What if you don't feel called to the priesthood or marriage?

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1neophyte said:
Hey. All I did was demonstrate my advanced mastery of the English language. Iā€™m sorry that you canā€™t handle it and have to resort to name calling. I donā€™t understand why some people have such a problem with education.
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1 - Itā€™s a JOKE! Lighten up.
2 - Iā€™m an English teacher. I am aware of grammar rules. I chose to use the exclaimation mark over a question mark for a reason. Itā€™s just casual chat, not an academic paper.
 
Here we go againā€¦ That presumption that an unmarried person must be aimless in life rears its head, and everyone, with the best of intentions, will offer the unbidden advice that he should involve himself totally in their pet project. How amazing it must seem to many that one without an ecclesiastically recognized vocation might have his own projects going!

At the very least, though, youā€™re suggesting something laudable, rather than stuffing envelopes for a parish fundraiser or other such work.
 
Well have you considered becoming a brother? Sadly there a very few brothers these days because of the Lack of priests. I know the Company of Mary (Saint Montforts order) only make wows for a year at a time. And then i would ask Why not priest if single? Is it because you cant see Yourself as parish priest ? Remember there a lots of other things priest Can do Like becoming a Canon lawyer and a priest at the same time. Whatever helps you grow in Holiness but if single celebrating mass would help i Think.
 
We have a document by Pope John Paul II (Christifideles Laici) a document on the ā€œVocation and Mission of The Laityā€. There are many reasons I can think of that a person might remain in the state of single celibacy and since that is a state of life in the Laity, it is indeed a vocation with a mission. Some single celibates may have even discerned and tried other vocations but chose to return to single celibacy in the laity discerning that single celibacy is their call and vocation from God.
Christifideles Laici (December 30, 1988) | John Paul II
POST-SYNODAL
APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION
CHRISTIFIDELES LAICI
OF
HIS HOLINESS
JOHN PAUL II
ON THE VOCATION AND THE MISSION
OF THE LAY FAITHFUL
IN THE CHURCH AND IN THE WORLD
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Thanks Cloisters - may God continue to richly bless you and your ministryā€¦Barb
 
This would be a wonderful and important undertaking and ministry. Thank you very much for sharing ā€¦ Barb
 
Discerning a vocation is a drawn out, occasionally agonizing process. It can easily take years. Since it is the beginning of your eternity, should it not require considerable time and effort? Besides, what you ā€œfeelā€ is often wrong, as your vocation is not an emotion-based decision, but a rational, logical and spiritual one.

Consider also that you are not the same today as you were yesterday, nor will you be the same tomorrow. We do not live in a snapshot, but in a video. Give yourself time to pray and agonize over your vocation.

Speak to Father and/or your spiritual director. Go to Vocation Boom and have a look around.
 
The other very important thing with discerning and deciding finally, is commitment. Once you have made a decision and set out on that path of discernment, you are not yet fully committed but still discerning. Once one is married, in the priesthood, final vows in religious life or private vows (depending on what the private vow or vows might be), it needs to be resolved inwardly that it is a commitment come what may. Grace and The Lord will be on your side no matter what unfolds. Some do leave these vocations after finality and The Church has a process for each - and Grace and The Lord is on your side.
po18guy: your vocation is not an emotion-based decision, but a rational, logical and spiritual one.
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I really liked the post by @po18guy and it is very true that we will not be the same as yesterday, today or tomorrow - Godā€™s Will is forever an unfolding matter in the small and in the great, in the minutes, hours, days and years.

Growth means change. The bud changes into the flower. The caterpillar changes into the butterfly. Healthy weeds poisoned grow yellow and die.
My body changes from womb to tomb. Change is all around us.

Growth is change.
Edit: With private vows in the lay celibate state at any stage and always, it is ALWAYS inclusive of being open to a call and vocation from The Lord into another state of life - and hence another discernment journey ideally only with spiritual direction.
 
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jdavani said:
Then what? I heard that singleness is not a vocation. Could your work be your vocation?
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God calls some people to the lay single vocation whether this takes the form of belonging to some Church approved lay organization or institution such as Opus Dei or a third lay order of a religious order such as the Discalced Carmelites or Franciscans or not.

Work forms a big part of the lay vocation, married or single. Most lay people have some kind of secular job or profession in the world. Stay at home mothers have the work of raising a family and domestic duties. Work forms a big part of the lay spirituality of Opus Dei which was founded by St Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer in the first half of the twentieth century. The message of St Josemaria Escriva is that the laity, married or single, have a divine vocation. They are called by God to pursue the perfection of charity and to become saints right where they find themselves as lay people in the middle of the world. Vatican II took up the teaching and message of St Josemaria Escriva when it wrote about the universal call to holiness of all the christian faithful whatever their state or condition in life and various documents pertaining to the laity such as the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity. St John Paul II subsequently took up the theme of the vocation and mission of the laity in the Church and the world in CHRISTIFIDELES LAICI.

For those called or feel called to the lay state, single or married, I believe much benefit and spiritual fruit can be derived from the message of Opus Dei which is directed to the laity and from the writings and teaching of its founder St Josemaria Escriva. Opus Dei has a website one can visit.
 
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I donā€™t know whether the single life is a vocation or not. But it is certainly true that the Church (and the world) needs more priests and religious, and more marriages and Catholic families. So I wouldnā€™t rule those out too quickly.
 
jdavani said:
St. Paul recommends being like him (a religious)
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There were no religious as we understand it in St Paulā€™s time. The religious state or life was a later development in the Church beginning towards the end of the third century A.D. with monasticism, first eremitic then developing into cenobitic with monks or nuns living a life in common in a monastery. St Paul was speaking to the first christians who at this time were either priests or lay people. Some of these first lay christians chose to live a celibate life following the recommendation and example of St Paul and especially after the example and teaching of Jesus.
 
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