Who Are My Fellow Discerners In The Process Of Becoming Catholic?

[ChristinaTherese]

So, the title says it all. Who else is here? Or am I the only one?  :alone: If I'm not alone, what made you start discerning? What are you doing now?

[Gabriela]

You know you're going to get A LOT of warnings to slow down, right?

[ChristinaTherese]

I've been realizing that God might be calling me to be a nun for approximately two and a third years, ever since the summer after I began realizing that the Church might be right almost three years ago. (Due to still living at home and being a coward, it's taken me a while to actually become Catholic. Which will happen on Easter.) It's been slow, without anything particularly dramatic, just fueled by comments by various people who didn't necessarily even know me, and after avoiding it for about a year and a half I began to come to terms with it and try to follow. (The alternative being spending all of my Sunday afternoons sitting on my bed arguing with God about why I would make a horrible nun and He really wants somebody else. Which way of spending my Sundays I do not really want to return to.)

 

I'm tired, so I don't want to write much more, but here's something. And I said more here. And there was a whole thread (I know, I just posted a new thread on an old topic. :tomatoes:) over here: http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/123507-what-made-you-discern-becoming-a-nun-or-priest/

[Gabriela]

I've been realizing that God might be calling me to be a nun for approximately two and a third years, ever since the summer after I began realizing that the Church might be right almost three years ago. (Due to still living at home and being a coward, it's taken me a while to actually become Catholic. Which will happen on Easter.) It's been slow, without anything particularly dramatic, just fueled by comments by various people who didn't necessarily even know me, and after avoiding it for about a year and a half I began to come to terms with it and try to follow. (The alternative being spending all of my Sunday afternoons sitting on my bed arguing with God about why I would make a horrible nun and He really wants somebody else. Which way of spending my Sundays I do not really want to return to.)

 

I'm tired, so I don't want to write much more, but here's something. And I said more here. And there was a whole thread (I know, I just posted a new thread on an old topic. :tomatoes:) over here: http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/123507-what-made-you-discern-becoming-a-nun-or-priest/

 

You don't have to defend the hurry to me. Lots of people think I'm in a hurry, too. I just wanted to warn you that you're likely to receive that, in case it'd put you out. And you're likely to receive it not just on PM, but from communities, too. I was confirmed Divine Mercy Sunday 2012 (less than a year ago), and every community I've contacted has between a 1- and 3-year waiting period for converts. Even converts at my age, who are already over the entrance limits for many communities, and rapidly approaching the limits for others.

 

It's frustrating, but as you grow as a Catholic, you'll see the sense in it. I did, anyway. We grow a lot through discernment itself, too. I believe that people say that, at your confirmation, you receive a big ol' heap o' graces that will change you pretty dramatically (if you let it). That alone will take time to sort out before making any commitment to religious life. I'm going through that now.

 

That's all I'm sayin'. :-)

[ChristinaTherese]

You know you're going to get A LOT of warnings to slow down, right?

 

It's not like I'm moving particularly quickly.... Like I seemed to appreciate saying to myself over the summer, it's like a cancer that grows. That may be a morbid analogy, but it illustrates my point. It grows slowly. But it does grow. (Er... maybe it doesn't illustrate my point. Some cancers grow very quickly.) And I haven't gotten any warnings to slow down from people yet.

 

And, if you're thinking of my last thread, I wasn't trying to move quickly so much as I was just feeling angsty and wanting to change things somehow. But I know that I'll have to wait a few years. So I couldn't move very fast if I wanted to, and I don't think it would be that wise to do so either. I do need time to grow and mature.

 

 

You don't have to defend the hurry to me. Lots of people think I'm in a hurry, too. I just wanted to warn you that you're likely to receive that, in case it'd put you out. And you're likely to receive it not just on PM, but from communities, too. I was confirmed Divine Mercy Sunday 2012 (less than a year ago), and every community I've contacted has between a 1- and 3-year waiting period for converts. Even converts at my age, who are already over the entrance limits for many communities, and rapidly approaching the limits for others.

 

It's frustrating, but as you grow as a Catholic, you'll see the sense in it. I did, anyway. We grow a lot through discernment itself, too. I believe that people say that, at your confirmation, you receive a big ol' heap o' graces that will change you pretty dramatically (if you let it). That alone will take time to sort out before making any commitment to religious life. I'm going through that now.

 

That's all I'm sayin'. :-)

 

 

 

:hehe2: I wrote that before you posted.... I wasn't trying to respond to you at all, just start the (hopefully existent) replies. (Which have now gotten sidetracked already.... :hehe2:)

Edited January 15, 2013 by Christina Thérèse

[Renee the Nunnabe]

I am! 

I've felt God calling me to him for most of my life. I really started getting clued in to that God may be calling me to be a nun or a sister at around the time that I began to feel the need to become Catholic. I'd been looking into rather devout religions, and Catholicism just really began to make sense. I had some false ideas about the Catholic church, and I think that's what staved it off for so long.  

 

I've been talking to a few sisters and plan to start visiting convents later this year.  

[Gabriela]

Well, now that you've clarified that, Christina Therese, hopefully all you will get is friendly replies of camaraderie. :-)

I wasn't trying to respond to you at all, just start the (hopefully existent) replies. (Which have now gotten sidetracked already.... :hehe2:)

 

Sorry! Enter, hope!

[TheresaThoma]

I'm now on the "other side" I came into the Church in 2011. So I'm about to hit my two year "birthday". It can be a tad bit discouraging at first. I found many communities put the 1-3 year waiting period out there but they are happy to still talk with you and remain in communication.I think they just want you to know that you wouldn't be able to enter right away.

 I've taken this time to learn as much as I can about religious life and grow spiritually. In these past two years I have become really involved in my parish's RCIA program and that has taught me quite a bit about spiritual motherhood. 

I find St Teresa Benedicta (AKA St Edith Stein) to be a very helpful saint in this situation. She was a convert to Catholicism but was made to wait for quite a few years before she could enter religious life.

[Kayte Postle]

I'm entering the Church this year as well! Horray!

 

I've felt a call to live a life of greater devotion to Christ (possibly religious life) since I was in middle school, and that was long before I could even seriously consider myself a Christian. So when I made the decision last year to join the Catholic Church, I knew that it was something I had to pursue further.  I went on one  of the DSMME retreats last May, and there I God showed me that I, personally, needed to do some serious waiting. I have a list of communities I want to contact/visit, but I believe the Lord is asking for me to wait til my 1-year in the Church.  So for now I'm not actively discerning.

 

If you can't visit any communities you are interested in yet, try finding some communities close to you, and see if they need volunteers for anything. The Children of Mary live like 10 mins down the road from my home, over the summer I went and helped them with some things around the convent several times. Once I spent the whole day with them, I even got to eat lunch with them and say the Divine Mercy chaplet with them. While I never went on an official visit, I got a great look into what religious life looks like. Just spending time with them really helped me to grow in my discernment.

[VeniJesuAmorMi]

I remember. :)

 

I went through RCIA and was confirmed Holy Saturday a few years ago. Just a little bit of what happend: after my conversion (not yet to the faith but just really a conversion of life) I came to know the love and mercy of Jesus and there came a point where I knew that I wanted to give my life to Him and just belong to Him. I didn't know about the religious life at this time, but when I learned about my faith and about this way of life I just knew in my heart this is what I was looking for! So then started the process to enter the Church. I just know that Our Blessed Mother led me to Jesus and maybe She's the one who has something to do with my Carmelite heart (I wouldn't be surprised one bit!) Its been a beautiful journey and I'm looking forward to know and love Jesus more through everything, and hopefully one day to give myself to Him in the religious life.

 

Before I started RCIA I was researching Carmelite commuities and found that one requirment of many was that you had to be at least 3 years a practicing Catholic. At that time, it seemed to be a long wait. However, after personal experience I see the great importance of waiting before entering because you do need time to grow and mature in your faith and to get to know yourself and Our Lord. I have in mind a flower seed; but any seed that is planted needs the right kind of care it requires to grow properly, then comes the time when the flower can be picked. He'll let you know when your ready, and I'm still waiting too. :) So prayers for all who are just starting this journey, and please say a prayer for me also.

[somethingfishy]

Slightly older thread on a related topic here.

[petitpèlerin]

I'm not in the process now but I am a revert to Catholicism, after a good long time as an agnostic. My journey to faith basically began the summer I turned 22 and I ended up back in the Catholic Church the following summer. Since I had been baptized and confirmed as a youngster, I just went to confession and back to mass, but I still had a lot to learn about the faith, and I started reading voraciously.

Here's an interesting thing I've learned: if you're confirmed in an unworthy state (sin, indifference, agnosticism) as I was (and I presume thousands of Catholic teenagers are yearly), your confirmation is valid, but you don't receive the graces of the sacrament, because your sin has closed the channel. When you later make a good confession, thus opening yourself to the Spirit, you open the floodgates of grace. And that's apparently what happened to me that second summer.

At that time I had no thoughts of a religious vocation, but I wanted nothing more than to find a community of like-minded Catholics who were seriously and radically living the gospel; and I can see in that now a desire to live it all the way. At the time, I was living in a place of extremes: in one of the most radically secular-liberal college towns in the US. A few years later I met my priest (a true Franciscan) in my parents' town when I went to stay with them for a little while. He was the first person I'd ever met who was simply living his life as if the gospel were true. I decided to stay, since I had never known anyone like him and I needed nothing more than to know someone like him.

Knowing him has changed my life. Among other things, he's given me the encouragement to believe in what I believe in, to live according to my values and principles, and not to be deterred by the opinions and expectations and values of others; that just because my parents, aunts, professors, friends, etc., thought I should be a certain way or live a certain way, even with the best of intentions, doesn't mean that there's something wrong with me for being different, having different ideals and different desires. For one thing, most of them think I'm nuts for being so serious about my faith and not interested in more traditional success. And in the end, it seems that I have a religious vocation.

So, be patient with your circumstances, pray and remain close to the hearts of Jesus and Mary, and they will work everything out and give you everything you need in perfect timing.

[Katiebobatie94]

I am. I have technically been discerning for five years (two years consistantly, & three years [prior] of sporadic discernment). I am currently discerning with the Salesian Sisters of St John Bosco (Daughters of Mary Help of Christians). I truly do feel that this is the life God is calling me to.

While I have definitely had my share of challenges, through it all He has been there to guide me & just love me unconditionally. And it has been through these experiences, as well as retreats/Come & Sees that the Lord's call in my life has become more apparent.

When I visit the Salesians again in February, I plan to ask for papers to enter. While I know that nothing is ever final, I truly feel that this is where God wants me. I know it won't be easy, but I also know that God doesn't give you something without also giving you the grace to carry it out.

[PadrePioOfPietrelcino]

I began discernment before/ at the same time a joining the Church. That has been 8 years now...the discernment has still been strong the wars have been fought and finally I'm moving forward. Cannon Law prevents even applying to Seminary before being Confirmed in the Church for 2 years for us converts. I'm not certain, but I think the same may apply to orders as well. It's goos to discern and pray. I actually started developing some great relationships with the local priests, because they would take me to dinner or some such, share their story with me and counsel me to patience.