left to the experts in the spiritual life to sort out whether the person has a genuine spiritual problem or a mental health problem. A trained spiritual director or pastoral counselor can tell the difference and help the person get help from the appropriate source. It is best to refer such people to these professionals. I always point people to either professional spiritual directors or professional pastoral counselors.

The traditional psychologist or counselor can certainly help someone with obsessive disorders. But they are not trained to recognize the difference between an obsessive disorder and a spiritual disorder. Spirituality is not part of their training. The average priest is not trained in spirituality either. This is a very special branch of theology, usually found as one of the branches of Mystical Theology. Spirituality is not a required area of study in the seminary. Those who are members of religious orders will usually study spirituality as part of their formation for religious vows. They have a little more exposure to this branch of theology than do diocesan priests.

Since most parish priests are diocesan priests, that’s usually the priest in the confessional. These priests really struggle to help people with scrupulosity; but they don’t always say the right thing and the person leaves feeling that he or she has not been helped. The fact is that they have not, but not through any fault of the priest. He’s trying to do his best with the few tools that he has.

In the past, most priests simply gave the person some prayers to say and a penance. This had a placebo effect in the case of people who had a psychological problem. Eventually the person returned with the same problem. Today, most priests are much more educated than their predecessors are in the difference between mental health and spiritual health. But knowing a little psychology is not enough to qualify the confessor as a therapist and he should not be a therapist. That’s not the purpose of confession. We’re back at the same place. The person needs a trained spiritual director or pastoral counselor. We just don’t have enough in the Catholic Church or in any church.

But when we can, the best help that we should offer is to help the person find someone trained in this area. It is the charitable thing to do. If there is no one, then go for someone who, even though they are not professionally trained, has experience. Sometimes, people with a lot of life experience can be just as helpful as someone with a lot of academic training. That’s all that academic training is, a lot of reading of writings from those who have experience.

A great example of a good spiritual director who never went to school to study Mystical Theology is Catherine of Siena. She grew in this area through her own journey. Today, her writings and her experience are core requirements in the study of spirituality and Mystical Theology. Most people training in spiritual direction and pastoral counseling have to read her writings and her journey. St. Francis de Sales and Ignatius of Loyola were two more recent than Catherine. They too learned through their own experience. But they had such experience tha tthey were able to develop an entire methodology for spiritual direction. They too are required reading for those who are interested in spirituality and spiritual direction. Ignatius was so good that many of us who study this area of theology as our area of specialization consider him to be the Catholic forefather of psychoanalysis. His exercises are really very analytical. Freud’s work reflects a lot of Ignatius’ work in spiritual guidance. Where Freud gets lost is in leaving God out of the equation. Thus the holes in Freud’s system. Had he been a Catholic, there would be very little difference in his methods and those of Ignatius. It’s funny how the secular sciences mimic what religion has already done.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
Brother,thanks for posting - it makes for good reading: I appreciate the thought you have put into it.
Seems that holy spiritual directors were never that many. That’s what St John of the Cross says.
If we find one I guess it is reasonable to sacrifice. It’s a blessing.
How does one ‘check out’ a potential?
 
Agapeflower…if you felt, at the time of your marriage, that you should have stopped the wedding and pursued the religious life as a nun…why did you not do it? I surmise that you most likely felt that the married life was best for you.

Now you’re ‘Monday-morning quarterbacking’ yourself…and it’s causing you much grief.

We always have to be careful not to let our ‘emotions’ dictate our rational thinking, as they sometimes will do.

Keep in mind that, in good faith, you made the decision that seemed best at the time. God cannot and will not fault you for this. You engaged yourself in the holy sacrament of Matrimony, and you must believe that God blesses your marriage with the graces appropriate to that sacrament. What is done, is done. It does not mean that you did “right” or “wrong”…but simply what you discerned to be the best thing at that time in your life.

God loves you more that you can imagine, hon. He wants you in Heaven with Him one day. If anyone can understand the difficult decision that you had to make – He surely would! Don’t let this be a stumbling block to your happiness. Just accept it, realizing that you made your decision with the best of intentions. Rest with that in your heart. 👍
 
OH NO!!! There is NOTHING there to be forgiven! This is what GOD wanted you to do. Like I just posted on another thread. WE may feel the “call” to be in a religeous order. However I feel that GOD says “I know you are a faithful servant but this is how i want you to serve me instead” he may just want you to have children and raise them. Who knows…maybe you will have children who will become sisters or priest and maybe one day your son may be the POPE! You didnt desert him. I wanted to become a sister, and my husband wanted to become a priest. We met at church. My husband is my very best friend. Our girls understand the church better than most adults do. My youngest, shes 6, has said to me she wanst to be a sister. I encourage her and I show her what sisters do. She was torn between becomeing a sister and a teacher. I said sisters can be teachers and explained to her I had a sister as my 2nd grade teacher…she became very happy. So hopefully she becomes a sister. I would be a very proud mom, but not dissappointed if she didnt and instead had a family. I would be very proud too. I would know that she would give her children the foundation of a great catholic upbringing.
 
BigRedpg51 said:
Agapeflower…if you felt, at the time of your marriage, that you should have stopped the wedding and pursued the religious life as a nun…why did you not do it? I surmise that you most likely felt that the married life was best for you.

Now you’re ‘Monday-morning quarterbacking’ yourself…and it’s causing you much grief.

We always have to be careful not to let our ‘emotions’ dictate our rational thinking, as they sometimes will do.

Keep in mind that, in good faith, you made the decision that seemed best at the time. God cannot and will not fault you for this. You engaged yourself in the holy sacrament of Matrimony, and you must believe that God blesses your marriage with the graces appropriate to that sacrament. What is done, is done. It does not mean that you did “right” or “wrong”…but simply what you discerned to be the best thing at that time in your life.

God loves you more that you can imagine, hon. He wants you in Heaven with Him one day. If anyone can understand the difficult decision that you had to make – He surely would! Don’t let this be a stumbling block to your happiness. Just accept it, realizing that you made your decision with the best of intentions. Rest with that in your heart. 👍
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What a load of nonsense! With all due repect, you have no idea where this woman is coming from!
"You surmise" - There are many possibilities… there are people who enter into relationships for the simple idea of escape, abdication of responsibility from personal decision making.
Who knows why people do what they do?..it may be years (or never) down the track before light dawns on underlying motivating principle of an action.
 
KEVIN_WILCOX said:
What a load of nonsense! With all due repect, you have no idea where this woman is coming from!
"You surmise" - There are many possibilities… there are people who enter into relationships for the simple idea of escape, abdication of responsibility from personal decision making.
Who knows why people do what they do?..it may be years (or never) down the track before light dawns on underlying motivating principle of an action.
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I disagree with both your choice of words and your opinion. Your choice of words are aggressive. Your opinion is not what a good spiritual director would say to this person. The truth is that if you entered into a marriage freely, loving the person whom you married, then you are validly married. If you are in a sacramental marriage, there is nothing contrary to the will of God there. It is contrary to the will of God to be in an invalid marriage. But the OP has not given us any information that would suggest that the marriage is not valid. If the married is valid and we must always assume that it is, this is the law of the Church, then we must encourage people to embrace their marriage as the will of God for them and to workd for their happiness and that of their spouse.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
JReducation said:
I disagree with both your choice of words and your opinion. Your choice of words are aggressive. Your opinion is not what a good spiritual director would say to this person. The truth is that if you entered into a marriage freely, loving the person whom you married, then you are validly married. If you are in a sacramental marriage, there is nothing contrary to the will of God there. It is contrary to the will of God to be in an invalid marriage. But the OP has not given us any information that would suggest that the marriage is not valid. If the married is valid and we must always assume that it is, this is the law of the Church, then we must encourage people to embrace their marriage as the will of God for them and to workd for their happiness and that of their spouse.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
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Brother, I neither asked you to agree with my choice of words, nor did I ask you to agree with my opinion. When did I claim to be a “good spiritual director”? In the first you assume (making an ‘***’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’). In the second you presume (and presumption is sin). In misrepresenting you do both of us a gross disservice.
Again, why must we assume/presume anything? Why must we assume/presume the marriage to be valid? Just because we have been furnished no evidence justifying counter claim?

Why must we “encourage people to embrace their marriage as the will of God for them”?
Time may reveal certain choices to be contrary to the Will of God.

As a counsellor I do not give answers, it’s ethically wrong, I goad people and encourage people into making their own decision. OP’s life is not about me nor is it about what I think.

I would encourage OP to meditate on the words “if you entered into a marriage freely, loving the person you married” and ask questions such as “Did I?”

Surely you are not suggesting because it is legal in the opinion of the Church choice is diminished.
 
KEVIN_WILCOX said:
Brother, I neither asked you to agree with my choice of words, nor did I ask you to agree with my opinion. When did I claim to be a “good spiritual director”? In the first you assume (making an ‘***’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’). In the second you presume (and presumption is sin). In misrepresenting you do both of us a gross disservice.
Again, why must we assume/presume anything? Why must we assume/presume the marriage to be valid? Just because we have been furnished no evidence justifying counter claim?

Why must we “encourage people to embrace their marriage as the will of God for them”?
Time may reveal certain choices to be contrary to the Will of God.

As a counsellor I do not give answers, it’s ethically wrong, I goad people and encourage people into making their own decision. OP’s life is not about me nor is it about what I think.

I would encourage OP to meditate on the words “if you entered into a marriage freely, loving the person you married” and ask questions such as “Did I?”

Surely you are not suggesting because it is legal in the opinion of the Church choice is diminished.
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Again you are being rude. When speaking of the sacraments our role is always to defend the bond. There is no room in Church dialogue around that. The Church does not allow for a person to think “did I or didn’t I”. It is what it is. It is the marriage bond and unless the person is willing and wishes to bring the marriage up for examination by a canonical tribunal, the person and those around the person MUST assume that the marriage is valid and defend it accordingly as God’s will. This is a principal of Mystical Theology and Spiritual Direction.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
JReducation said:
Again you are being rude. When speaking of the sacraments our role is always to defend the bond. There is no room in Church dialogue around that. The Church does not allow for a person to think “did I or didn’t I”. It is what it is. It is the marriage bond and unless the person is willing and wishes to bring the marriage up for examination by a canonical tribunal, the person and those around the person MUST assume that the marriage is valid and defend it accordingly as God’s will. This is a principal of Mystical Theology and Spiritual Direction.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
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Again you interpret my posting as ‘rude’.

“When speaking of the sacrament our role is always to defend the bond” - In other words, you’re saying “OP chose to get married, her hands are tied. Bond becomes before person,” Sounds you out as legalist. Almost Pharisaic?

“There is no room in Church dialogue around that” - In other words, you’re saying “The law comes before the person.”

From what OP posts, she does wish to bring the marriage up for examination. This is her whole thrust of argument. This is what she is doing, perhaps feels guilty as a consequence.
As a Christian Counsellor I encourage her to examine her life, not by reinforcing legal position.
If she is feeling guilty, charity does not need us to point out legal standing. She needs to be cheered, to slow down, and look dispassionately at her position. Guilt already troubles her. Why should she be further burdened?
Prayerful investigation will take her journey into the hands of God (Psalm 138)
Fear can only be overcome by Love. The Law is doing nothing but tie her into guilt.
She fears ‘doing the wrong thing.’
God is a God of Love, He is a Shepherd who carries us. Both she and her husband pray together, God will not abandon them.
OP is in a dark night, I refuse to be one of Job’s comforters who reminds her of the Law.

'Speak not any thing rashly, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter a word before God. For God is in the heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few ’ (Ecc 5:1)
More than anything OP needs to be listened to.
I do not have any answers for her, it would be ethically (and perhaps theologically) unwise.
 
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