Differences in Religious Orders?

[FSM Sister]

That Catholic nerd stuff made me roll on the floor laughing!

[gloriagurl]

[quote name='FSM Sister' post='1593325' date='Jul 7 2008, 01:22 AM']That Catholic nerd stuff made me roll on the floor laughing! [/quote]

It was funny wasn't it? I neglected to say that the "i and we" do not in anyway pertain to me personally and that these little insights were not of my making. I found them on a web site but right now, I can't remember which one...I may have put it in the beginning of my post??? Gosh, can't remember now.

Peace

[dominicansoul]

I just wanted to say we Dominicans are very devotional. We pray the Holy Rosary twice a day and three during months of Mary. We are also involved in Consecration to Jesus through Mary, as it is ascribed by St. Louis de Montfort. We are initiated into the Angelic Warfare Confraternity. We do as many novenas to the many Feast days that are within the Order.

We are greatly devoted to our Holy Mother Mary, and Her Son the Holy Eucharist...

We contemplate and share in the fruit of our contemplation...we aren't just about study.

***********

That being said,

A Franciscan, a Dominican, and a Jesuit were up a mountain arguing about which Order God loved the most. The Jesuit decided they should pray about it and ask God for the answer.

So, all three of them knelt in prayer. It wasn't long before a letter fell from the clouds. It said:

"My sons, why do you argue amongst yourselves? You know I hold each one of you close to my heart. Quit this silly competition and get back to work!"

Your Loving Father,

God, O.P."

[Maria Faustina]

[quote name='dominicansoul' post='1597299' date='Jul 10 2008, 10:34 PM']I just wanted to say we Dominicans are very devotional. We pray the Holy Rosary twice a day and three during months of Mary. We are also involved in Consecration to Jesus through Mary, as it is ascribed by St. Louis de Montfort. We are initiated into the Angelic Warfare Confraternity. We do as many novenas to the many Feast days that are within the Order.

We are greatly devoted to our Holy Mother Mary, and Her Son the Holy Eucharist...

We contemplate and share in the fruit of our contemplation...we aren't just about study.

***********

That being said,

A Franciscan, a Dominican, and a Jesuit were up a mountain arguing about which Order God loved the most. The Jesuit decided they should pray about it and ask God for the answer.

So, all three of them knelt in prayer. It wasn't long before a letter fell from the clouds. It said:

"My sons, why do you argue amongst yourselves? You know I hold each one of you close to my heart. Quit this silly competition and get back to work!"

Your Loving Father,

God, O.P."
[/quote]


Haha I love that!!!!

[tinytherese]

It does seem as if all religious orders have some things in common. I took a test online multiple times to see what type of spirituality that I identify with to help me discern. I found out each time that I was ignatian, but since I'm female that doesn't help.

[littlesister]

Try some of the communities devoted to St. Joseph. Historically, their design can be as Jesuit as the S.J.'s themselves.

The Catholic nerd is hilarious!

[Carolyn]

[quote name='dominicansoul' post='1597299' date='Jul 10 2008, 08:34 PM']That being said,

A Franciscan, a Dominican, and a Jesuit were up a mountain arguing about which Order God loved the most. The Jesuit decided they should pray about it and ask God for the answer.

So, all three of them knelt in prayer. It wasn't long before a letter fell from the clouds. It said:

"My sons, why do you argue amongst yourselves? You know I hold each one of you close to my heart. Quit this silly competition and get back to work!"

Your Loving Father,

God, O.P."
[/quote]

Hehe!

[Luigi]

QUOTE: It does seem as if all religious orders have some things in common.

You're right - many orders have many things in common. The religious life - whether male or female - is a way to sanctification and salvation, so there will be many things in common. The Benedictine motto is "Ora et Labora," "Prayer and Work," but actually those are the same elements of all Christian life (lay people ought to work and pray, too!). The question is focus and emphasis.

Perhaps the clearest way to think about the distinctions is to ask, "What are the spiritual practices of the order/congregation?" and "What are the ministries of the order/congregation?" The more contemplative the order, the more prayer they incorporate; the more active the order, the more ministry they incorporate. Of course, prayer can be viewed as a kind of ministry, and ministry can be viewed as a kind of prayer - that's why I say it's a question of focus and emphasis. Even the most active orders, however, place some emphasis on prayer.

Many of the orders have mottos, and their names together with their mottos usually express the spirit or charism of the order. For example:
1.The Benedictines (including Cistercians, Trappists, and all the other congregations of Benedictines) pray and work. In terms of spiritual practices, that includes lectio divino and the divine office in community (as opposed to secular priests, who also pray the divine office but not usually in community); the work might be farming, or teaching, or parish work - it varies with the monastery, its history, the demands/requests it has received from the bishop, and so forth.
2.The Dominicans (Order of Preachers) have their "four pillars" - prayer, study, community, and preaching, and their motto "Truth."
3.The Sisters of Mercy are more active and minister in all of the corporal & spiritual works of mercy.
4.The Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus have strong ties to the Jesuits (the foundress, St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, had a brother who was a Jesuit and they received a lot of spiritual direction from the Jesuits in their early days) so their spirituality is rather Ignatian, and their ministry has (traditionally) focused on educating girls/women (Sophie Barat wanted to re-Christianize France after the Revolution by teaching women, who would then teach the faith to their spouses and children).
5. The Visitandines try to "Live Jesus" in the spirit of Mary's visit to Elizabeth.

Most of the orders were founded in response to the needs of their time & place, and one of the challenges for every order is how to live out that original charism - their spiritual practices and their ministry - in their current time and place. I've said, in other threads, that one of the beauties of the Catholic Church is that there are many ways to be holy - contemplative, active, a combination of the two, more traditional, more innovative - and so discerners have a lot of choices. The question is locating (and understanding) the order that offers the individual discerner what s/he needs for sanctification and salvation in terms of spiritual practices and ministry.

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='tinytherese' post='1622752' date='Aug 9 2008, 02:57 PM']It does seem as if all religious orders have some things in common. I took a test online multiple times to see what type of spirituality that I identify with to help me discern.[/quote]
Do you have a link to said quiz?

[Saint Therese]

[quote]They aren't very devotional.[/quote]
Forgive my ignorance, but what does that mean?

[tinytherese]

[post="0"]Find Your Spirituality Type[/post]

[Vincent Vega]

I'm not really sure what's up with that link, but I don't think it leads to the right place.

[DominicanPhilosophy]

I believe this is the quiz:

[url="http://www.vocation-network.org/articles/read/96"]http://www.vocation-network.org/articles/read/96[/url]

I've taken it before; pretty neat!

[johnnydigit]

how about a different twist to the topic. first, i've been discerning for about 4 years. i've visited maybe 7-8 communities total. i decided a few months ago to enter religious life. so far i've discerned with one, and am leaving to visit another this week.

in the beginning i was clueless about the different spiritualities and orders. i could not find any place that had a good comparison and i'm somewhat of a computer nerd, so i had to find out the hard way. (btw, how long has [url="http://www.religious-vocation.com/differences_religious_orders.html"]http://www.religious-vocation.com/differen...ous_orders.html[/url] been up? i'm really peeved now because i'm now seeing this!)

anywho, my point is that for me, i find it less important now what spirituality the community is based on. granted it will indicate generally what the order is about, but what is more critical to me now is their charism, their horarum (schedule), and whether i would get along with the specific members.

communities are so widely varied, that they simply are spread all over the board. e.g., even though the Benedictines and Carmelites are more contemplative spiritually, a certain Franciscan community may be much more contemplative than a certain Benedictine or Carmelite community, the biggest difference i see would be in how strictly they follow the original spirit of the founder, or how "traditional" they are.

also, i've talked to many religious who have changed orders mainly because of the specific community and their personality, rather than the spirituality of the order. many are still loyal to their original Spiritual Father/Mother. e.g. Fr. Benedict Groeschel, he originally wanted to be an Augustinian as he loved St. Augustine, but as you know he is a Franciscan now. He is very loyal and loves St. Francis of course, but his heart lies with St. Augustine. it just turned out that the Franciscan community was the best fit.

anywho, at the moment i'm all about Franciscan spirituality, but i started out thinking i was going to be a Carmelite. throw in Dominican and a few others in between. so who knows how it will change in the future. well i hope that helps somehow. Ave Maria!

[RosaMystica]

Wow, that quiz is really cool! Thanks for posting it!