Sensitive Issue

[ksterling]

The discernment process and the whole world of religious communities is new to me. I want to get it right. When I was looking at the Ann Arbor Dominican website, it surprised me that so many women had not made it through the first year. After all the opportunities to visit, get to know the sisters and their lives, the psychological testing and interviews, I would have thought the number would be smaller. I also noticed that several posters on VS entered religious life and left - some more than once. I wondered if anyone would be comfortable sharing (either on this forum or in a private message) the reasons why they left. Did the reality not meet expectations? Did you question whether your call was genuine? Was the community just not a good match? I had a very steady boyfriend several years ago - confession - we lived together for over 2 years - I never even thought about marrying him other than fleetingly - mostly I thought I was too young to make that kind of decision. when he finally broached the subject, I said no immediately. I knew this was not a lifetime relationship. The call I feel to religious life is very strong - it came out of nowhere but has grown and deepened over the last months. It has been nurtured and clarified by a wonderful SD and I cannot imagine doing anything else. I think every entrant feels that way yet in so many cases, something goes awry.

If this is too personal an inquiry for this forum, I profoundly apologize - as most of the regular readers know, I am a little bit older and of a very practical nature - I want to make the right decisions and be fully informed when I do.

Katherine

[awyers]

I PMed you but I decided to post it here as well as many have asked me about my experience and yet I have not felt comfortable speaking my mind as sometimes honesty seems to stir up some real controvery here.......please be gentle everyone and ignore the spelling mistakes!

Hi Katherine,

Great question and I applaud your courage to ask such an honest question about such a challenging issue. I too am a little bit older and have struggled with these same thoughts and questions as I was one of those who entered and left the Ann Arbor Dominicans.

I can only speak from personal experience and regrading the Dominicans specifically. As such one could consider it somewhat biased as it comes from my own personal perceptions and experiences. With that I will share and trust that you will take it with a grain of salt so-to-speak as I am sure others with similar experiences will have different perceptions.

Indeed many that enter the Ann Arbor Dominicans (SMME) do not make it through the first year, almost 50% leave over the last few years I believe. This is usually sorted out in postulancy and only one or two have left once they become novices.

Beacuse of this SMME has recently changed their format. Before, when I entered, one was a postulant right away and there was no aspirancy or extended trial so-to-speak. Now when one enters they are an aspirant for the first few months and then they become a postulant. This is a great advance for the community I believe.

Anyway, you mentioned after all the opportunities to visit, testing etc. it is surprising that so many leave. In my experience I did not have all of this. Unlike most communities SMME only offer a 24hr discernment retreat. Most communities offer a 3 day retreat at the least and up to a 6 week live in experience. A 24hr retreat is no where near long enough to fully discern one's calling to a community except in rare curcumstances.

I attended two of these 24hr retreats and fell in love with what I saw on an external level but still did not know the sisters and the internal aspects all that well. On my second retreat I was given an application and told 'to take the plunge now' or my vocation could be lost. I fell for this and applied thinking, as you said, that through the HUGE application process God would ensure I was accepted if it was meant to be or not if it was not meant to be.

Well, I was accepted and took it as God's will. Once one is accepted they attend a pre-postulant week where they live at the convent for a week. This is more like what other communities offer and very necessary for true discernment but it seems one can only attend this if they intend to enter and not before.

During this week I had huge struggles as many of my questions were not answered and they had the approach to enter and see rather then know the details before.

I spoke to the vocation director about my struggles and doubts and said I was not ready to enter anymore and was told once again to enter or risk the loss of my vocation so I did.

I lasted four months and my original struggles only grew as did many of those I entered with. I believe I was the 4th of 6 who left in my group and I think SMME has the largest percentage of people who leave of any community.

Dont get me wrong. They are an incredible and beautiful community and if one is called there they would not have had the problems I did. I think the main problem with them is that they have a mentality of casting a huge net and taking anyone that MAY have a vocation and worry about the details of whether or not they are really called to their particular charism later. They seem to accept as many as possible and are very numbers oriented and then worry about the potential turn over later.

Most communities are the opposite in that they worry about quality and take things very slowly and hence not many leave.

That only one side of this issue. On the other side was my fault. I can now see, three years after leaving, that I did not discern very well. I was not mature, did not understand discernment, did not have a director, and kind of flew blindly into it as I wanted it so badly.

Where I am now in my discernment I would never make the same mistake. In fact I have been accepted to two other communities since leaving and I knew enough that it was not God's will and stopped myself before I made another mistake.

I am still discerning, now with the help of a director and looking forward to finding God's true will for my life!!!!!

One needs to be really 'indifferent' so to speak in that all they desire is the person of God and not the externals of a specific vocation over another vocation. Focus on the charism of an order as a start and most importantly, KNOW YOURSELF!! This is where I am now. Grace builds on nature and one needs to know their gifts, limitations, desires etc as God uses these to help show us his will.

Yes, I did doubt if I ever had a vocation after leaving and maybe at times still do. Yet it is the only constant and persistant in my life, my only source of consolation in the Ignatian sense and I am learning to attach myself to the Beloved and not any specific vocation. It can become really subtle and dangerous to get caught up in the excitment of convent shopping and to let the personal love relationship take second place.

I left for various reasons but basically I was not a right fit for the community and the community was not a right fit for me. At the time I was very immature in discernment and I did not know myself. Had I known myself I would have seen this. Yet I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity as it was life changing and I still love the SMME!

Hope some of that helps and in no way do I mean to criticize the Dominicans. Yet I feel very strongly that some orders are overly sensationalized and almost idolized and one needs to have their feet on the ground rather then head in the coulds so-to-speak and honesty is very necessary. All orders are comprised of sinful humans who struggle and sisters are no different then us. We are all human and should not blow an order up as better then another just because of what they wear, how many vocations they have or what their average age is. This is all externals and God's perfect will for you is all that matters, that internal relationship of love and where you are best able to enter into and nuture that relationship of love regardless of clothing, age, how they sing etc.

Whew that was long!

God bless,
Allison

[ksterling]

Allison:

Thank you so much for sharing what must have been a difficult experience. Your story was very helpful to me. Since I have, thus far, only actually communicated with one community, I don't know about the "recruitment" practices of others like the DSMME. Frankly, I am a little taken aback that they would have suggested that you should take the plunge or risk losing your vocation. If God intends for you to be a religious, how could a delay in entering compromise this? It would be like God saying "you didn't accept the gift when I offered so now I'm taking it back." I'm really a little bit shocked. If I was a vocation director, I would want a prospective applicant to take as much time as necessary and be as sure as possible. The Apostles of the Sacred Heart have a live-in pre-postulancy program to avoid precisely the problem of someone entering and having no real idea of what they were getting into. If I decide that this community is a good fit for me, I would probably take advantage of a few weeks or months in that program.

While your story has not prompted me to cross the DSSME's off my list - and they do seem like a lovely group - if I decide to consider them, I will have many more questions.

Thanks again for your candor.

[cmaD2006]

I will PM you this weekend.

[TeresaBenedicta]

[quote name='ksterling' date='23 July 2010 - 11:42 AM' timestamp='1279896176' post='2146765']
Allison:

Thank you so much for sharing what must have been a difficult experience. Your story was very helpful to me. Since I have, thus far, only actually communicated with one community, I don't know about the "recruitment" practices of others like the DSMME. [b]Frankly, I am a little taken aback that they would have suggested that you should take the plunge or risk losing your vocation. If God intends for you to be a religious, how could a delay in entering compromise this? It would be like God saying "you didn't accept the gift when I offered so now I'm taking it back." I'm really a little bit shocked.[/b] If I was a vocation director, I would want a prospective applicant to take as much time as necessary and be as sure as possible. The Apostles of the Sacred Heart have a live-in pre-postulancy program to avoid precisely the problem of someone entering and having no real idea of what they were getting into. If I decide that this community is a good fit for me, I would probably take advantage of a few weeks or months in that program.

While your story has not prompted me to cross the DSSME's off my list - and they do seem like a lovely group - if I decide to consider them, I will have many more questions.

Thanks again for your candor.
[/quote]

You'll find that at least a handful of communities will take this sort of attitude. Now, I'm not saying whether it's good or it's bad, just that it's fairly common and that it's based in tradition. St. Thomas Aquinas talks about this very issue in [url="http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3189.htm"]ST II-II Q 189, A 10[/url]. He basically says that since religious life is a greater good, there is no need for long deliberation about it.

Of course, I don't think there were quite as many communities to discern between back in Thomas' day (although he does say that it is acceptable to take counsel with those who would strengthen your vocation about the 'where' to enter). And, to be frank, our modern day attitude has changed quite a bit. In order for us to make big decisions, we like to have lots of information. We're an information-based society. No one makes even the smallest decisions without looking at the facts of the product or the situation. It's just ingrained in us. We're [i]used[/i] to getting most of the details before we sign up.

I'm torn about that particular issue... how much we should know about a community while discerning. [i]Should[/i] we know most of the details of how they work? The good and the bad? Maybe. Maybe not. I don't really know. Like I said, we're very much in an information age where information helps inform all of our decisions. On the other hand, there's something to the saying "You just gotta try it out and see."

Sorry to hijack your thread, ksterling.

[krissylou]

Hmmm.

I have no first-hand experience here.

But I wonder if part of it might be that the SMME's are such a young community.

I've heard that people discerning with Ann Arbor and Nashville often find the Ann Arbor folks to be much more exuberantly enthusiastic. The Nashville sisters are no less joyful, but aren't quite so [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/woot.gif[/img]

And the DSMMEs have been around for what, ten years now? Ish? Whereas the Nashville Dominicans have become much more popular in recent years but have been around for ages.

I wonder if this might be the exuberance of youth (youth of individuals and youth of a community) and they might settle down as they have some more jubilee celebrations to balance out their investitures and professions.

[ksterling]

You didn't hijack my thread! What you say about information resonates with me. I'm an information junkie - partially because of my professional training and job. I need to have ALL relevant info: taxes, financial impact, cash flow, investment income - all necessary to give my CFO good advice. The way I look at it - religious life is forever. I would love to be able to throw everything into God's hands and pick a community out of a hat but I'm genetically unable to be that spontaneous. I've discussed this at some length with my SD and he said that at some point, I will have to do just that if I want religious life, but he also encourages me to research different orders and find the best fit... and he also says that this time of discernment is one of what he calls "spiritual bootcamp" - learning how to meditate and pray, deepening my relationship with God, developing a detachment from "stuff" (and OH do I have stuff!). A few years ago when I was struggling with my decision whether to return to my faith, I read a book called "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. Dr. Dawkins is a famous atheist - and he says that meditation and what we might call God speaking to us or "calling" us is merely our brain talking to itself. I don't believe he is right but I do wonder how to differentiate the voice of God from my own ruminations. This all gets back to my conundrum of trying to be sure religious life is my calling so I don't get to the convent and discover I made a whopping mistake.

Edited July 23, 2010 by ksterling

[melporcristo]

+JMJ+

Very good question!!

I had a very pushy discernment with a different order. It was the, "Your either in or out" mentality after my first discernment retreat with them. I liked the women I met who were in the order, but I didn't feel at peace or restless - I had no emotions whatsoever other than, "Oh that was a nice retreat." I discerned with many other orders after and automatically avoided personal conversations with the sisters because I felt like they would give me the, "Your in or out" talk, which was silly because looking at it now, I don't think they would have done that.

Now, thanks be to God, I am at total peace with where I'm going. There have been many internal indications I am going on the path Our Lord chose for me. The rest is up to Christ