The 'vision' Survey.

[maximillion]

Did you do the Vison survey last year? Here is an infographic with the results.

 

http://vocationnetwork.org/media/infographic?m=1&sm=15

[PhuturePriest]

From the amount of people discerning who are 40+, it appears communities have to rethink their current ideas that older vocations are not really vocations at all.

 

http://franciscanbrothersminor.com/FBM/Discernment_Part_X_-_Age_Discrimination.html

 

(The part on discriminating older vocations is after he speaks about young ones.)

[truthfinder]

That's a really fascinating survey.  I wonder if the later age has to do with more emphasis being put on vocations now, or if these are "second" callings.  I knew debt loads were high, but that was really kind of scary.  

[krissylou]

I'm guessing it's a combination.

 

I'm not quite in the "over 40" range but it's getting closer by the day.  (Well I guess "closer by the day" is true for all of us, but you know what I mean.)  

 

I was remarking recently that when I was growing up (and I had 12 years of Catholic schools, in the 1980s and early 90s) I can remember annual appeals for the Retirement Fund for the Religious, supporting all these wonderful people who had dedicated their whole lives to serving the church and now there is nobody coming after them to take care of them in their old age so empty your pockets, people!  So that really reinforces the idea of nuns as a thing of prior generations.

 

In contrast I can remember one (1) presentation on vocations, including but not limited to religious life.  Ever.  Maybe there were two and I can only remember one, but it certainly wasn't a regular thing.  The Retirement Fund for the Religious appeal was definitely a regular thing.

 

And in high school and college and such I never even heard of anyone offering come-and-see weekends or something along those lines.  (And I was really involved in our Catholic campus ministry so if someone was publicizing such things I probably would have heard about it.)

 

So, for my generation, it would have been tricky to grow up thinking of religious life as a viable possibility I may well wish to consider.  A few people did, of course, but it would have been harder to come by.  Now people seem to be talking about things much  more.

 

So it makes sense to me that someone in her 40s who may have had a religious vocation all along might not have had the assistance to recognize it until later in life.

 

And, of course, sometimes God calls people later and they respond when God calls.