Leaving family/friends questions

[benedictaaugustine]

Hey all! As I process further along in my discernment, the aspect of leaving family and friends and having limited contact gets more “real”. I can’t deny that it’ll be a really hard thing and I think it would be naive to be like “oh I shall waltz into the convent and give up my family and friends with no problem”. I want to be healthy and accepting while still acknowledging that it will be a difficult sacrifice, one that I may feel even more after the first few years when the “novelty” of the convent wears off.

so my questions is for those who are in/are planning/or left with good experiences: how was it for you? What helped you in the process beforehand? What happened when you entered? Any advice?

[SicutColumba]

I’m planning on entering this summer, and I’ve personally spent very long stretches of time away from my family. I went to school in a different country, I spent nearly a year in a convent discerning with fairly limited contact with my family. So I’m pretty used to going long stretches of time without seeing my family and friends. I’m not prone to homesickness either, for the most part. And although I know that joining a community is definitive and a lot more serious than just going away for a time, and that the separation will be a sacrifice, and that I love my family and my home very much, I am honestly not too worried because I will be able to write letters to my family and see them occasionally, once a year after temporary vows. Even in the world, though, you will not always be around your family and childhood friends. My extended family, for example, lives on opposite ends of the country, and we don’t have money to see each other more than once a year, if even, so my mom only sees her mom once every year or so. At least in the community I will be joining, that’s about as much I’ll be able to see my mom once I finish novitiate. To me this doesn’t seem unreasonable, but I see that this can be very difficult for others. 
 

I personally know people who have realized that they don’t have a vocation because the separation would be too difficult. It’s of course going to be a sacrifice, but if it would be truly too much for you it might be a sign that God is pointing you in another direction. But at some point, whatever you do, you will likely be separated from your family. 
 

What makes up for the physical lack of your parents and friends and siblings is firstly that if you are in the right community you will truly feel surrounded by your sisters and mothers. A good community will really and truly be your family. I never felt more at home and more welcome than with the sisters, even though there was necessarily a distance between us, as they were a community and I wasn’t part of it. You can forge extremely deep and beautiful spiritual friendships, too.

I suggest that you read the works of Saint Élisabeth of the Trinity, who talks a lot about how her entry in Carmel, far from distancing from her mother and her sister Marguerite, only augmented her love for them and her sense of their spiritual unity. 

[chrysostom]

I have no actual experience of religious life to give you, but I will say that it is hard to know yourself entirely, and that includes how well you are aware of the depth of your attachments to things, ideas, and persons. They may be stronger (or weaker) than you can perceive in the present moment. A religious gives up all things, in some sense, for the love of God. And only the love of God makes this make any sense.

The loss of the ability to be with family can be one of the hardest things as it is one of the most wonderful gifts we have on this earth. No getting around that.

What was extremely helpful to me in one critical stage of my own journey was seeking out the advice of an old priest whose life had taken him through extremes of suffering and perseverance. I wrote him a letter and got a reply! He spotted things about my own thinking I was blind to at the time. For this matter of family, all I can say is seek out the wisest person you know and ask!

[kg94]

I can only offer my two cents worth, but I lived in as a Candidate and seriously reduced my contact with friends and family over the 8 months I spent in the community. I went from being totally out there with countless social networks, friends and communities of good Catholic friends etc to just being in touch with a few and family. It was a hard adjustment for me, but as time went on, I found I was OK without the social media and actually wasn't entirely missing the contact with friends and family too much. It wasn't easy, but at the same time, it wasn't going to kill me (for want of a better word). 

I think it really does depend on you, your life experience, your personality etc. I guess having moved around a lot and going to boarding school and leaving home at 17 meant that I was more used to not always having the contact that some other people have never not known. 

As you go further along the discernment process, my understanding is that you're meant to be gradually eased in - I don't think communities would generally ask you to go from one extreme to the other? Those of you with other experiences may beg to differ? I just think that as you delve deeper in discernment, your priorities change and then you find yourself more engrossed in the life and if you're finding fulfilment in the life etc, you are essentially given the grace to deal with (not suppress, though) the lessened contact with family and friends and be able to focus on the discernment and learning the life in the congregation. 

Again, this is just my two cents worth and others may have different opinions. 

[ReasonableFaith]

On 2/13/2021 at 5:09 AM, benedictaaugustine said:

want to be healthy and accepting while still acknowledging that it will be a difficult sacrifice, one that I may feel even more after the first few years when the “novelty” of the convent wears off.

so my questions is for those who are in/are planning/or left with good experiences: how was it for you? What helped you in the process beforehand? What happened when you entered? Any advice?

You are going to get the best advice and insight from members of the particular institute. They will be familiar with the attitudes concerning outside relationships. They will know the polices concerning visitation by family and friends as well as the ‘vacation’ policies. 
 

I’m sure you will have opportunities to visit. Maybe you will get to see members having friends/family visits while you are visiting.  This can be very helpful. 
 

All and all you will get to try out how it feels to enter and ‘leave behind’ family and friends to the extent required. Maybe it is a severe sacrifice maybe it is a very slight sacrifice...it will vary by person and institute. * Remember if you are looking at the novices their access to family and friends is most likely greatly restricted compared to members of the institute at large. *

[sr.christinaosf]

Different communities definitely have varying rules regarding contact with family and friends, so don't necessarily assume that you'll never see any of them again.

It may also be consoling to realize that you're still connected within the Body of Christ and with the communion of saints.  

It's nice to know that we're together in spirit, and are in each others' prayers.

[Tracy Ley]

I found this discussion purely by chance, the topic of parting with my family for long periods is very close to me, since I voluntarily left far away from everyone to go to college and sometimes I don't see my family for a whole year. I recently wrote an essay on this topic and realized that I had long since separated from my family and become an adult independent person, I keep in touch with them in letters and by phone, and it seems to me that our family connection has become even stronger than it was. In any case, they are afraid of parting, do not stand, sooner or later, many family members will disappear and they will go to a better world, and we must continue to live. It may sound rude, but it's true.

[Lilllabettt]

I entered a community which had no "home visits" and which, while not cloistered, had some strict rules about contact when with immediate family. Family could visit but only once a year I believe. Maybe twice, on specific days following Easter and Christmas.  This was for the Novitate and junior professed.  I don't remember any of the perpetually professed having visits or going home. 

The never coming home thing was hardest for me going in. I wept before going to the airport.  Once I was in the life, however, it was quite easy. I had so much to learn and pay attention to and all that newness filled the hole left, or at least distracted from it, to a large degree. For my family it was much different.  All they had was the absence. Much harder imo for those we leave behind. 

[Antigonos]

I know it may seem hard to separate from family, but remember:

Normally, in life, most people do move away from home, sometimes very far, and it's not easy or practical to travel long distances to meet up frequently.  I, for example, moved from my hometown of Washington DC to NYC and found even a monthly trip to be a major undertaking -- then I moved to the UK, and after that to Israel -- and only saw my parents three times after that, and I'm not in religious life!

Parents age and die.  My father passed in 1988, my mother in 1980.  This is going to happen to everyone, no matter where you are.  Ties with other relatives loosen; I've got family in 7 different parts of the US, apart from online communication and the occasional WhatsApp message, I haven't seen any of them for almost 40 years.

What I'm saying, in short, is that, inside or outside of a convent, as time passes, familial relationships change.  You are going to have to adapt, sooner or later, to that reality.

[GraceUk]

I think it would be much more difficult if your family disapproved of you entering. I've got a DVD about carmelites and one nun said her brother never visits as he disapproved of her choice. I think that must be very very hard.

[gloriana35]

I like the pragmatic post from Antigonos. I think those entering religious life can tend to be too romantic (...not the right word, but the one that comes to mind) about elements of living.  Everything might be over-analysed. I miss many of my friends (sadly, too many have died) and family members may be far away now. When I entered the convent, we did have visiting days, and could write, but hardly anyone, except my parents, ever did (it was a distance.) I was older than average for one in formation then - at an age where most people have left home. 

Loneliness is very real - and being connected to the Church and communion of saints does not substitute for human contact. Depending on the community, you may find others can be your friends - or that there is such anxiety about 'example' and 'detachment' that the only safe topic is Mother Foundress. Perhaps it would help to just think of this as the adjustments most make when they move on.

On 2/16/2021 at 1:43 AM, Antigonos said:

What I'm saying, in short, is that, inside or outside of a convent, as time passes, familial relationships change.  You are going to have to adapt, sooner or later, to that reality.

 

[Guest]

On 2/18/2021 at 4:00 AM, gloriana35 said:

being connected to the Church and communion of saints does not substitute for human contact.

  I think of the human element in spirituality as important.  Jesus, Truly God, became at the same time, truly human.  Hence I like to mark the supernatural and the human element as important including in celebrating.  For example, I might go to Mass and spend some extra time in prayer on a feast day.  I would also celebrate the same feast in some quite human manner.

We are created body and soul in complete and fully united partnership, it takes both to comprise the whole earthbound fully awake human being.  The first miracle of Jesus at the request of His mother was to turn water into wine for a wedding celebration.

[NonNovi]

For me it was never really a problem. I can't recall moments I missed people or was homesick (I was 1000 kilometers away from home). As a postulant and novice, we were allowed one letter and one phone call a month. And frankly, that was more than enough. My family was not approving of me entering, so at that time, our relationship wasn't the best. My father has refused to enter a church as long as I was a religious. He "couldn't" anymore, because of me. This doesn't mean though that on the rare occasions I was back again I didn't enjoy being with family and friends! And they were all allowed to visit at any time, wich only my mother did... once... in 5 years.

In our rule, there was a part about how we should try to transform our biological bonds into spiritual ones. And I guess trying to do that really helps. One should truly accept the community as his new family, and keep praying for the own family. It's all about understanding what is the order of things and to have peace with that.

[gloriana35]

My tear for Non Novi was not for her healthy approach, but for her father refusing to enter church because she was a religious.

I've known members of religious communities who became lifelong friends. In the community that I entered, we had to be so careful about every word (one never knew what would be thought 'worldly,' or 'self-absorbed,' or 'singularisation' that even mentioning the pope wrote a fascinating book was 'turning the conversation back on yourself.') 

At the age when I entered, most of my friends were married, or embarking on high-pressure careers - leaving home was in the past. I was glad to visit family, but the biggest inward scream of my being was "I need some time to myself!"