How precise or wide do you see your vocation?

[Dymphna]

When I read about older Sisters vocation stories, I quite often find that they didn't spend much time trying to find out whether a specific community was right for them. They simply joined the community of the sisters where they had been at school, or the convent which was close to their home. Whereas I find myself (and I don't seem to be the only one) looking at various communities, sometimes over quite some time, to find out how they live their prayer and their apostolate, what they wear, how they use power and authority... And that's of course after I have excluded most communities because their flavour of spirituality does not suit me.

Which makes me think: How precise do you think your vocation is? On one end of the spectrum would be "the One" community to which someone is called, and we should try to find that single community God has in mind for us. At the other end one could join pretty much any religious order where they are able to stay physically and mentally healthy.

I'm sure the answer is, as so often, somewhere in between, but I'd be interested in your criteria or experiences: How good does the fit between you and a community need to be to be "good enough" for you? (or for the community, if you're looking from that side) Do you have "must-haves" - and have these changed?

(I personally find that I've developed a stronger preference for communities with a specific spirituality, but grew more flexible in practical terms - communal prayer, habit etc.)

Dymphna

[JHFamily]

In days gone by, people had every day interactions with sisters.  People had a "sense", if you will, of the life that we no longer have.  They are not a part of our every day lives, and heck, most people have to seek them out if they want to know them.  

I also think that in those days, because of these regular interactions, many were formed in the spirituality of the community with which they had contact.  As a result, they were attracted by that.  I know a young lady that just entered the Carmelites a couple of months ago.  However, she grew up near a Carmelite Monastery and went to Mass there several times a year.  She is used to their style of praying and learned a lot about their spirituality through the limited exposure and the homilies.  She always felt she was a Carmelite.  Would it have been different had the Carmelites not been here?  I think so.  

I think that in the wide liturgical landscape that exists today, there will be some must-haves.  Someone who grew up in a Novus Ordo parish probably isn't going to be comfortable in a community that uses the old office and the Traditional Latin Mass.  But I do think there is a "good enough".  I know another young woman who has been discerning forever.  No community is ever "perfect" to her;  I'm fairly certain that she will lose her vocation.  

We married folks did not marry our spouse because he/she was perfect.  It was because he/she had those qualities which would make a good spouse for us, not a perfect one.

[truthfinder]

In many places, I think women's decisions were rather simplified because a particular order was the only order, or there were simple reasons for decisions made (I'm thinking those who entered 1910ish-1950). That is, if I want to be a teacher I will enter community x or a nurse, community y.  Sometimes decisions between communities came down to personal preferences in one particular thing, can't remember which male saint, but one picked the Franciscans because he could keep a beard. So, it's not like decisions were not being made, but I think the agonising over decisions wasn't there in many cases. Spiritual directors and confessors often would also streamline girls into convents they felt they were suited to, or which they themselves had a connection.

But I think there's a lot of high stakes decisions playing out right now.  Will this convent suit me? But also the radical differences between communities in terms of attachment to traditions and practice of liturgy and rules. Particularly for those attached to the latter, it takes on a very high level of meaning in that it becomes a matter of salvation.

Now for contrast, consider Marie de l'Incarnation.  She had gained some renown for her mysticism and prayer life, and was essentially courted by several orders who would have taken her: the Benedictines, Feuillants, and Carmelites.  And yet, she went with the Ursulines a semi-active cloistered order, but it would allow her to live out the direct call of the Lord to go to N.America and minister to indigenous people.  

[Nunsuch]

I also think that the idea of charism was pretty diluted in the early 20th century--most communities, especially active ones, regardless of original intent (and many were founded for instrumental rather than charismic reasons--to take care of orphans, to teach Lithuanian immigrants, etc.), simply conformed to the 1918 Code of Canon Law and were distinguishable mainly by something as superficial as their habits. One of the gifts of Vatican II was to return communities to their founding visions, and to emphasize what is distinctive about them, particularly their spirituality. 

So, if you look at a book like "Why I entered the Convent," unless you're looking at contemplatives, missionaries like Maryknoll, etc., there is very little to differentiate the various teaching or nursing or whatever communities. Certainly, that also comes through in the several hundred histories I have read of them. 

[clareagnes]

For me the process of discerning has been one of coming to know who I am and who God is calling me to be, all of which took time and lots of meandering! I am at a point now where I do feel a very specific call to a particular community and spirituality, but that was after spending several years discerning with an entirely different community. (I have had more time to discern than most aspirants because I had to pay off student loan debt, which took 4 years.) 

I think God works with us and what we give Him. Offering an open, trusting heart is more helpful, I think, than trying to find the one "perfect" fit where He is calling. I have had to learn that wisdom the hard way! 

[chrysostom]

Not in the way of advice, but just a note of my own experience as a young man...I was fortunate to find a community - very early on in my search - which had everything that I was looking for, i.e. its charism just felt completely right for me. Oddly enough, no other place has it - except for one other community but I don't speak Spanish. So this is the one for me. God willing, 2019 or 2020!

It's not close to home, but home has always shifted anyways, and my family seems to scatter the world out of habit...