Speed dating for God!

[DameAgnes]

http://aleteia.org/blogs/deacon-greg-kandra/a-new-approach-to-vocations-speed-dating-for-god/

[Jennifer]

How lovely....................but we are in the C.21st.  !!

[TheresaThoma]

I kinda like the concept. I've noticed at vocation fairs it can be hard to actually talk to the sisters that are there. Where this gives each young woman some time to talk with the Sisters and maybe talk with a Sister from a community she normally wouldn't talk to.

[DominicanHeart]

I want to do this

[Sr Mary Catharine OP]

I would say, just stop DISCERNING and start choosing...it's not as simplistic as it sounds. FIRST you choose to embrace the religious state after praying and deliberating and receiving advice and then you find out where that vocation is to be lived.

I like the idea of rotating through the different communities because most men and women don't know too much about the different orders and charisms. Such "fact finding" is helpful in making a decision.

In the end, though, the decisions are made through an intimate relationship with God and it is fostering that relationship that we need to put the most time.

[Quasar]

On ‎7‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 7:47 AM, Sr Mary Catharine OP said:

I would say, just stop DISCERNING and start choosing...it's not as simplistic as it sounds. FIRST you choose to embrace the religious state after praying and deliberating and receiving advice and then you find out where that vocation is to be lived.

I like the idea of rotating through the different communities because most men and women don't know too much about the different orders and charisms. Such "fact finding" is helpful in making a decision.

In the end, though, the decisions are made through an intimate relationship with God and it is fostering that relationship that we need to put the most time.

Sr. Mary Catherine, you make very good points!  It requires courage to discern in the way you suggested.  Embracing a vocation requires courage and the ability to embrace commitment.  Many of use grew up without any modeling of commitment, so I think this can be a challenge.  I personally think that regardless of whether I am called to religious life or marriage, this is an aspect of myself I would like to develop more fully. 

I just listened to a lovely series of interviews from the Sister Disciples of the Lord, describing their vocations.  One sister mentioned a book the convent gave to her as a discerner, that say something like "sometimes we don't know our vocation, until we meet the person or people with whom we are meant to spend the rest of our lives".  However, many of the nuns first knew they were called to be nuns, and then went about finding the particular community to which they were called.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHD0Q2wH4xI