When Did You Know That It Was Time To Move...

[Gabriela]

Boom done. Congrats, Spem!

 

Mwuhahaha. We tagged her "religious" before her order even put her in habit!  :lol4: 

[puellapaschalis]

Off-topic :(

[Spem in alium]

Off-topic :(

 

Apologies. But thanks, DTA. :)

[corban711]

from passive discernment (thinking, praying, looking at sites, etc.) to active discernment (visiting communities, making contact, etc.)?

 

See, I've been thinking about the religious life for quite some time and don't seem to be making any more head way. Does this mean that I should start visiting communities or something? I read about religious orders and like a few of them but still don't know if one calls to me more then the others. Yet, I still seem to be dragging my feet. Could this be the fact that this type of thing scares me? Or is it God giving me some sort of sign that I can't make a move just yet.

 

Have you guys experienced something like this? What did you do to get over it?

 

Happy New Year!!!!

 

Warning:  Long response!  Hopefully its at least a little helpful....

 

I have struggled with many of those questions a lot over the years at various stages of my discernment process. 

 

During one of those stages where I was thinking A LOT about discernment and really questioning where I was being called, when, which order, marriage, who, where I would live, work, etc, etc. etc. During that time I was spending a lot of time in prayer and I heard a really good talk on discernment.  The priest didn't say anything new really, but he said it in such a way that God really got through to me.  One of the things that really helped me was this:  

 

 

"I don't have the least idea in advance of what Jesus wants for me. And i trust Him so much out of love for Him that i don't need to know. I just need every day to be there for Him.  If it pleases Him, He will move me one way or the other.  If He doesn't, I am happy to be a potato bag in front of Him.  Just loving Him and waiting."

 

 

Simple, I know. But it really set my free interiorly.  This is probably not true of you, but I know it was of me at that time....It was so easy to get caught up in the details of discernment and trying to figure everything out and get it all perfect.  I was more concerned with figuring out where/to what God was calling me than I was with simply loving Him in the present moment.  

 

After that talk, I told Our Lord that I love Him more than anything else in this world and I want with all of my heart to spend my life loving and pleasing Him no matter what He asked of me and I didn't need to know anymore.  If He wanted to share His plan with me, thanks be to God.  But if not, thanks be to God.  I was going to spend my time loving Him anyways.

 

But I was done discerning passively like I was because I realized I would never be able to figure it out by thinking about it more.  All I did was think about it...constantly!   And I was making no progress.  I am far to weak and silly to figure it out for myself.  So I need Him in His Mercy to lead me.  So if HE wanted me to know where to go, what to do, which vocation, etc, then HE was going to have to pour Himself out in His tenderness and mercy and show me.  And He was going to have to make it very clear.  And until He did that, I was not going to move one way or another.  All I was going to do, was sit at His feet and love Him.  Adore Him.  And wait. 

 

Anytime discernment thoughts interrupted prayer or anything else, I tried my best to dismiss them and offer them up to Him as if they were a temptation and asked Him for the grace just to simply love Him and be abandoned to His will not needing to know.  I told Him I didn't have a time frame or desires for myself.  Only to please Him.  

 

VERY shortly after doing this, He started to move in major ways in my heart and He did show me what steps to take.  I can't tell you exactly what He did, but in setting my heart free to love and adore Him without thought or concern about my vocation, He was able to show me my vocation.  And I knew when it was time to move.  And so will you.  He truly guides us throughout all the headaches and difficulties and frustrations and not knowing...Very soon it was no longer a question of should I become more active in the process...it was very clear and I knew I absolutely had to make a move.  

 

It was a beautiful gift.  But He demanded that I be much more abandoned to His Mercy and detached from my own thoughts before He moved.  I had to learn to be content to be a "potato bag" in front of Him like that priest said.  

 

 

 

ps.  Sorry that was so long.  Hopefully you will ask about something I have thoughts about next time!    Haha.  But you are in my prayers and I hope something in there might be helpful for you.

[TheresaThoma]

If it is on your heart to go visit communities then I would say go. Even just making a day visit or a weekend visit can be helpful to start out with. You can get a general sense of religious life and what specific things attract you. I once went on a discernment retreat with a community I wasn't particularly interested in but was still open to. By the end of the weekend I knew that I was not called to that community but it still was helpful. From that I knew what it felt like to be drawn to religious life in general but not called to a particular community. That was definitely something I wouldn't have figured out without that visit. 

 

In general in my discernment I find that I just kind of know when to move on. I just get this feeling that what I am currently doing isn't enough or productive. For example when I had made a couple visits to the community but had yet to express solidly my feelings either way to the Sisters I felt a bit stuck. I knew that I did want to visit more but that I needed to take it to a more serious level, I was treading water rather than making headway. Taking that next step can be really scary but with lots of prayer you can do it and it is definitely not as scary as you think it is!