Giving Stuff Away Before Entering

[SicutColumba]

Hello, everybody! I'm still a few good months away from entering but I'm in the process of moving into new place and in the middle of getting rid of a lot of my stuff. I'm trying to get myself down to only what I'll need to survive/dress appropriately/stay warm and fed before I enter. Most of my clothes I'm either donating or handing down to my younger sisters, except a few good versatile pieces that are moving out with me, and my secular books are going to my family because they can all benefit from them. My community suggests confiding the care of one's finances to one's parents until vows so I'm arranging things on that front with them.  

I'm not sure what to do with some of my things, though, such as my computer. It's an older model that I got used but it works well. My options are to sell it, give it to a friend, or leave it with my family. I'm not planning on leaving the convent but I think it's prudent to have something to fall back on should it ever happen that I leave. So I don't know if it's better to give it away and be completely detached or to leave it with my family for safekeeping or for one of my siblings to use for college. Same thing with my phone, an iPhone 6 (in 2020 lol) that works perfectly well but is practically worthless on the market. 

What should I do with sensitive things like old diaries and notebooks and letters? I certainly won't take them with me but I don't necessarily want to throw them away nor do I want them to be read. Should I just toss them in the name of poverty? 

[elizabeth09]

Leave your computer and cell phone with your family, then if they need for school, then you will have it still.  With diaries and notebooks, maybe toss them out.

[SicutColumba]

5 minutes ago, elizabeth09 said:

Leave your computer and cell phone with your family, then if they need for school, then you will have it still.  With diaries and notebooks, maybe toss them out.

Yeah, I think I need to just bite the bullet and get rid of my notebooks. Like John of the Cross who burnt his letters from Teresa of Avila.

[Bonkira]

Are they diaries and notebooks that reflect your growth towards God and your spiritual development? If so, why not leave them with family? Those are important pieces of your history towards seeking the heart of the Father and are good for reflection and contemplative prayer.

And technology items...have you checked with your order? Many convents and orders need computers that work well, at the very least to maintain email/website/have a way to call the convent when on errands etc. You may be able to give them to your prioress/mother for the use of the convent in daily tasks. Unless you were to leave very quickly, it's unlikely an older model of laptop or phone would be super useful in the future.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Bonkira

[Feankie]

There was a thread a few years ago that dealt with this very issue.  If memory serves me right, it dealt with a VS'er who'd entered RL and either discerned out or was asked to go back home.  She had given all her belongings away in order to make a "clean break" and was left with just about nothing when returning to the world.

The prudent thing would be, if possible, is to have your family or a close friend store them for you.  You can always arrange to have your goods disposed of if all goes well, or they will be waiting for you "just in case."

It's normal to desire a clean break when entering RL, but nothing is guaranteed.... in life or in the convent.   It's important to know not all of your tangible past is gone should you return home for any reason. The psychological distress of returning to secular life can be mitigated a bit by having part of yourself preserved for you to reclaim.

I realize it's not your desire nor expectation that things will not go as expected. But the decision, ultimately, is yours to make regarding your possessions.

[Lilllabettt]

I agree with @Francis Clare. ( the fact your future community recommended leaving your financial affairs with trusted people is an excellent sign that they are a good group!!!)

If you have trusted family to take care, there is no need to burn or dispose of memorabilia. I was very young when I entered, so I did not have much in the way of personal effects. But, I wished I'd kept some clothes, even one change. I came home unexpectedly and all I had was my postulant uniform, which I was shipped home wearing. I remember the workers at a gas station we stopped at asking if I was alright - I suppose i looked like a cult kidnapping victim.

Having been in the habit, it was awful to go to the goodwill the next day and search for clothes that "looked good" - this having become an alien concept.  My favorite sweatshirt and my fuzzy pantaloons would have been a comfort and reminder that I existed "before". 

[Sponsa-Christi]

17 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

I came home unexpectedly and all I had was my postulant uniform, which I was shipped home wearing. I remember the workers at a gas station we stopped at asking if I was alright - I suppose i looked like a cult kidnapping victim.

@Lilllabettt I always really appreciate your posts here. So I hope I don't give offense when I say that so many aspects of your former community just make me inwardly shriek: "What the heck???"

Like here...your community couldn't have spared $50 to take you to Target to get two decent-looking outfits? And I think someplace else recently, you mentioned your entered very young after being Catholic for less than a year--I would have though: "Take a little time to let your new Catholic identity sink in before making drastic life decisions" would have been common sense for religious communities. 

Again, I don't mean to be offensive...it's just that problems in religious life are of professional concern to me as a canonist, and so these things "ping" pretty loudly on my radar screen!

As a P.S.: I for sure have experienced my own share of "what the heck???" things in my life as a consecrated virgin, so this is definitely not me trying to judge religious life as a whole! 

And as I said in another recent thread, I'm glad it's becoming more normalized to talk in a balanced way about what can potentially go wrong in consecrated life, or about the fact that abuses (or even unkind treatment that stops short of abuse) can happen in the Church. I think it gives discerners a better sense of what to look for--and to look out for!--in their discernment, and fosters a culture that allows abuse victims to heal with less difficulty. 

Edited December 1, 2020 by Sponsa-Christi
typo

[Lea]

I'd certainly ask the community you are willing to enter if there is something like a "normal way" to handle those things. The community I'm discerning with has and I know at least one congregation which lets people entering postulancy sign a contract that deals with all of this [bank accounts, car, technology gadgets, things of emotional value, family heritage etc., even pets^^] 

[Sponsa-Christi]

13 minutes ago, Lea said:

...and I know at least one congregation which lets people entering postulancy sign a contract that deals with all of this [bank accounts, car, technology gadgets, things of emotional value, family heritage etc., even pets^^] 

I don't know what congregation this is, or what the "contract" looks like. But as a PSA: religious congregations are never entitled to any of a person's "patrimony," or the assets and property they had before entering--not even after final vows, and so certainly not at any point during initial formation. 

I know sometimes communities ask for something like a dowry, or for a future postulant to contribute to her first year's health insurance costs or other living expenses. But this is different than something like a community claiming part of a bank account, an inheritance, the last paycheck from a pre-entrance job, etc. 

[Lea]

I should have been more precise, sorry. 

The community does not claim any of the belongings, but ensures that the financial and legal situation is clear, e.g. that those last paychecks are deposited to a trustee, what happens incase the postulant inherits something during formation, etc. 

[SicutColumba]

I’m going to ask the community if they’ll need a phone. I think though that they only use flip phones or track phones when they go out but it can’t hurt to ask. 

As for clothes, Lilllabettt, that is a very weird story. I know that my community has a kind of common cupboard of clothes for aspirants and for occasions like that. 

For my diaries I feel like throwing at least some of them out. But I’m not sure if that would create a dishonest image of myself. It’s true that in the past few years I’ve grown a lot spiritually and my many notebooks attest to that. Other things that I wrote before (11-14 years) are totally unedifying and somewhat embarrassing. I found a diary a few months ago in which I had only written a single page in middle school and it was so ugly and stupid that I ripped it out immediately. There’s stupid stuff I want to get rid of and really profound writings that I want to keep but I don’t want to edit the records of my past to create an artificial image of myself. 

Edited December 1, 2020 by SicutColumba
Clarifying a sentence.

[Anastasia]

5 hours ago, SicutColumba said:

What should I do with sensitive things like old diaries and notebooks and letters? I certainly won't take them with me but I don't necessarily want to throw them away nor do I want them to be read. Should I just toss them in the name of poverty? 

Only you can decide about such highly personal things and how you feel about that is quite likely to change with passing years. (For example, a  couple of decades ago I held a radical view of "burn it all before entering" but now, especially after learning more about various experiences of others I do no think like that anymore.) You cannot know how you will feel later. Perhaps you could sort your personal papers in groups depending on their value to you and label them accordingly so later on, if you wish, you could ask your family to destroy the packs which you feel are no longer relevant.

[Lilllabettt]

4 hours ago, SicutColumba said:

For my diaries I feel like throwing at least some of them out. But I’m not sure if that would create a dishonest image of myself. It’s true that in the past few years I’ve grown a lot spiritually and my many notebooks attest to that. Other things that I wrote before (11-14 years) are totally unedifying and somewhat embarrassing.

I know exactly how you feel! In my late teens and twenties I kept a blog for 10+ years, writing every day and publicizing it on FB. (ugh.) Looking back on some of the things  ... oh. my. the cringe. I eventually set it to private so no one can look it up. But, if you have family that you can trust not to pry ... or maybe you could bury them somewhere!  Ultimately its your decision, of course.

6 hours ago, Sponsa-Christi said:

I always really appreciate your posts here. So I hope I don't give offense when I say that so many aspects of your former community just make me inwardly shriek: "What the heck???"

Like here...your community couldn't have spared $50 to take you to Target to get two decent-looking outfits? And I think someplace else recently, you mentioned your entered very young after being Catholic for less than a year--I would have though: "Take a little time to let your new Catholic identity sink in before making drastic life decisions" would have been common sense for religious communities. 

No offense taken.

To be accurate, I was baptized Catholic and received 1st communion. But we were not even a "Christmas and Easter church" type of family. At 19 I had my conversion, and it was required for me to go through RCIA before I could be confirmed, given my lack of formation. 

I think I mentioned in the same thread, that I visited the place I entered once and was offered an application the 2nd day I was there. I was so new to discernment, I didn't realize what was meant by submitting an application. I thought it was like college and you considered your options once acceptances came in - so I said sure!  I was so confused when the sisters started hugging me, like something important had happened. lol!!!! Once I realized they were measuring me for a postulant uniform, I understood and asked to put on the brakes. I spent a year working, and went on one other visit to one other convent. Then when I decided to enter the first place, they did not require me to visit again. I was 20 or maybe just turned 21.

I don't really blame the convent for putting me in my postulant outfit to go home... That's how I arrived - wearing my postulant uniform. I didn't know you were supposed to wear something else and change into the uniform at entrance, and I didn't have any family with me to run and get something. If I'd come wearing something else I guess they would have put me in that to go home - but there was nothing else. And I guess there was no way for them to know I'd gotten rid of all my worldly clothes. I also had the horrible haircut given to make hair stick under the novice veil. That was probably the bit that made the gas station workers decide I had been snatched. ha!!!!

From my perspective my departure from the community was abrupt (looking back I realize it may have been discussed by others for some time,)  but from my pov there was no time to go shopping. In the morning I was going to live there forever, by the afternoon I wasn't, and the next day I left in a car driven by one of the the professed. I think we drove 13 or 14 hours. It was done sort of "secretly." I barely processed it as it was happening ...  I was floating on the ceiling the whole time!

It probably comes through in this writing that I was pretty naive, ignorant and immature in religious life. I pretty much knew nothing. Truly the community was well rid of me!  On the otherhand.... I felt (and was made to feel like I ought to feel) so guilty for the "expense" I was, but I know now (thanks to vocation station among other sources) that some practices were not acceptable, they really ought to have known better, I was the vulnerable person in the relationship, and I paid the higher price for the mismatch.  Not that I have any desire to blame ... we are all on a journey. But it was healing for me to realize this, and I think I would have been in a better position if I'd gone into religious life knowing some of these things.

Sorry for the highjack @SicutColumba
 

Edited December 2, 2020 by Lilllabettt

[SicutColumba]

4 hours ago, Anastasia said:

Perhaps you could sort your personal papers in groups depending on their value to you and label them accordingly so later on, if you wish, you could ask your family to destroy the packs which you feel are no longer relevant.

I think I’m going to do something like that. There are certain things that I do think reflect my spiritual journey well and if I get a chance I might want to revisit them someday. 

32 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

Sorry for the highjack @SicutColumba

No problem! 

 

32 minutes ago, Lilllabettt said:

I visited the place I entered once and was offered an application the 2nd day I was there. I was so new to discernment, I didn't realize what was meant by submitting an application. I thought it was like college and you considered your options once acceptances came in - so I said sure!  I was so confused when the sisters started hugging me, like something important had happened. lol!!!! Once I realized they were measuring me for a postulant uniform, I understood and asked to put on the brakes. I spent a year working, and went on one other visit to one other convent. Then when I decided to enter the first place, they did not require me to visit again. I was 20 or maybe just turned 21.

That seems like a red flag. I don’t see why a community would be so desperate for vocations or overly eager to get new novices if there weren’t a problem. And it would be the minimum of prudence to make sure an applicant has been Catholic for a good while and knows what she’s getting into!

Edited December 2, 2020 by SicutColumba

[Anastasia]

1 hour ago, Lilllabettt said:

From my perspective my departure from the community was abrupt (looking back I realize it may have been discussed by others for some time,)  but from my pov there was no time to go shopping. In the morning I was going to live there forever, by the afternoon I wasn't, and the next day I left in a car driven by one of the the professed. I think we drove 13 or 14 hours. It was done sort of "secretly."

Sorry to say this practice of "secretly and suddenly sending novices away" (in your monastery and others) is abusive and this is why. The fact that it was done "secretly and suddenly" and all that after "they met and accepted you so eagerly" created a sense of shame which of course would be felt as "you failed" while in the reality you were treated as a non-person if they did not bother to speak to you in advance, to warn you that probably you are not yet cut for the religious life with them. So they chose someone naïve and inexperienced, "tried her" and it did not work and "shipped her back". Why not to correct a person and if it becomes clear that she not ready for a monastic life to explain it to her, to offer support, to discuss how she is going to be in the world and so on? And then when she settles speak about the event publicly (in the community) as a matter of a fact so a person could feel that there is no shame, it is simply a life.

In the reality, such a hasty acceptance almost always matches sudden and secret rejection so indeed, very quick acceptance, "hugs and kisses" are a red flag. Yet not many very young people would know that.

I am glad you recovered after that damaging experience.

Edited December 2, 2020 by Anastasia