How to Discern a Vocation to Religious Life : Part I
A while ago a reader of this blog asked me, “How did you discern that religious life was for you?” As we have talked a little about discerning life choices here on this blog, I thought I might post my response here too and add to that conversation. Do feel free to leave comments or write back about your own thoughts or experiences.
Dear Reader,
Your question reminds me of a rather interesting conversation my community had earlier this year at the dinner table when one of our sisters said that someone had asked her, “How do you know if you are called to religious life?”
The four of us at the table started sharing our own stories of coming to that awareness. We were each from different countries, with age differences spanning 45 years, but surprisingly enough, while the details of each person’s journey varied widely, we noticed some common threads running through each one.
The first was that each of us at some point felt a desire for religious life. While some people seem to be aware at a young age that religious life fits their values and their vision of what they want to do in life, for others it comes as a surprise. For me it was the latter. I had never considered religious life before December of 2013, when the thought very suddenly and unexpectedly sprang into my mind.
I had just read two autobiographies of people who had entered monasteries. The first was of Thérèse of Lisieux, a Frenchwoman of the late 1800s who entered a Carmelite monastery at the tender age of 15, and died at 24 of tuberculosis. Despite her short life, her remarkable holiness – demonstrated in the great love with which she did small, ordinary things (what she called her “little way”) – has made her one of the most beloved saints in the Catholic Church.
The second was of Thomas Merton, a 20th century American Trappist monk, whose life was about as different from Thérèse’s as you could imagine. After a rather dissolute youth (in which he fathered a child out of wedlock during the World War), he felt himself drawn to God and to the cloistered life. In the monastery, he continued to wrestle with himself, with God, and with the challenges of the contemporary world. The passion with which he lived his contradictory and very human life, and with which he sought God both in silence and in the world, touched me deeply. It was perhaps consistent with the complexity of his life that he – who had taken a vow of stability – died halfway across the world from his Kentucky monastery while attending a conference in Bangkok, where he was accidentally electrocuted by a faulty electric fan. His many writings on the spiritual life and on social issues still continue to touch lives today.
After reading those two books, a thought quite unexpectedly popped into my head: “What if I were to do the same and enter a convent?” Immediately I laughed at and dismissed the idea as ridiculous in this day and age. But for some reason I didn’t understand, the thought kept coming back… and even more surprisingly, with it came a growing desire to do exactly that. Surprised as I was, I decided that I would not do anything until two months had passed, expecting that this was just some strange passing thing. When it didn’t pass, I started to find out more.
Looking back at this now, I can see that those autobiographies were a window to something in me that I had not known existed. I don’t think I had any idea what I was doing in my stumbling process of “discernment” back then. But since then, as I discovered more about myself and about religious life, it has surprised me how many “aha!” moments I have had – when I wondered how I could not always have known that I was meant to be here! From the tingle of recognition I felt when I read that certain people in every culture through the ages have always felt the call to dedicate their lives exclusively to the search for God; to the sense of belonging I felt one day while attending a prayer meeting in a dirt yard in front of a simple bamboo house in rural Indonesia; to realising that I am now (in a way I never imagined I would) engaged in the work for social justice that I have always been drawn to do -- I am continually amazed at how God seems to be drawing all the seemingly disparate strands of my life into a coherent and wonderfully unexpected pattern.
What I have been trying to say here is that our desires are important indicators that point us to where we are meant to be. The concept of desire has been somewhat distorted in both religious and secular discourse – it is not generally portrayed as a good thing. Sometimes those of us who are Catholics even think that “doing God’s will” means going against our own desires! It is true that we often “want” things that are not good for us (like chips and chocolates!). But when we go further inside ourselves and get in touch with our deeper desires – for intimacy, for meaning, to express our creativity in the unique way that only we can – we find that these are the very shape of God’s dream for us. Discerning our life’s calling then is not a matter of abandoning our passions, but about fulfilling our deepest desires. About becoming more and more authentically ourselves: the beautiful, fragile persons that we are before God when all the masks have fallen away.
(Part II of this letter will be posted next week.)
Food for Thought:
What is your own experience of discerning life choices?
What deep desires of your heart have become clearer to you with the passing of time, which reveal the divine dream taking shape in your life?
*****
Dear Reader,
Your question reminds me of a rather interesting conversation my community had earlier this year at the dinner table when one of our sisters said that someone had asked her, “How do you know if you are called to religious life?”
The four of us at the table started sharing our own stories of coming to that awareness. We were each from different countries, with age differences spanning 45 years, but surprisingly enough, while the details of each person’s journey varied widely, we noticed some common threads running through each one.
The first was that each of us at some point felt a desire for religious life. While some people seem to be aware at a young age that religious life fits their values and their vision of what they want to do in life, for others it comes as a surprise. For me it was the latter. I had never considered religious life before December of 2013, when the thought very suddenly and unexpectedly sprang into my mind.
The second was of Thomas Merton, a 20th century American Trappist monk, whose life was about as different from Thérèse’s as you could imagine. After a rather dissolute youth (in which he fathered a child out of wedlock during the World War), he felt himself drawn to God and to the cloistered life. In the monastery, he continued to wrestle with himself, with God, and with the challenges of the contemporary world. The passion with which he lived his contradictory and very human life, and with which he sought God both in silence and in the world, touched me deeply. It was perhaps consistent with the complexity of his life that he – who had taken a vow of stability – died halfway across the world from his Kentucky monastery while attending a conference in Bangkok, where he was accidentally electrocuted by a faulty electric fan. His many writings on the spiritual life and on social issues still continue to touch lives today.
After reading those two books, a thought quite unexpectedly popped into my head: “What if I were to do the same and enter a convent?” Immediately I laughed at and dismissed the idea as ridiculous in this day and age. But for some reason I didn’t understand, the thought kept coming back… and even more surprisingly, with it came a growing desire to do exactly that. Surprised as I was, I decided that I would not do anything until two months had passed, expecting that this was just some strange passing thing. When it didn’t pass, I started to find out more.
What I have been trying to say here is that our desires are important indicators that point us to where we are meant to be. The concept of desire has been somewhat distorted in both religious and secular discourse – it is not generally portrayed as a good thing. Sometimes those of us who are Catholics even think that “doing God’s will” means going against our own desires! It is true that we often “want” things that are not good for us (like chips and chocolates!). But when we go further inside ourselves and get in touch with our deeper desires – for intimacy, for meaning, to express our creativity in the unique way that only we can – we find that these are the very shape of God’s dream for us. Discerning our life’s calling then is not a matter of abandoning our passions, but about fulfilling our deepest desires. About becoming more and more authentically ourselves: the beautiful, fragile persons that we are before God when all the masks have fallen away.
(Part II of this letter will be posted next week.)
Food for Thought:
What is your own experience of discerning life choices?
What deep desires of your heart have become clearer to you with the passing of time, which reveal the divine dream taking shape in your life?
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