Vocation Decision in the Face of Uncertainty

[MonasticDreamer]

Hello Everyone,

I am an Anglo Catholic by heart. Anglican did to location, but probably Catholic in heart.

Enough of the justification.

I’ve been a Christian for ten years but wanted to be a monk for at least twenty. Life has thrown everything at me to keep me away from this. It has given me everything wanted but still I want to be a monk.

Life even gave me a girlfriend. It is a turbulent relationship to say the least due to her more self esteem and poor ego. She has threatened suicide if I leave, her nature brings me down as makes me depressed and makes me stop caring about myself. She has a lot of anger, control and trust issues. I look past them all for the sake of the relationship.

I still want to be a monk. I know I have to end it. But I don’t. I can’t do it face to face. The thought of hurting her is awful to me. I still have hope that she can turn it round. Indeed every single issue, without me saying anything, she seems to be doing something about. She’s cleaning herself, she cleaning her environment, she’s starting to relax on the control and anger.

Every reason I had for breaking up is disappearing.

Yet I still want to be a monk. So why can’t I end it?

A vocation as a monk is by no means guaranteed. I have to go through a process. What if that process fails? I’m left with nothing.

That makes me feel I’m using my girlfriend. But by the same token, despite her issues, she gets me, she understands me, she knows me, she supports me. Maybe not completely, but it’s enough.

People must have been in this situation. To be a monk is my dream. To have a relationship is the default option and one I’m not particularly bothered about, but one I must have if I can’t be a monk.

I don’t know how to end the relationship gracefully. I’m scared of what will be of my life if I can’t be a monk. How to make a vocation decision in the face of uncertainty?

Dreamer

 

[Cloisters]

Welcome to CAF!

Cloister is God and the soul. The building is irrelevant.

Make a simple retreat at a monastery. See how the monks live. Then see how you can keep the eyes of the heart on God, while ministering to the world.

Just make this retreat, and see if you’ve been given the grace to separate from her.

Always look locally first. Speak to your pastor.

Blessings,
Mrs Cloisters OP
Lay Dominican
http://cloisters.tripod.com/
http://cloisters.tripod.com/charity/
http://cloisters.tripod.com/holyangels/id9.html/

 

[MonasticDreamer]

I’ve been on several retreats and several visits over the years and thoroughly enjoy them. It is where I can recharged, refreshed. It’s where I feel most at home. My latest few visits have really solidified that calling with lots of “coincidences” in certain things, like references to Psalm passages that used to present myself. I feel certain God is calling me to this particular monastery.

What I don’t have is the grace (or the courage?) to separate the relationship.

My priest pushed me into the relationship, but I’ve noted a few flaws in his leadership and teaching that strike me as not entirely Christian. I’m speaking to a spiritual director and should probably speak to my current priest. But no one will really tell me what I should and shouldn’t do.

I certainly don’t feel called in the world. A couple of years ago, I got everything I thought I needed to be happy, job, money, girlfriend etc. But I think this was a test, as guess what? It didn’t make me happy. I want to be a monk.

 

[davetv]

Break up with her kindly. If she threatens to commit suicide, call 911. You are not equipped to handle a mental disorder, Emergency services are. Also staying with this girl will only lead you to resenting her. After you break up with her, take about 6 months of dicernment with a spiritual director before applying to enter a monastary. You may have been using this girl as an excuse to entering and you need time to pray and reflect.

 

[Cloisters]

Break up with her kindly. If she threatens to commit suicide, call 911. You are not equipped to handle a mental disorder, Emergency services are. Also staying with this girl will only lead you to resenting her. After you break up with her, take about 6 months of dicernment with a spiritual director before applying to enter a monastary. You may have been using this girl as an excuse to entering and you need time to pray and reflect.

That goes double for me.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Your girlfriend needs mental health professionals. You cannot fix her. You can respect her enough to get her to the help she needs.

Speak to her family about her mental health issues, make this an intervention if need be - or call 911 as suggested above.

Then you change your phone number and email address. You do this as a kindness so she focuses on her own healing.

Then, as stated, begin your serious discernment.

 

[Jbrady]

But no one will really tell me what I should and shouldn’t do.

If that’s what you are looking for, join a cult, not a monastery. It’s not the priest’s or spiritual director’s role to make decisions for you. That’s your job, and your responsibility. If you are drawn to religious life because you are afraid of taking full responsibility for yourself, then you are in for a shock.

 

[MonasticDreamer]

Hi All,

Jbrady - yes, that’s what I mean. It is my responsibility to make decisions, no one elses. That’s what I mean by no one will tell me what to do. I have to make those decisions myself. I had exposure to it around twenty years ago and fell in love with it. I’ve tried loads of things and got given loads of gifts by God. But it is being a monk that makes the most sense to me.

As Rowan Williams says,

“Vocation may be to what we are, but that doesn’t leave us where we are. We shall need to work to find the structure and form of life that is most our own because it leaves us most alert, most responsive, most open to the never-failing grace of God.”

It is monasticism that I feel most in tune with who I am and what I am. I simply don’t have the same desires as other people. Which is why, Cajun Joy, I want to be a monk. I don’t believe God is necessarily telling me what to do as he has ordained both Marriage and Monasticism. Both are beneficial. Both are good. One isn’t better than the other. I think God has given me the freedom to choose and the grace to accept what is most beneficial. To a certain extent, it does come down to a choice. But not everyone can handle being a monk. I don’t know if I can. I need to explore.

What is certain is that I have a pull, an attraction. I know it will be hard work, it will be tiring, it is not an escape. I have tried to do everything I can to not acknowledge this desire so that I can do what everyone tells me to do, to settle down, have a family, buy a house, get married, get a good job. I’ve listened to people tell me we should be in the world but not of it, we shouldn’t hide ourselves away behind closed doors.

But passages about leaving all you have including your family to follow Jesus speak to me. The rule of St. Benedict speaks to me. Hospitality, Love, seeing Christ in the stranger speaks to me. Monasticism speaks to me. Monasticism makes sense to me.

I’ve prayed for God to give me signs. I said if only I have X, Y and Z then I would be happy and wouldn’t want to be a monk. I got all of those things and Im not happy. The desire to be a monk is still there. While testing vocation in other areas, someone quite out of the blue suggested a monastery I should try. I had been before and didn’t want to return, but it was a monastery in a location imprinted on my heart. On returning, I got given a book to read on monasticism which was like a missing piece in a jig saw. It brought everything I had experienced together. There was a number which kept haunting me a few years ago by keep popping up in random places, too much to not be a sign. It was number 122. I didn’t know what it meant. I thought it might be Psalm 122 and I thought it was talking about monasticism. No one else confirmed my hypothesis. Then it stopped. But when I read the book, along with all the other answers, the Psalm also came up in there and made the same inferences about monasticism that I did. The Psalm was 122, I rejoiced when I heard them say, let us go to the house of God, and now our feet are standing, in your gates O Jerusalem.

I want. And I feel called. I want to follow that calling.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Scripture is pretty clear about putting God to the test, asking for signs, etc.

Simply get your life in order then begin serious discernment with the office of vocations.

 

[MonasticDreamer]

Interesting thoughts TheLittleLady.

I don’t believe I’ve put God to the test. Sure there are times when I feel in limbo stuck between a rock and a hard place and only desiring to do the will of God and asking to be where I can be of most service. When there’s a choice between two options, such as, whether to stay and support my girlfriend through a sort of sacrificial love, showing her the the love and patience of God, or to become a monk to learn deeper about God, connect further with God, hopefully one day teach about God, worship him in every daily act, through daily offices, through the love shown to the brethren and to others, in hospitality and welcome… I stop and ask that my path might be made clear.

I don’t see that as a wholly bad thing.

I don’t think the scriptures are fully clear otherwise there wouldn’t be so much discussion about whether it right or wrong to ask for guidance in those circumstances. Sure when God has given you a sign, you obey. You don’t keep trying to change his mind and asking for more signs.

What I am mindful of, the times I’ve asked for guidance, I’ve not really received. Im fine with that. I think God wants us to step out in faith and might offer confirmatory signs along the way. Other times I have received signs from God without prompting from me, sometimes months or even years apart - for example Psalm 122.

So on one hand, I believe I have received a sign from God. What that sign means is another question. It’s certainly a sign to be at the monastery where I am. For what purpose, Im not yet sure. I’m learning to work to God’s timing, knowing that God works in mysterious way, and I just need to “be” and accept what comes. The sign may be confirming I should definitely be a monk, or it might be saying that I need to establish a connection with that monastery in order to become an oblate. Currently I believe that he wants me to pursue the monastery with the goal of being a monk. If it doesn’t work out, then it doesn’t work out, but I’ll have been where I have considered God wanted me at the time, to have learned whatever God wanted to show me.

One other concern of mine is that no matter how hard I pray for the strength to do the right thing with my girlfriend, leaving her is very difficult. I don’t want to fight God, of course I don’t. I even say to the monks that Im going to hand over the timing to God and hope that a pathway emerges where I can leave the relationship gracefully and respectfully. I am mindful of a couple of thoughts here that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle. So although the relationship is getting me down, my thought is that I can still handle it. Does God have a purpose for me in this? Does he want me to continue to help her? Or does he simply want me to end it? In truth, I don’t know. But you know what, with something like this, I feel it beneficial to ask God for his guidance. On the other hand, maybe I should just ask God for the courage to leave and entrust my girlfriend to his care that she will be surrounded by the people who can support her after I have left.

 

[TheLittleLady]

I am mindful of a couple of thoughts here that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.

This is lovely on a motivational card, but, it is not in Scripture. Scripture promises that there will never be a sinful temptation with a means to avoid sin.

We can put ourselves into all sorts of situations that are more than we can handle, God does not micromanage our lives nor mess with our free will. We put ourselves into situations.

Does he want me to continue to help her?

Are you a trained medical professional in the mental health field? A trained counselor for emotional problems? If not, unless you are under the direction of such a professional, you likely are unequipped to help her.