Discernment…
Posted by Terry Nelson on May 7th, 2008
As regards vocation.
When I was much younger and voluteered at the Little Sisters of the Poor - not when I was a kid, but as a young adult - most, if not all of the sisters knew I was thinking about a vocation to religious life. One day one of the sisters who wasn’t very impressed with me asked what order I was thinking about. I mentioned that I was attracted to Charles de Foucauld’s Little Brothers of Jesus. Sister laughed mockingly, and shook her head saying, “You’ll never make it!” She then waved me off and walked away.
“If a good man reproves me, it is kindness.”
May 7th, 2008 at 6:00 am
I just DON’T UNDERSTAND that mentality among Religious. I know 2 persons in my own life that were treated like that by nuns. Both persons were wounded and took much different paths as a result. To this day, both persons believe in their heart of hearts that they missed their callings.
It really angers me when I hear of Religious doing that, and they aren’t part of that person’s “discernment team” (i.e., a spiritual or vocation director). Second-career vocations are especially not encouraged (in my own, limited experience).
It’s a disgrace.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Sister was right however. She was a “blunt speaker” as Seinfeld might say - she was always charitable to me, she just had a natural dislike of me. Her remark was her way of saying “I think you’d do better elsewhere.”
Religious life is filled with all sorts of people and they say things that sometimes we’d rather not hear - and the Infant Jesus laughs.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:00 am
+JMJ+
A priest said the same thing to me once. He was so harsh that I cried for an hour afterwards.
He was right, of course . . . =S
May 7th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Sister may have been trying to challenge you to prove her wrong. Sometimes people try to use “reverse psychology.
But it’s been my experience, when I tried to use it on my kids, that it most often backfired.
May 7th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Terry,
Are you sure she wasn’t using sarcasm? She probably thought it was so obvious that you would, that she never dreamed you would take the sarcasm wrong??? You would make an excellent religious! And that’s NOT sarcasm.
May 7th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Tara - no, she meant it, and her criticism always profited me.
I knew another nun, a Dominican, who treated me exactly the same - well, two of them did - and I deserved it. Contempt is very good for the soul - it is a treasure of the spiritual life.