Keeping Your Vocation To Yourself...

[alicemary]

I think it is very important to speak to others about what you are feeling about possibly entering religious life, but I believe you must use caution. Work or school may not be the best place to broadcast it. Some people have confusing ideas of what entering the convent means, and you don't want to be held accountable for all you actions before your enter. I mean, if you want to have a couple drinks or go dancing, you don't want people throwing it in your face...what kind of nun would you be?
Phatmass is wonderful for finding good people. Many convents have a pre postulancy program, and certainly there are others discrerning there. And of course,you really need to have a good rapore with the vocation director/novice mistress of your chosen community.

[cathoholic_anonymous]

In spite of the condescending tone and the sister's doubtful status, the principle of keeping your vocation to yourself is a good one. During the early stages of my discernment I was ready to babble on about Carmel and all these different communities to anybody who would listen. Now I'm much more reluctant to speak about it unless the person is a particularly close friend. My reasons for the shift in attitude go like this:

1.) Non-Catholics who don't know much about the religious life may pin a prejudice to you so firmly that it will be difficult for you to remove it. (I very much regret telling one of my friends at university about my discernment, as he is now firmly convinced that I am scared of sex and is doing his valiant best to help me conquer a phobia that doesn't exist.) Catholics may get so overexcited and enthused by your choice that you will feel as if you are letting them down when you tell them that you aren't quite as ready to leap into the nearest monastery as you thought.

2.) Your judgment may be weakened by the well-intentioned but misguided advice of the kind of people that Lauren mentioned.

3.) Alternatively, your vocal insistence that you are "soooooooo totally gonna be a sister" may stopper up your ears and prevent you from hearing God's voice in the words of good and sensible friends. Your prayer will become about what YOU want.

4.) You will begin to fantasise about the future instead of concentrating on serving God in this present moment.

I've made all of those mistakes. Now I am very careful about the people I talk to, choosing only those friends (Catholic and non-Catholic) whose judgment I respect. Not necessarily those whose judgment I agree with. The results have been very positive.

I do occasionally make an exception to the rule. As I was walking home from a tutorial one day, my tutorial partner (an atheist) asked me if I had begun thinking about what to do after leaving the university. I opened my mouth to tell him about my plans to write and do not-for-profit work (both of which fit quite nicely under the umbrella of Carmel), but something inside urged me to challenge him. So I said simply, "I hope to be a nun." That one sentence nearly threw him sideways. We were discussing the monastic life and the value of prayer all the way home.

But that was an exception. If it happened all the time the experience would not be valuable and I wouldn't have known how to give answers to his questions.

[Starets]

I havent told very many people about my vocational discernment. First, because I am an intensely private person anyway. I hardly talk about myself with my coworkers to any extent. Second, because my financial impediment may well prevent me from joining till I turn 50, if then. Come tio think of it, thats not too far away for me. If I tell people about my discernment, they sometimes expect you to disappear into the monastic life within a few months.