How to Discern a Vocation to Religious Life: Part II
(This post is continued from How to Discern a Vocation to Religious Life: Part I)
Of course, we aren’t always in touch with what our deep desires are in the first place. What often preoccupy us are the shrill and incessant voices of what I will call our “surface” desires (for chips and chocolates). One of the things that helped me in my process of discernment, then, was cultivating my awareness of what was going on inside me. (I’ve written about this before in a blog post on getting in touch with the daily “movements” of our hearts.)
To continue the story then: once the two-month period I had given myself had passed, besides gathering information about various congregations of religious sisters, I also started a practice known in Catholic circles as “spiritual direction”, in which I talked to someone regularly about my spiritual life, and this person helped me to notice and become more aware of how I was experiencing God’s action in my daily life. In addition, I went to retreats and talks and read books about prayer and the spiritual life, and started carving out times and spaces in my days where I could begin to enter into silence. It was a joyful, blessed time. I felt in those six months that I had never been happier in my life.
Since I felt drawn to Ignatian spirituality, I searched online for women’s congregations practising that spirituality, and came across the Faithful Companions of Jesus – the Society to which I now belong. They invited me to visit them in Indonesia, which I did. I can’t remember what I was expecting of them when I visited, but they certainly were not that. They were so much better. It suddenly occurred to me that convent life could actually be fun! I had read somewhere a piece of wise advice for people searching for a community: “visit all that interest you, and stay where you feel at home”. I will always be thankful that the very first community I visited was the one in which I felt at home!
Even though after those first few days of visiting them I had quite a strong instinct that this was it, I took months more to think and pray about it, and talk to people about it, before taking the concrete steps of quitting my job and applying to join.
I sometimes hesitate to tell this part of the story to young people who come to “inquire” with us, because it seems like the decision was very clear for me once I had met the sisters about which congregation to join. That part of it was clear to me; but I often have strong instincts about things – everyone has their own ways of making decisions – and I don’t think that is or should or will be the case for everyone. In any case, I also still had doubts about whether what I was doing was right; whether I was unnecessarily hurting my family; whether I was just following a flight of fancy instead of “God’s call”; whether it was practical to be joining religious life at a time when the number of religious seemed only to be dwindling, etc.
My spiritual director at that time was very good at what spiritual directors do: which is to try to help you come to realisations about what is happening within you – without actually telling you what they think. So despite my desire for some kind of assurance that I was on the right path, he never gave me an indication outright of what he actually thought. At our last session – after all the decisions had been made and I was due to depart for Manila the next week – I was mischievous and decided to ask him directly, “So what do you think? Do you think I’m doing the right thing?” What he said then stayed with me: “It seems that you see a little of the road ahead and have decided to walk it.”
That’s the way life is, isn’t it? We can only see a little ahead of us and then the horizon closes down… and what we see is never certain. In the end we have to take a leap of faith. That’s why I sometimes feel a little frustrated when people come and stay with us to inquire about the life and then go, and then come back, and then go… It is not for me to say whether it is right or not for them, but one thing is for sure – that nothing will happen if they never come round to a decision one way or the other! There is no lightning bolt that will fall from the sky – even in the case of religious vocations!
I have tried to answer your question, dear reader, as far as my still-evolving understanding will allow now – and hope also to hear about your own thoughts and wondering! So I will finish this letter now by returning to the dinner conversation that I described at the beginning. Besides desire, there was another common thread running through our stories… and that was JOY! “Whatever the reason we joined, none of us would have stayed if it didn’t at some level give us a deep joy,” one of the sisters concluded. And what a wonderful thing that is, which should give hope and confidence to everyone seeking their way in life: that becoming who God made us to be is also the road to real happiness.
Food for Thought:
Who are the people who accompany me in a special way on my life's journey?
What is my experience of "taking a leap of faith"?
Of course, we aren’t always in touch with what our deep desires are in the first place. What often preoccupy us are the shrill and incessant voices of what I will call our “surface” desires (for chips and chocolates). One of the things that helped me in my process of discernment, then, was cultivating my awareness of what was going on inside me. (I’ve written about this before in a blog post on getting in touch with the daily “movements” of our hearts.)
To continue the story then: once the two-month period I had given myself had passed, besides gathering information about various congregations of religious sisters, I also started a practice known in Catholic circles as “spiritual direction”, in which I talked to someone regularly about my spiritual life, and this person helped me to notice and become more aware of how I was experiencing God’s action in my daily life. In addition, I went to retreats and talks and read books about prayer and the spiritual life, and started carving out times and spaces in my days where I could begin to enter into silence. It was a joyful, blessed time. I felt in those six months that I had never been happier in my life.
Even though after those first few days of visiting them I had quite a strong instinct that this was it, I took months more to think and pray about it, and talk to people about it, before taking the concrete steps of quitting my job and applying to join.I sometimes hesitate to tell this part of the story to young people who come to “inquire” with us, because it seems like the decision was very clear for me once I had met the sisters about which congregation to join. That part of it was clear to me; but I often have strong instincts about things – everyone has their own ways of making decisions – and I don’t think that is or should or will be the case for everyone. In any case, I also still had doubts about whether what I was doing was right; whether I was unnecessarily hurting my family; whether I was just following a flight of fancy instead of “God’s call”; whether it was practical to be joining religious life at a time when the number of religious seemed only to be dwindling, etc.
My spiritual director at that time was very good at what spiritual directors do: which is to try to help you come to realisations about what is happening within you – without actually telling you what they think. So despite my desire for some kind of assurance that I was on the right path, he never gave me an indication outright of what he actually thought. At our last session – after all the decisions had been made and I was due to depart for Manila the next week – I was mischievous and decided to ask him directly, “So what do you think? Do you think I’m doing the right thing?” What he said then stayed with me: “It seems that you see a little of the road ahead and have decided to walk it.”
That’s the way life is, isn’t it? We can only see a little ahead of us and then the horizon closes down… and what we see is never certain. In the end we have to take a leap of faith. That’s why I sometimes feel a little frustrated when people come and stay with us to inquire about the life and then go, and then come back, and then go… It is not for me to say whether it is right or not for them, but one thing is for sure – that nothing will happen if they never come round to a decision one way or the other! There is no lightning bolt that will fall from the sky – even in the case of religious vocations!I have tried to answer your question, dear reader, as far as my still-evolving understanding will allow now – and hope also to hear about your own thoughts and wondering! So I will finish this letter now by returning to the dinner conversation that I described at the beginning. Besides desire, there was another common thread running through our stories… and that was JOY! “Whatever the reason we joined, none of us would have stayed if it didn’t at some level give us a deep joy,” one of the sisters concluded. And what a wonderful thing that is, which should give hope and confidence to everyone seeking their way in life: that becoming who God made us to be is also the road to real happiness.
Food for Thought:
Who are the people who accompany me in a special way on my life's journey?
What is my experience of "taking a leap of faith"?
Comments
Post a Comment