Single Life - Vocation Vs. Transitory State

[Tony]

For me,  it's so difficult for me to grasp, comprehend how solemn and profound the Vocations of  Marriage, priest, religious, etc are, so if I can't grasp this, why would I be called to them? I don't see this as selfish, more that those vocations are way above me. I can't fully appreciate someone else's marriage or religious vocation, how could I appreciate my own?

[BarbTherese]

For me,  it's so difficult for me to grasp, comprehend how solemn and profound the Vocations of  Marriage, priest, religious, etc are, so if I can't grasp this, why would I be called to them? I don't see this as selfish, more that those vocations are way above me. I can't fully appreciate someone else's marriage or religious vocation, how could I appreciate my own?

 

I think you might be in a transition state rather than called to embrace a particular vocation. No person is worthy of any vocation whatsoever.  There is a rather lovely saying: "God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called".  Since you have no consciousness as yet of your personal vocation and call, perhaps this is the time/stage to look into each of the vocations and to pray for understanding and guidance.  There is a wealth of information through Google research - and also seeking spiritual direction would be spiritual gold and a really big help and guide.  Certainly, I would think, that appreciating all vocations to some degree would be a necessary step in some sort of spiritual maturing.  Not many, if any I would think, have a sense of fully grasping and comprehending the great honour and dignity of any of the vocational calls.  It is a distinct honour and dignity to be called by God in the first place to any vocation at all.  Each vocation has its particular duties, responsibilities and accountabilities and it is God who provides all the necessary Graces.  And each vocation also has its particular trials and difficulties - its joys and rewards.

Every single baptized person has a particular personal vocation.   A vocation per se and call to lay celibacy (single state) is not an internal attitude of  "I don't know what else to do/Nothing else for me to do" etc. (this is a transition state).  The vocation to lay celibacy is a distinct consciousness of being called to the laity in celibacy in service to The Church and the world, one's neighbour, and best discerned and undertaken only with spiritual direction - and on an ongoing basis.

 

May The Holy Spirit be your constant guide.

[BarbTherese]

The transition or 'default' *** stage in a vocation discernment journey is the lay celibate state.  When we are baptized we are called to holiness - to Jesus and His Gospel even though we have not as yet discerned our quite personal and unique vocational call.  We are all called to holiness and to Jesus and His Gospel as a constant throughout life in all vocations.  Our quite personal and unique vocational call is the call to the road we are invited to take to that holiness etc: priesthood, consecrated life, celibate laity and within those calls some are further called to a Third Order or similar..........i.e. one of the organizations within The Church.

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***I don't like personally that word 'default' though it is becoming quite Catholic culturally used and understood.  To my way of thought it can diminish the serious nature of the early discernment process when one is called to lay celibacy as one's transitional and discernment stage.  This early discernment process in lay celibacy is not the lay celibate state vocation per se.  In the former there is a need to discern further and it is a serious matter and obligation. In the latter one is at rest and committed in one's unique and personal vocation and call to lay celibacy and ideally this vocational call and commitment will have been confirmed by spiritual direction and on an ongoing basis.

 

As yet there is no formal consecration to the lay celibate vocation.  This however did catch my eye from Fr. John Hardon SJ of the Real Presence Association.

 

http://www.therealpr...us_Life_033.htm

There is a fourth category contemplated by the Holy See in anticipation of the new Code of Canon Law, so that something may be done for the thousands of women who seem not to want religious life yet seem to want to live especially dedicated lives in the Church. The secular institutes are a recent development of the Catholic Church. If there would be a fourth category, it would be some form of what we now call “secular institutes,” but the implications still have to be worked out.

 

http://www.therealpresence.org/index.html

[miserere55]

Whenever I have questions I always look to the lives of the Saints for answers.  St Catherine of Siena remained single and pretty much lived at home with her parents.  She promised God, as a young child, to remain a virgin.  Her parents wanted to marry her off and she begged them to let her remain single.  She had no intention of entering a convent either.  Her parents, at first, even refused to let her be the Dominican tertiary that she wanted to be.  She still remained at home, single.  Eventually, they let her join the tertiaries.  The single life, if lived in the state of grace, can be a vocation  - just like that great Doctor of the Church.