How do teaching orders have enough time for lesson planning/grading?

[gloriana35]

Remember that, though it was after Vatican II, this was many  years ago. There were things that had changed - there were brief home visits; our mail was not read; we had individual bedrooms. (That wasn't true for many Religious I knew, even ten years earlier.)  There wasn't constant silence, but those who were not yet in final vows never knew when they'd be 'in trouble' for 'singularisation' (mention a book the pope wrote, and it still meant 'turning the conversation back on yourself' because you had spoken of reading the book) - or not being 'community minded.' I remember, for example, when a postulant, whose parents lived very nearby, knew her father was dying in hospital. Though the superiors not only gave her permission to visit him daily during the last week of his life, but gave her use of a community car, she still was reproached later. Were she 'community minded,' she would have refused the permission - because visiting her father meant she wasn't with her 'own community' (playing childish games with the other postulants.) 

The emphasis on poverty had unexpected dimensions. Housework tasks were assigned - but helping another required permission, or one was 'disobedient.' I remember when one Sister had filled the washer, but she couldn't reach to push the button (because of pain from arthritis.) I pushed the button for her - that meant that I  'used the machine without permission.' Another time, the superior told me to make coffee for some visitors. There was no open tin, so I opened one to make the coffee... I had not realised that poverty demanded that I return to the superior for permission to open a coffee can!

 

[BarbTherese]

Thank you, Gloriana - your Post was a delight.  I have memories from monastic life that now are fond memories.   At the time, my whole being was in revolt and another reason I decided to leave was because I could feel it on the way - I would be a decided and marked "disturbing influence on the community", unable to hide my interior rebellion.  Our sacristan's covert glances at me with real loving concern at times, became a final trigger to leaving.  The "monastic bowl" we both drank from and washed our knives and forks in really got me down, drove me up the cotton picking wall - as did novices in the Chapter of Faults confessing only to talking during the Grand Silence - and only that and every one of them as well.  Our novice mistress gave me a hard time probably testing humility and found me grossly lacking too.  Each of my faults received a special lecture from NM during the novices' meeting.  She did not mention me; nevertheless, I could feel myself reddening with embarrassment.  I hardly ate at meal times - there was a huge graphic crucifix at the head of the refectory.

Stress, I knew, could trigger a bipolar episode and the poor nuns would have no idea how to handle it.

I received, arriving home again, a beautiful letter I carry with me from our novice mistress about Divine Providence.  I did realize shortly after arriving home that I had been more running away (from a very busy active lifestyle) than running towards/with The Master.  I simply had no vocation, I had not been to where I was called.....and I resented that too for a while.  I was yet to learn The Will of God v my will.   But the experience of monastic life was a fashioning influence after returning home to the active life.

I love religious life especially monastic, but do realize it takes the special Grace of a vocation to keep one living the life fruitfully.  No special Grace and one will be miserable to the core, or leave as I did.  

 

(In monastic life in my teens, a priest told me that I give all to Jesus, put all in His Hands.  But then I say to Him, "Now, take this and put it there, take that and put it here".  Pretty good summary too, although it was quite a journey to realize what Father had been on about.  That priest, Msgr. Dunne, turned out to be an ex parish priest in our family's parish while I was still in primary school, so he knew me pretty well.

My novice mistress gave me The Imitation of Christ to read - it scared the wits out of me.

[gloriana35]

I don't know that everyone who thinks certain practises are outdated does not have a vocation - it's an odd blend, as I'm sure you know. For example, I have known some Sisters (from different communities) who think everyone must do everything together - they don't think that a Sister having a choice of which Mass to attend is appropriate, for example. Yet they are not what anyone would consider to be attached to most 'old ways.'

I did (and, by the grace of God, do) have a calling to consecrated life - I'm a solitary now (no hair-shirt, no grille...), but I've been in vowed life for forty years. I only muse at times because I've noticed a trend towards some communities (many of which I'd never heard of outside of this forum) seeming to want to go back to how it was sixty years ago. That may suit certain Sisters - but I don't want the young to have 'rose coloured glasses' syndrome. (This is not a slur, just an observation - it seems some of the new communities have the sort of garb - including coif and headbands - that Sisters wore when I was a school pupil.) 

[BarbTherese]

1 hour ago, gloriana35 said:

I don't know that everyone who thinks certain practises are outdated does not have a vocation - it's an odd blend, as I'm sure you know. For example

I very much agree that on a cloister one will find a mix of personalities and concepts.  Some, as an example only, can find changes post V2 have gone too far, some not far enough.  My personal interior rebellion went further than any outdated practices and no matter how I tried, my interior conflicts simply got worse and my misery increased.  I had not been eating nor sleeping adequately. Quite possibly, a person with a religious vocation could have persevered through it all.  I did feel best I went home before a bipolar episode forced the issue.  An episode would have introduced probably complete confusion into the community and I would have been asked to leave.

Finishing this off in another thread.

.

[BarbTherese]

With a vocation and call comes the Graces and qualities necessary for the life.