Formation Spin Off

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http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/134258-formation/

 

 

[HisChildForever]

What's the debate?

[superblue]

I started this if one notes the previous thread a poster was suggestion a separate thread as to not derail the topic at hand.

 

I figured why not.  Seems the Formation process can be very confusing, from who to pick as a spiritual director, what to do if you have a vocation director who knows absolutely nothing about the process and then who do you talk to in regards to finding a new one or if that is even possible...... lots n lots of questions some answerable some not...... the question posed though from the other thread, is towards the " psychological aspect "  considering how hard it is for people to find a job at this present point in time, and looking back at how some saints had nervous break downs, .... I am not good at paraphrasing so it is all there in the other thread to comment here on, I tried to copy n past but couldn't.

 

The general idea that I took from my experience and I can not find fault in it, is a review board / religious order ( so far I tried both )  they want people coming in " with clean hands " .  They want to see someone who is financially and mentally stable. Now the topic of mentally could be argued here I suppose if one wants too.. But keep in mind the Pillars of Formation set up by now St. John Paul II....

I do take issue with such a vague topic as psychology, or " happiness "...   And how in this process people who are in the seat of having to judge do so by studies brought forth on people on average who are not " happy " or have had a " nervous break down " or other " mental problems " .   I find it highly unfair to judge a potential prospect based on a study or findings n such.  With out giving the person a chance to prove him or herself in some way or manner with in the religious order or else where. An I suppose looking at a person as a whole, is how people try to judge, are they working, school, living on their own etc.....But when questions are not being asked like, why are you not working, why are you still living at home, why did you not finish school, those were questions that were never asked of me during my process, which I would have plenty to answer for..... Then on top of all of that, we could flip this around and then ask well what is the percentage of clergy and those in religious orders who are unhappy, or are having problems, and why are they being helped and treated with compassion versus one entering and being turned away.People can have psychological issues, and I suppose the weight of the matter is how are they handling it, are those issues unresolved but then the other question is, do the issues need to be resolved and why.

 

More over, there is no out processing for those who are in the seminary and are asked to leave ( from what I have heard ) it is merely pack your bags and good luck we are praying for you. I imagine there is not much support from a religious order either upon asking one to leave.  They just assume the person is going to be able to take care of him or self upon leaving or expects the person to be able to as they don't want the guilt on their hands of tossing someone on to the street with no means to support him or her self.

But who wouldn't have a nervous break down after being in the seminary for years and then asked to leave, or someone as a postulant in a religious order asked to leave when they were happy being there, or a candidate for either after years of prayer and patience rejected with out any real explanation . We are expected to be so humble and so sound of mind that we just go oh ho hum off to the next ? And there is no support given at all as to how to handle the pain of rejection. Yet someone wants to turn around and say well all that means is you are " psychologically unstable ". And guess what, no one talks to you about your psychological results from what I can tell, so you are left on your own to figure out what the issue might be.

 

There are a lot of gaps in the process. And more over I would not mind an explanation as to what is a standard of " happiness " really is, and how and why in a religious  vocation sense are people being judged on this idea of " happiness ", I may not be beaming with the level of happiness as the next, but I am not walking around trying to bring tons of people down with me either.

 

 

Unfortunately being passionate about wanting to serve Christ is just not enough, and the standards have changed from being accepted in the past as a servant to now, and the Pillars of Formation are a good start, but when there is a big lack of communication from a vocations director, a review board, bishop, religious community, and zero support after the process to make sure the person is adjusting back into the real world, or at least a sign of kindness afterwards to say hey we are thinking about you and praying for you .....

 

 

rather long I know, pic an choose what to address.

[superblue]

What's the debate?

lol I was typing and didn't have time to edit before that posting. lots to read if you are bored out of your mind.

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P.S being on here I do realize I open myself up for criticism not all positive, that is fine,  I do have a tendency to question the Church on a lot of things, but I do accept that these are the rules in place, and I am not out to change the rules or anything, but do have a desire to serve Christ better and grow a better relationship with Christ.. I tend to mostly disregard my own gripes any way as being trivial; and it did make me wonder for awhile if one needs to be in total lock n step with the Church to join the church, but I have come across priests who hold gripes as well, and I can only imagine they are holding back a lot more than they would like to comment on. AN I figure it is just humanity, people complain. That doesn't make them any less " catholic " or more or less of a sinner than anyone else.

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P.P.S, if anyone can summarize what I am getting at and repost it here or to another thread, feel free, cause I know that is a lot to read, and I did put too much to read.

[maximillion]

Don't worry, it wasn't too much to read.

 

I don't know if this is an answer, but I certainly have questions. I came out of the convent having asked to do so, I was never asked to leave in fact I was begged to 'stay, we can work this out'. It turns out that I have Aspies........this never was an issue in the community. No one ever said I was weird, strange or troubled, or needed psychological help. I was a fully professed Sister and had been for 7 years when I asked to leave.

 

Given the incidence of 'mental illness' as being one in four in the general public, how can ANY community expect or not expect to

a) not contain religious who have developed problems after Profession.

b) expect to continue turning away people who may have a legitimate vocation but who also have some degree of mental ill health or distress.

c) Justify mental or in fact physician disability as an automatic disqualification when this is considered to be discriminatory ( and not legal ) in the world. (That leaves out the question of compassion, charitable love, acceptance etc).

 

I agree that in the past no one  - even those who had evident mental illness ( anorexia, hallucinations eg.) was turned away, there was no psychological testing and every one was judged on their merits during the try out of postulancy.

Now I am not saying that this situation did not make for some discomfort for the community when someone became unstable, and we have all heard the stories of the narcissistic prima dona type Superior. But what did people do in the past? They got on with it, they found a way of living with or around it.

 

It would be really interesting to know figures on how many religious and seminarians/priests were sent away because of health issues in the recent past.

 

These issues have been around with me for some time and more recently Faith Cecilia of Christ Crucified comes to mind.

Of course she is ill, and of course Carmel is difficult, but hang on, didn't the Little Flower have TB? She wasn't sent away and you can bet your sweet life her breathing was badly affected, as was her consequent ability to live the full Carmelite life......and she was not in Vows when this became evident.

 

I understand that in some places in the world where health care comes at enormous cost that this is an issue. Perhaps it behoves on those of us who support vocations to start taking on this reality and paying specifically for the health care/insurance costs for those in RL? Maybe we need a new charitable foundation to be set up that does precisely this?

Dare I even say that if the Church is keen to have the presence/work/prayer of Religious it could perhaps think about addressing this in some way........

Edited June 6, 2014 by maximillion

[maximillion]

Oh, and that is to say nothing of the richness, breadth of vision, sheer fun and ability to push others to act with Christ's Compassion that those with MH issues can bring to any community, in the convent or out of it!

 

If there were absolutely no stigma attached to mental ill health I wonder how many would continue to be turned away.

 

Let us glory in being how we are and start to expect everyone everywhere to accept us, warts and MI included.

[superblue]

Ty for the response max, it does make me wonder, how the Church, or rather bishops and a review board,  or anyone in general, can be " praying for vocations " and then when candidates step forward, all the harsh judgment comes in and then the church turns around and there are these either complaints or statistics about the lack of men going into the seminary or what not.

I for one would ( and granted this isn't a democracy ) at the very least starting from the top working down, a set of guidelines for candidates or potential candidates, but it becomes so confusing when one candidate who is not a college graduate, and is passionate to serve or at the very least to try, is thus passed up and the opportunity to enter the seminary is given to a college graduate or at least a high school grad with shining grades, and then that person goes on to the seminary only to drop out for what ever reason on their own after say a year or two.  When given the chance someone who may have a real calling in life to the priesthood, and has as you put it a lot of warts, well they are just passed over... not given the opportunity to even try and who knows maybe even graduate.

But God seems to make sure things keep going some how even though there may be this  " lack of vocations " so is it a lack of candidates or a lack of the right candidates that religious orders and bishops want.

 

 

There is a difference in having mental issues and not being a functioning person vs a person with M.I and is functioning, I am dealing with my own set of circumstances that vary, and I see a psychologist as needed even though she is adamant that I am okay, and I am not about to shop around for a psychologist who is going to go okay you have a problem... Bouncing around in thought as I do, I finally realized I don't " need to be a religious or a priest " to make a positive impact on the world, nor to serve Christ... An maybe some where in there I had this mind set, that in order to make a positive impact on the world and serve Christ, that being a religious or priest was the best way to go about doing that.  But anyhow , judging people on their mental well being, their economic status in life, towards a religious life or the priesthood I find very unfair, their are better ways to judge a candidate after an initial trial period which I think you have stated as well, even for the seminary, actions speak a lot louder than words and even grades. 

For me I have for once in my life unintentionally burned down a bridge I never wanted to regarding my attempt with my diocese; I had a new vocation director not only tell me no but that the diocese ( which I read to mean the bishop) no longer wants any more " dialogue " with me on the matter. An sheesh you would think I did something tremendously horrible ! But nope,  I tend to get emotional, and can be very nervous right out of the gate and that is what happened. but I do bounce back, sometimes very fast, sometimes it takes time, but I do come back and when I do I come back stronger than before.. the wounds heal ,but the scars remain, and people might say well don't focus so much on the scars, and I debate myself so much, I don't want to forget the scars, for the simple fact of how am I going to understand what someone else is going through if I am so detached from the problems that I went through from my own life.

part of me would like to ( but am pretty sure it would be a pointless move on my part ) address my bishop personally on my own journey with the diocese to get a personal answer from him as I never did, but I am really not in a position to say hey see everything I was being judged on, not having a job, unemployment, no college degree, I got it all now.. even then it doesn't matter. That is the scary part I find, even if I did have everything a bishop could possibly want, might still not be chosen because who knows he might just not like the way I look ! * shrugs *....

So at what point is a person to determine Gods will moving them to a  religious vocation, versus a formation program that is not really geared at honestly giving anyone a chance. And maybe this is a very poor comparison that shouldn't be made even but I am going to throw this out there to see what comes back cause I am rather interested......   Say  you have a person, either gender seeking a religious vocation in the Church, as a priest or religious, the person is a homosexual, or  has strong SSA, or even those who are currently in and are homosexual or have SSA tendencies,  versus a candidate coming into either of the respective , is heterosexual, and has some form of M.I , be it mild or a bit on the heavy side.  Both are functioning people, neither really deserve to be judged in such a harsh manner in the formation process but someone says to both, here take a psychological exam, but neither are asked about their sexual preference, how fair is that.

 

I do not foresee this formation process ever getting to a place where it is acceptably balanced, and I think there are more people in the world who would have better in put on the subject, but the thing is, there is just no venue to place such things to those in power that could make any change. at least not that I know of.