Update and prayer request

[beatitude]

I spent Pentecost with the community with which I'm a candidate, and during this visit the provincial and I decided which house I will go to for my postulancy. I will be living with sisters I already know. Please pray for me.

Please also pray for the sister who accompanies me. She is a woman of deep prayer and I trust her insight, but a couple of things she said during this visit made me worry that she doesn't completely grasp how my disability affects me, even though we've talked about it at length. As the sisters do low-paid work that takes them among the poorest of local people, she suggested that during the first few months I could get a part-time job as a cleaner and bed-maker in a nearby hostel, where another sister also works. I don't have the physical capabilities for that and I was a bit concerned that I had to explain this to her, especially as I had to reject a similar proposal on my last visit. Then she was suggesting I could get a job waitressing in a café, which would be even worse - the last thing someone with bad balance and poor control of their limbs should be doing is carrying around hot drinks and fragile things in a bustling environment! The sister also asked me for the second time if I would be learning to drive, and I have already told her that medically I'm not allowed.  I know that God equips the called rather than calling the equipped, but at the same time he does not design turtles to fly and I am not sure this sister realises quite how much of a turtle I am.

[Sister Leticia]

Dear Beatitude - congratulations on this confirmation of your next step on your journey. This is usually a time for joy and relief - but also a host of other feelings and anxieties, and all sorts of things to think/worry about and prepare for. 

I know that during your discernment and application you discussed your disability with the sisters. Did you also have any discussions with the Provincial or another sister about jobs you could do, which fit in with their charism and your capabilities? For example a return to care work, which I recall you used to do, and which is generally low paid. Or retail work eg on the checkout? 

Maybe she suggested the hostel and cafe because they know the owners or there are often vacancies, and they want you to be able to slot in quickly, instead of the uncertainty of job-hunting elsewhere?

Blessings on this time - and my prayer of course, for you and the sister

[Lou]

This is just a brief thought, but in my final year in college, which literally finished a few days ago (!), I did some administrative work for a religious order. It was very basic and low paid- just above minimum wage, with flexible hours. They didn't know I was discerning and I was treated just as the other lay staff in the "office". I filled in excel documents and wrote brief newsletters and made lists of names and addresses and put stuff in envelopes and made coffee .... the latter two jobs being the most common! It was around 10 hours per week. Anyway, there are often these sorts of jobs going in charities or in congregations or communities and I'm sure it wouldn't be a big deal if the job was in another religious congregations house. Anyway, maybe a basic or simple admin role could work and be something you could research before you enter with the guidance of the novice director. 

Prayers for you. 

[beatitude]

39 minutes ago, Sister Leticia said:

I know that during your discernment and application you discussed your disability with the sisters. Did you also have any discussions with the Provincial or another sister about jobs you could do, which fit in with their charism and your capabilities? For example a return to care work, which I recall you used to do, and which is generally low paid. Or retail work eg on the checkout? 

Maybe she suggested the hostel and cafe because they know the owners or there are often vacancies, and they want you to be able to slot in quickly, instead of the uncertainty of job-hunting elsewhere? 

I think that is why she suggested those places, but I wouldn't be able to keep such a job beyond the probationary period, which opens me to uncertainty anyway. Retail is out too - I can't count out coins and notes quickly enough (and when I say that, I mean I am painfully slow). I just don't have the dexterity in my hands. Packing my shopping at the supermarket is also a slow business, never mind other people's. I think the sisters' difficulty is they hear me say "I have coordination and dexterity problems" but they don't actually understand what that means in practice. It does puzzle me, because they see how I am in their houses, and my clumsiness has become a bit of a standing joke - whenever I visit they joke about how long it will be before something breaks - but they can't seem to extrapolate that information and realise how I must be outside the house. I changed my bedding yesterday and it took me almost half an hour. As they could change bed linen in their sleep, practically, they don't realise how much dexterity it takes.

My only option is care and support work. There are always vacancies for that in this country, but I might be a bit limited if sent elsewhere in the world. The sisters are helping me to discern based on affinity with spirituality/charism rather than ability in the apostolate, which I think is absolutely the right thing to do, but there does come a point where apostolate matters. However, this is the point of the postulancy - to see if I can.

[avellino]

You have my prayers.

[NadaTeTurbe]

I'm praying for you, Beatitude !

Just a thought : isn't not working because of disability among the poors also a way of living in Nazareth ? Wherever you go in the world, there is poor workers, and there is poor, disable people living at home. Just a thought

[Guest]

My prayers follow you too, Beatitude.

[Jennifer]

Many prayers for you  Beatitude. 

God Bless.!!

[McM RSCJ]

Building on Nada Te Turbe’s reflection, I, too, pray your new community will see all that you bring, Beatitude, as gift for their mission and ministry. They may then seen that the work you have been doing among the mentally ill is indeed insertion among the poor and marginalized, as much as in any factory or waitress job.

[LoveZoe11]

Beatitude,

If you dont mind me asking, what order are you discerning with?