Am I called to be a nun

[MariaGarcia]

Hi,

Some months ago, I thought God was calling me to be a contemplative nun because I felt attracted to a community. However thinking I could have a vocation to this caused me a lot of anxiety. Anyways I made contact with the community and was provided with texts they read but which I found boring. I also went to see them one day to discern with them and told them about the anxiety I had been experiencing. I also have OCD which I also mentioned. I was very transparent. Luckily, they said I could never be a contemplative nun and even said the discernment was complete - that was not my place. I was incredibly happy, probably the happiest person on earth. However I soon began to miss them a lot and now, after 2 months, I really want to be with them and live there and no longer have anxiety when thinking about it. Could this strong desire be a sign I do have a vocation to that community? I don't understand why I have this desire if they clearly stated I could not be a nun of that community. 

[caterinaquinas]

Dear Maria Garcia,

Here is my humble opinion.

We can be attracted to lives that are beautiful and holy, because they are attractive, but we are not always called to live that life. A genuine vocation is something that would go deeper, it is more than how attractiveness a community is to you, or how beautiful the nuns are, but all about how YOU are called to serve, how you are called to save souls, how you are called to imitate the life of Christ. Therefore, stay very close to God, and encounter Him in silence and solitude. If in that solitude, you hear His small voice, and continually sense a call to save souls in solitude and by means of prayer and sacrifice, that would be a stronger indicator that you may be called to a contemplative life.

In order for a vocation to work out, you should be able to experience joy and peace while living that way of life. It doesn't mean you should never feel anxiety or boredom, but they should bring you closer to God. Once you are in the cloister, these thoughts or feelings will only be magnified, for you will be fighting that spiritual war daily, and that is the sole purpose of your life. You should also consider whether your OCD and spiritual/psychological condition would allow you to go through all these things with sufficient composure and tenacity and joy. If not, it is a clear sign that you are not called to the contemplative life, at least not now.

God is a living God. Even if you are struggling with something now, it doesn't mean you will always be struggling with it. Perhaps you will be healed of your OCD tomorrow and have a sudden conversion of heart, then realize you have a call, not to this community, but to some other - no one knows. Stay close to God. Read good spiritual works. Seek Him in the silence of heart. Be permeated by His grace. I pray you will follow His will every step of the way.

God Bless!

 

[Nunsuch]

@caterinaquinashas given you good advice. But I would also add that the sisters in the community you visited are a better source as to whether or not you are called there than a group of anonymous people on the internet (including me), who have never met you. If the sisters there say you are not called there, I would take them at their word. You may well be called elsewhere, but discernment is never solely the province of the discerner. As far as that community is concerned, you have received your answer.

I would strongly suggest that you talk with an experienced spiritual director who is familiar with religious life (i.e., not necessarily a diocesan priest)--perhaps a sister--who can advise you more personally.

[Sponsa-Christi]

@MariaGarcia I agree with the advice that's been already offered here. But you might also pray and thing about what specifically attracted you to their community, and then see if that specific element is something that you could incorporate in your life now.

For example, was it the the silence and solitude? Perhaps you could make more time for silent prayer in your own life, maybe by something like signing up for a regular holy hour at a perpetual adoration chapel. Were you attracted to their spirituality? Maybe you could see if there is a lay group that is also part of their broader religious family (like Third Order Carmelites, Lay Dominicans, or Secular Franciscans). 

That sense of still feeling drawn to the community might actually be God's way of calling you to one of these other things--but of course, you would have to discern this for yourself, "in real life," and preferably with the help of a good spiritual director. 

Edited October 31, 2021 by Sponsa-Christi

[Bonkira]

Also sounds like talking with a spiritual director about why the idea of a vocation produces anxiety.

I would also push back against the idea that discernment is ever complete and that there is not a vocation, based on one source at one point in time. It may well be that there is no vocation to that community, but certainly cannot be applied across the boards. Folks with all sorts of makeups are contemplatives; I was, and my mental health was and is complex....and it was not the reason I eventually left.

I am also cautious about desires for a specific community. Certainly there may be certain aspects of a charism that speak to our hearts, but being attached to a particular community without deeper discernment is usually about the pink cloud ideal of what religious life is, rather than the reality. If they said your vocation is not there, then it is not there. Remember that the practice of seeking specific communities is rather new; for quite a long while a person seeking Christ through religious life went with the order closest to them in either the apostolic life or contemplative. The call is to the specific style of life overall, and the nitty gritty details are the small pieces.

[MariaGarcia]

Hi @Bonkira,

The truth is I don't really want to be healed from my OCD because I am ahappy it acts as an impediment. It worries me that in the future I will be better able to manage my OCD and then that could mean I have a vocation to contemplative life, or be able to live it. If I can ask, when you were a contemplative nun, did your mental health make it harder for you to live a life of solitude? Harder than for the rest of the nuns? 

[JHFamily]

Don't do this to yourself! An attraction to the religious life that is persistent and happens over time is a necessary mark of a vocation. You obviously do not have that, and you do not have to revisit the question over and over. Just quit it and accept that your vocation is not to the religious life.  Your affection for your OCD is really concerning. It is not what God wants for you.

[Nunsuch]

You  might want to read Mark Salzman's novel, Lying Awake, about a nun who experienced what she thought were religious ecstasies, and later found out she had epilepsy. It is a beautiful, if complex, literary work. 

https://www.amazon.com/Lying-Awake-Mark-Salzman/dp/0375706062/

 

[gloriana35]

Lying Awake is excellent.

I agree with others here - do not do this to yourself. You don't want improvement of your OCD, because you fear a calling to religious life? I still think spiritual direction could be helpful for you, but I, who am not a spiritual director (though I have lived a vowed life since the 1970s), am positive that you should not continue to be obsessed with religious life. 

I shall add that I have known others (not only Religious, by any means) who seem to think that God will want (and possibly force them into) whatever they most dislike or fear. (They did not have OCD, as far as I know - it can happen to others.) It's a road to mistakes and tragedy. You told us outright you do not want to be a religious - you would rather be ill than healthier, lest God force you into that life. Perhaps you should concentrate on orthopraxy - read the Offices, attend the Eucharist - and focus on worship, not on an image of a fiend who'll force you into a life you fear. 

Blessings. 

[chrysostom]

5 minutes ago, gloriana35 said:

I have known others (not only Religious, by any means) who seem to think that God will want (and possibly force them into) whatever they most dislike or fear. It's a road to mistakes and tragedy.

Despite knowing all the "right things" etc. I myself fell into this error some time ago. Thankfully I did not make any choices that were hard to extricate myself from, and presently I am in a much better place.

[Sister Leticia]

This thread is headed by a question: am I called to be a nun? It's a closed question, ie one which can only be answered Yes or No. And I suspect this is the question you keep asking yourself, and wanting the answer to be No - except when you wanted it to be Yes.

May I suggest you start asking a different, more open question:

WHAT is God calling me to be?

This means you will take the focus away from one, specific vocation, and your anxiety about it - and open up many more possibilities. This is also much more the attitude with which anyone should begin a discernment - the narrowing of options will come later. 

[Antigonos]

I'd like to make an observation here, partly as a nurse, and partly just having lived 75 years.  I'm not implying anything personal to any particular person.

During the time I've been in this forum, I've noticed a number of times that persons with varying forms of mental issues have seemed to give the impression that they think going into religious life will "cure" them of their particular problem.  In fact, religious life in community can exacerbate them.  One needs to be exceptionally healthy in body and mind to flourish in the hothouse of a small, intense community.  I think Sister Leticia's question, what God is calling a person to be, is an excellent one.  There are many ways in which one can live a richly spiritual life while also giving of oneself to benefit others -- it does not have to be behind convent walls, IMO.

[Bonkira]

On 11/2/2021 at 6:14 AM, MariaGarcia said:

Hi @Bonkira,

The truth is I don't really want to be healed from my OCD because I am ahappy it acts as an impediment. It worries me that in the future I will be better able to manage my OCD and then that could mean I have a vocation to contemplative life, or be able to live it. If I can ask, when you were a contemplative nun, did your mental health make it harder for you to live a life of solitude? Harder than for the rest of the nuns? 

So, trying to potentially escape a vocation by not seeking balance and improvement is basically trying to take control from God. Not the best plan, and not in line with following God's will for you...you are purposefully placing a barrier between what you are scared of and what the Father may want. You need spiritual direction. OCD is not a barrier to a vocation and I would tell someone under spiritual direction with me to stop running and face what is in front of them. The outcome is less important (whether you will enter religious life or not) than the process, because utilizing mental health as a barrier for one area of life inevitably bleeds into using it as a barrier in other areas.

No, my mental health did not make my time as a contemplative harder, and I did not perceive my experience as being more difficult than others. Mental health is only the barrier we allow it to be. Certainly it is a barrier for some communities but definitely not all. I know more than a few cloistered contemplative who have mental health issues and more than a few who take medication and receive care to make sure they are as balanced as possible as they seek Love.

Edited November 4, 2021 by Bonkira

[MariaGarcia]

I did a Jesuit retreat a couple of weeks ago to help me discern this. The conclusion with the guide I spoke to was that God has something else for me, not religious life. As relieved as this makes me, I am still not at peace because I keep doubting.

Even though the nuns in that community told me that that is not my place, I keep thinking what if they got it wrong and I could be there? Asking myself this question makes me get lost in doubt, fear and worry. Now when I try to pray all I think of is this. Even when I wake up, the first thing that comes to my mind is all these questions and feelings and thoughts. 

Some people in this forum have suggested I pray the liturgy of the hours and do regular Eucharistic adorations. I already do regular Eucharistic adorations. I have also practiced the liturgy of the hours but it does not attract me. 

I have also prayed as to why I am so attracted to that community and the main reason for it is that I want to be with those nuns. It's almost like I don't care about anything else, I just want to be with them. It is as if I had developed an attachment to them even though when I went to see them I only spent an hour with 3 of them. 

 

[gloriana35]

MariaGarcia - This may not be the most profound of statements (I'm neither a spiritual director nor a psychologist), but your posts show someone who is in an absolute knot. I myself have bipolar disorder (not psychotic) and the bizarre fear of a lack of control that those of us who have survived anorexia know well (the more if we blew up like the Hindenberg afterwards.) Most of the time, my own disorder is well-controlled with medications. It is not something I could just decide not to have, and I have had to live with limitations in various areas. I'm guessing that I was diagnosed and treated before you were born (1973).

What made me shiver a bit, in one of your previous posts, was that you do not want your OCD to improve. I intend no disrespect to Bonkira, but the post there, about your wanting to stand in the way of God's will, could be a trigger. You are so afraid you are called to religious life that you want to have a mental illness which would prevent this. Antigonos made excellent points - but most of those referred to there want to be religious and hope it will cure them to do so (a perilous slide!) You don't want to be healthy/cured.

We have some health professionals here who would have knowledge far beyond mine, but what you are saying about these nuns makes me think that you've developed an obsession. (This though you barely know them - found their books and the Office boring, when liturgical prayer is a huge part of contemplative life - and think they may be wrong in thinking you don't belong with them, though you fear being a religious and therefore don't want your OCD to improve.)

There are many times when I get ideas that make me panic - though it doesn't make them disappear, I can say, "That is the anorexia/depression/anxiety talking." It is possible that, at the moment, you need to see that you have an obsession (certainly nothing new, with OCD.) Perhaps you need some time, until you can see things more clearly, and understand what it is about the nuns which is triggering the obsession. I truly cannot imagine anyone with OCD being able to stand the life of the cloister - which you already told us you fear you will have to take on if your health improves.

There are many times when someone must be resigned to a chronic condition, and there is nothing more that can be done. Yet I believe there have been great strides in mental health care. The very beneficial drugs, which removed some terrible symptoms I had, didn't exist until the mid-1980s. If you have treatment for your OCD, by all means tell your doctor/therapist that you are having this obsession. It will not make you lose your faith. There may be some underlying matter which is causing you to have an obsession with nuns whose life you do not want.