Vocations outside of native lands

[InThePew]

Hello. Does anyone know whether a person would be accepted into a religious Order outside their own native land, if they applied to an Order outside of their own native land (please note: for good reasons), despite having made contact with some religious Orders already within one’s own native land?

The simplest way is to join missionary order like the Columban Fathers who will happily send you to very far flung places (one Columban I know spent the best part of 50 years in the backblocks of South America including places which haven’t seen rain in over 400 years). Joining an order in a foreign land to work in that land is more difficult however, besides visa issues most orders will expect you to come to them for starters. Besides that, the difficulties of adjusting to what will often be a vastly different culture and way of life should not be underestimated, and that’s before language issues come into play. for this reason, joining a monastic community would probably be a non-starter IMHO. The advantage missionary orders have is that they will take care of your language / inculturation training before you depart.

 

[friardchips]

Parts of Thailand are touristy and parts are not.

As for tigers, there were trains not far from where we were located and tigers are terrified of trains. The trick is making being able to make the run to the train and not being the slowest one in the group.

As for being able to join a foreign order, the world is getting smaller, so your chances should be pretty good. You may want to get yourself a spiritual adviser . They are invaluable .

Spiritual advisors/ Directors are pretty hard to come by. Otherwise, this would be an ideal, you are right. At pres, I’m my own spiritual advisor and have been for some time, although there is guidance available when the situation urgently calls, and I think more and more people are going to find that spiritual guidance becomes something to be found occasionally in Confession and from books (and on this forum, of course) for the most part, in the future.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

• My friend who was in a movement, with the support of our bishop went to a diocesan seminary abroad and is a priest appreciated by his bishop and parishioners - he is an English speaker and that is in an English speaking country
• Another friend, in the same circumstances, went to another diocesan seminary but in a non-English speaking country and also there had been far less talk in advance of it. It turned out that not only was it badly run, but also he had been talked into thinking his vocation was in the seminary, from where he is happily back out of now. The problem wasn’t mainly a language one as their intent to train him in the local language was probably one of their least bad aspects and he was very intent on it himself.
• I don’t know about orders but I think the same principles apply more than is generally assumed.
• Ask LOTS of people, YEAR AFTER YEAR. The second case above could have been sussed out at an earlier stage if more talking had been done with more people for longer first. “Vocations directors” per se may not know as much as they pretend, one needs to supplement them by talking to all family, friends of all kinds, acquaintances through all kinds of societies, movements and groups.
• Re the language issue I think orders and dioceses alike are far too slack - priests MUST make FAR more effort to learn the local language REALLY PROPERLY. If people are not prepared to SUFFICIENTLY SUPPORT you in this, they are falsely trying to attract recruits, and there are lots that are part-way false, even if they produce fruits of a sort.
• How wide is your language and linguistics knowledge? Do you know any language radically different from the aforementioned?
• God placed some of us in each country specially to go abroad, and some specially to stay with our fellow countrymen. Don’t exclude that you may be among the latter! There are countries near your homeland that are quite foreign, and also far off countries that speak English and are closely related to us.
• The US and the UK need missionaries too!
• Remember you are already a layman which is not only the most important calling of all, but if need be is the door to all the other callings, including married layman which one doesn’t have to become by any particular deadline. I have been a single layman for 60 years and counting and a very good thing even if I could have made it even better if I’d known better. One does have to work hard about networking and relating.
• There is a very small number of evangelising bodies, who may take lay people on for several years, perhaps they have got an advert in Good News Magazine which is published by the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.
• See if some faithful Protestants in your vicinity would pray for you and regularly share Scriptures on Christian living with you (as they do with me).

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

Just some other thoughts.

During my career I took various “tests”. In Myers-Briggs (the proper version) I was INTP and very nearly ENTP because I have developed a strong auxiliary. In Belbin team roles I have the instinct of a monitor-evaluator and have slowly started to become a great theorist (the world is lacking in good ones). (One may take these at intervals and is free to self-report oneself differently.)

In a “career test” I was recommended to be a civil servant - I already was one (not working with the public). At work we had systems and the support of colleagues and supervisors to help handle the flow of work (although I was a bit of an under achiever sometimes - I was mainly shunted into jobs where the support would be more intensive). In my student years I absorbed knowledge but struggled to express work in the required format by the needed deadlines. I am an independent spirit that can be harnessed in a team that looks after most of both the big picture and the details but can accept my (name removed by moderator)ut to both and can adapt to my sensory processing needs.

As confirmed by an occupational therapist, a remedial teacher of adults and an educational psychologist of adults, I don’t do some physical tasks well because of uncoordination which is mainly congenital, and a degree of weakness. I am above average with figures and words and a more mixed bag than is usual at shapes and complex issues.

I’m telling you this so that even if you haven’t had tests you can use your workplace and college feedback as well as that of friends and acquaintances to highlight your stronger areas to be harnessed as well as those to be further enhanced.

Listening to high-pitched music such as Mozart can settle the nerves as can certain faint tints in one’s glasses (there are both cheap and expensive versions of this), and tidying one’s home better (I have benefitted from 7 years’ help with this from one person after another). It’s remarkable what can help one get “perspective” which is linked both in one’s visual cortex and one’s “mind’s eye”. I also fancy a better blend of tea has made me more insightful, or is it just old age!

To one’s vocation - including layman - one brings one’s whole person - one’s body is one’s “vehicle” after all. Most of the things I mention won’t apply to you but something similar might - and your and my vocation are equally important ones individually. Most advice one gets is highly spiritual and sometimes not in touch enough with the down-to-earth.

 

[friardchips]

The simplest way is to join missionary order like the Columban Fathers who will happily send you to very far flung places (one Columban I know spent the best part of 50 years in the backblocks of South America including places which haven’t seen rain in over 400 years). Joining an order in a foreign land to work in that land is more difficult however, besides visa issues most orders will expect you to come to them for starters. Besides that, the difficulties of adjusting to what will often be a vastly different culture and way of life should not be underestimated, and that’s before language issues come into play. for this reason, joining a monastic community would probably be a non-starter IMHO. The advantage missionary orders have is that they will take care of your language / inculturation training before you depart.

Well, hard graft will be the order of the day, for sure. I think you’re right, and going by the other responses too on here, it might be best to join an Order here first and then trust in Providence as to where one ends up. One of the great things about religious life is that one could offer up whatever one does in the safe knowledge that simple obedience is providing the way forward. No having to guess: “Am I meant to be doing this” etc…Today I too was thinking about how important training is in certain areas of service and not just to be done any old how - how would one make an urgent point to someone if one doesn’t speak the same language; how might one deal with a possible violently eruptive situation with no training; how would one always respond in the most humble ways to all situations - and this would take work to learn, and so going to a foreign country immediately, with no training before entering deep water, would be more akin to entering into the middle of the Atlantic with huge waves but no prior sailing experience.

Thank you for your contribution to this thread.

 

[friardchips]

• My friend who was in a movement, with the support of our bishop went to a diocesan seminary abroad and is a priest appreciated by his bishop and parishioners - he is an English speaker and that is in an English speaking country
• Another friend, in the same circumstances, went to another diocesan seminary but in a non-English speaking country and also there had been far less talk in advance of it. It turned out that not only was it badly run, but also he had been talked into thinking his vocation was in the seminary, from where he is happily back out of now. The problem wasn’t mainly a language one as their intent to train him in the local language was probably one of their least bad aspects and he was very intent on it himself.

Hi! Thanks for this generous reply!

• I don’t know about orders but I think the same principles apply more than is generally assumed.

• Ask LOTS of people, YEAR AFTER YEAR. The second case above could have been sussed out at an earlier stage if more talking had been done with more people for longer first. “Vocations directors” per se may not know as much as they pretend, one needs to supplement them by talking to all family, friends of all kinds, acquaintances through all kinds of societies, movements and groups.

Vocation directors have difficult jobs. Or rather it is, that the job demands of them some difficult situations. They won’t know everything yet Pope Francis has spoken of the need to be inspiring. In terms of speaking to families, I don’t think this is wise. I think speaking to too many people outside of a spiritual Director is asking for trouble. Many people in vocations have spoken of how easy it is to be put off by anyone who isn’t in the same spiritual zone - even those considered ‘family’.

• Re the language issue I think orders and dioceses alike are far too slack - priests MUST make FAR more effort to learn the local language REALLY PROPERLY. If people are not prepared to SUFFICIENTLY SUPPORT you in this, they are falsely trying to attract recruits, and there are lots that are part-way false, even if they produce fruits of a sort.

I think you might have a point. A bit like sending a soldier to battle without being properly equipped in tools and knowledge. I did wonder about the speed of which maybe some Orders send newer recruits too early into dangerous situations that at the least would require some grasp of the native language.

• How wide is your language and linguistics knowledge? Do you know any language radically different from the aforementioned?

No. But this is only because to really learn a language one needs to be around it everyday and also because many language tutors don’t deal with the grammar early enough. Especially with some of the more complicated eastern european ones drifting further towards the East. Quite enjoyable though when one gets into learning.

• God placed some of us in each country specially to go abroad, and some specially to stay with our fellow countrymen. Don’t exclude that you may be among the latter! There are countries near your homeland that are quite foreign, and also far off countries that speak English and are closely related to us.

I don’t really connect with western spirituality; only in the celibate sense of things. I prefer the spirituality of some of the foreign saints when reading of them. I feel that Christianity in the U.K is highly Anglofied. Just something seems to hint that Christians are scared to enter deeper into the faith. The parish I attend contains people who obviously have the potential to go further with things. Although I’d say this doesn’t ring true from what I’ve gathered from U.S citizens from this forum as many if not all seem strongly passionate in way or another about their faith-life at whatever stage.

• The US and the UK need missionaries too!

The U.S is a lifetime’s existence in itself! But yes, there are big issues needing sorting in both of these parts of the world.

• Remember you are already a layman which is not only the most important calling of all, but if need be is the door to all the other callings, including married layman which one doesn’t have to become by any particular deadline. ** I have been a single layman for 60 years** and counting and a very good thing even if I could have made it even better if I’d known better. One does have to work hard about networking and relating.

I don’t know if being a layman is a vocation in itself. But being a single layman is. Being a celibate laymen is a vocation or a layman teacher could be or a layman doctor could be. Or a lay married couple is. Just as a layman isn’t a justification of its own. I think the Creator calls us to definite service. Vocation within baptism.

• There is a very small number of evangelising bodies, who may take lay people on for several years, perhaps they have got an advert in Good News Magazine which is published by the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

I see. You mean as a kind of professional layman whereby you do definite service within the context of layman. I didn’t understand before but do now I think. The above sounds great! Will check these ideas out. What great ideas!

• See if some faithful Protestants in your vicinity would pray for you and regularly share Scriptures on Christian living with you (as they do with me).

I might be able to ask this only I don’t want to share with people in my area that I have a vocation. But otherwise it would be a good idea.

 

[friardchips]

Just some other thoughts.

During my career I took various “tests”. In Myers-Briggs (the proper version) I was INTP and very nearly ENTP because I have developed a strong auxiliary. In Belbin team roles I have the instinct of a monitor-evaluator and have slowly started to become a great theorist (the world is lacking in good ones). (One may take these at intervals and is free to self-report oneself differently.)

In a “career test” I was recommended to be a civil servant - I already was one (not working with the public). At work we had systems and the support of colleagues and supervisors to help handle the flow of work (although I was a bit of an under achiever sometimes - I was mainly shunted into jobs where the support would be more intensive). In my student years I absorbed knowledge but struggled to express work in the required format by the needed deadlines. I am an independent spirit that can be harnessed in a team that looks after most of both the big picture and the details but can accept my (name removed by moderator)ut to both and can adapt to my sensory processing needs.

I think the need to express comes into play a lot with underachieving - often said-person will have the ability but not always find the required means to expressing that ability. Thank you for sharing.

As confirmed by an occupational therapist, a remedial teacher of adults and an educational psychologist of adults, I don’t do some physical tasks well because of uncoordination which is mainly congenital, and a degree of weakness. I am above average with figures and words and a more mixed bag than is usual at shapes and complex issues.

I’m telling you this so that even if you haven’t had tests you can use your workplace and college feedback as well as that of friends and acquaintances to highlight your stronger areas to be harnessed as well as those to be further enhanced.

There are good points here to remember. Definitely having people around can be a way for individual strengths to be recognised.

Listening to high-pitched music such as Mozart can settle the nerves as can certain faint tints in one’s glasses (there are both cheap and expensive versions of this), and tidying one’s home better (I have benefitted from 7 years’ help with this from one person after another). It’s remarkable what can help one get “perspective” which is linked both in one’s visual cortex and one’s “mind’s eye”. I also fancy a better blend of tea has made me more insightful, or is it just old age!

Just been listening to Vivaldi. Over-popularised with certain pop stars from the past, I know, but I do love his summer and winter season work - especially when listening to a virtuoso gliding through these pieces. Classical and spiritual classical with other songs that can pertain to spirituality in some sense all can bring a heightened sense of the spiritual. There is Truth in Beauty. I love Mozart too. His religious string pieces and his Clarinet Concerto in A Major (also with strings supporting the Clarinet) are incredible and can bring clarity to the mind.

To one’s vocation - including layman - one brings one’s whole person - one’s body is one’s “vehicle” after all. Most of the things I mention won’t apply to you but something similar might - and your and my vocation are equally important ones individually. Most advice one gets is highly spiritual and sometimes not in touch enough with the down-to-earth.

Can be a mixed bag of factors. No one vocation is more important than another from individual to individual as we are all called to service according to the needs as they are presented. Though some duties might be urgent. As long as one goes about one’s duties with one’s whole heart and mind then this is what is important -as The Word speaks to us in Scripture - and which you’re posts have implied.

Thank you.