They Sent Me Back

[Lilllabettt]

The Sisters have always treated me with so much generosity, patience and love. There are some people who ignore or reject sick people; my Sisters are NOT like that. They asked me to leave because they want me to get better.

Please just pray for me.

[Sr Mary Catharine OP]

[quote name='By His Grace Alone' post='1460066' date='Feb 12 2008, 04:32 PM']Baloney. I stand by what I said. The notion that any man or woman does not have a religious vocation just because they got sick or have a physical handicap is absoultely absurd. It is more expeditious for a Community to send them home, but it is not the will of God. What a cop-out! Consider this...........Imagine what would have happened had St. Teresa de los Andes Superiors told her to leave and go home when she got sick with Typhus. Do you think she didn't have a religious vocation because she got sick?[/quote]

Teresa of the Andes was sick for only a short time and it was terminal. That's entirely different and no community would send someone home in those circumstances. However, Elizabeth has been sick since November of 2006. That's nearly a year and half. It's pretty much an indication that perhaps the life was nto for her and causing her stress and it was probably affecting her daily living of the life.

Perhaps when you enter and live the cloistered life for awhile you will come to see this in a different light. Novitiate is a time of testing and you must look at this in a supernatural light. Perhaps the Sister Servants were simply not the community God had in mind for her. We don't know and it's really none of our business.

I can't emphasis enough that superiors and those involved in formation do not make these decisions lightly. We lose sleep over these things and it's the hardest part of the office. They do have a "grace of office" that helps them see circumstances in the light of God's will in so far as possible. Of course we make mistakes! But discernment goes both ways. No one has a right to live the religious life. It is a grace.

I think it would be best if we cease this part of the discussion and support Elizabeth with our prayers and love right now. This is a very difficult time for her but the Lord permits all things for a reason.

Elizabeth you have my prayers and support. I hope you will get well soon! Live in the present moment, trusting that the Lord loves you and doesn't permit anything to happen to you without a reason. A community, a habit, a spiritual director, etc. are all very wonderful and helpful but in the end they are not what makes it possible for Jesus to dwell intimately in you. He alone is what really matters. Everything else is but a means to communion with Him.

[Lil Red]

[color="red"]a reminder that this is the Vocation Station and therefore NOT the debate table. if you'd like to make a thread about the topic of not having/having a religious vocation if you're sick, then please do so. but don't do it here.

God bless, Lil Red (a moderator)[/color]

prayers to the OP.

[By His Grace Alone]

[quote name='Lilllabettt' post='1460087' date='Feb 12 2008, 04:46 PM']The Sisters have always treated me with so much generosity, patience and love. There are some people who ignore or reject sick people; my Sisters are NOT like that. They asked me to leave because they want me to get better.

Please just pray for me.[/quote]

Of course, we are all praying for you. Actually, I think this discussion has balooned beyond your particular situation. My replies are not limited to the SSEW. I am sure they are all as lovely as you say that they are. However, it is common practise in this country to send men and women home if they get sick, whether they have ulcers, cancers, whatever. My main point to you was that it does not mean you do not have a vocation. I say this country because this would be unlikely to happen in, let's say, England.

To Gemma: Semantics! Sickness is sickness. Typhus is caused by the bite of an infected mosquito. It is a sickness like any other. I was only surprised that she was the only Sister who got sick. Typhus is no more a "pestilence" than yellow fever, dengue, or malaria.

[Starets]

[quote name='Lilllabettt' post='1460087' date='Feb 12 2008, 04:46 PM']Please just pray for me.[/quote]

Certainly, sweetheart

[cathoholic_anonymous]

[quote name='Lil Red' post='1460125' date='Feb 12 2008, 10:03 PM']prayers to the OP. [/quote]

Whenever I see the abbreviation 'OP' being used on this forum I automatically think of Dominicans.

I join everybody else in praying for you, Elizabeth. It must be a terrible disappointment and frustration to have to bear on top of your physical illness, but remember what Pope John Paul II said - Christ takes nothing away from us, He only gives.

"I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart," is a Bible verse that I always like to meditate on during Lent, and given your current situation I think it will have special meaning for you.

God bless you.

[HeavenlyCalling]

Prayers for you!! I hope that you get better soon and are once again able to discern God's will for you :-)

[Thomist-in-Training]

Prayers

[DameAgnes]

I think Sr. Catherine's remarks were very wise, and I am praying for you, Elizabeth.

I think there is a special sort of grace bestowed upon those who are asked to suffer, and this is a very heavy cross you have been given, which means it will bear much fruit if you live it obediently. Recall Hebrews 12-6 FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES.

These blogs blog sometimes discusses suffering. Perhaps the links will be useful to you.

[url="http://docisinblog.com/?p=47"]http://docisinblog.com/?p=47[/url]

[url="http://kmaru.blogspot.com/2005/05/on-suffering-meaning-and-godblogging.html"]http://kmaru.blogspot.com/2005/05/on-suffe...odblogging.html[/url]

[url="http://theanchoressonline.com/2005/07/08/listen/"]http://theanchoressonline.com/2005/07/08/listen/[/url]

[i]It is the Pauline paradox. When I am weak, then I am strong. When I have nothing left to offer, then I will finally simply allow You to take what You need. When I have finally gotten out of my own way, I will have gotten out of Yours, as well, so that you might strew me where you will, broken and scattered and meant for something beyond my imagining.

This, I suppose, is another mystery of suffering. When I was a child I once heard a woman talk about her son’s severe and unusual illness and how a nun, upon learning the details, said to her, “my dear, how God must love you to allow you to suffer so…”

At the time I thought the nun rather perverse. This idea of God demonstrating his love by allowing the loved one to suffer seemed dubious and theologically unsound. But as I get older, and look around a bit, I wonder if the old nun was not on to something. Often great blessings and great sufferings abide within the same single life, and it was ever thus.[/i]

[url="http://theanchoressonline.com/2004/12/11/slouching-toward-bethlehem/"]http://theanchoressonline.com/2004/12/11/s...ward-bethlehem/[/url]

[url="http://theanchoressonline.com/2005/05/25/the-mystery-of-suffering/"]http://theanchoressonline.com/2005/05/25/t...y-of-suffering/[/url] This one, scroll down, it gets better when they start talking Christianity, although the Buddhist stuff is interesting, too:

[i]In acknowledging that suffering is part of the brokenness of the world, and that we all - everyone one of us - suffer (and sometimes the suffering is very great) we understand that, as St. Peter wrote, our sufferings will never be more than we can bear. This is a clue and also a cue. It is a heads up from St. Peter to not be too overwhelmed to look around in our suffering, with expectation. Because if the suffering cannot be more than we can bear, then both corporeal and spiritual help is on the way, if we are willing to seek and recognise it. Some of that recognition will be of a deeper and less tangible, ultimately deeply personal and internalized sort. But before anything else happens, we need to raise our heads and look around. He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head. (Psalm 110:7)[/i]

Also, there is a small book, [i]The Way of the Cross in Times of Illness[/i] by Mauro that might be particularly apt during this Lent, for you

I am offering up all of my Complines for your good, Elizabeth, and I wish you peace.

Dame Agnes - Crotchety but Fair!

Edited February 13, 2008 by DameAgnes

[johnnydigit]

one perfect prayer for you. i worry about my health conflicting with my vocation also..

[Saint Therese]

I will be praying for you. Edited February 13, 2008 by Saint Therese

[veritas99]

I just wanted to post something from Uniformity With God's Will from Saint Alphonsus de Liguori.
It's a great little reading for anyone and I highly recommend it. The following is from page 18-19.

3. "Let us not lament if we suffer from some [i][/i]natural defect[i][/i] of bodyd or mind; from poor memory, slowness of understanding, little ability, lameness or general bad health. What claim have we, or what obligation is God under, to give us a more brilliant mind or a more robust body? Who is ever offered a gift and then lays down the conditions upon which he will accept it? Let us thank God for what, in his pure goodness, he has given us and let us be content too with the manner in which he has given it to us.
Who knows? Perhaps if God had given us greater talent, better health, a more personable appearance, we might have lost our souls!. . . Let us then be content with what God has given us.

4. It is especially necessary that we be resigned in [i][/i]corporal infirmities. [i][/i] WE should willingly embrace them in the manner and for the length of time that God wills. WE ought to make use of the ordinary remedies in time of sickness - such is God's will; but if they are not effective, let us unite ourselves to God's will and this will be better for us than would be our restoration of health. Let us say: " Lord, I wish neither to be well nor to remain sick; I want only what thou wilt." Certainly, it is more virtuous not to repine in times of painful illness; still and all, when our suffering are excessive. It often happens that some, on the occasion of a slight illness, or even a slight indisposition, want the whole world to stand still and sympathize with them in their illnesses."


I think I will stop there. The section that this part comes from is excellent and I highly recommend reading this the whole reading is only about 31 pages but is amazing.


Like I said before Elizabeth you will continue to be in my prayers. God bless you and all who suffer from various alliment.



In Jesus and Mary,
Tracy Dolan

[stlmom]

Tracy, your post does give the perspective we all ideally might assume when illness strikes. No doubt not very easy to practice at first. Wonderful contribution to the thread. I think the serenity prayer fits here as well.

[Ann Stanton]

I am willing to listen to you by e-mail. I will keep you in my prayers and thoughts. If your diagnosis is correct, then their is a strong probability that could be inherited and not something you did or did not do. I hope you are able to get well enough to rejoin your community.

[littlesister]

Prayers promised, honey. This kind of thing is indeed a terrible disappointment.
At the same time, and as has already been well said here, this prolonged problem could well be a sign that your vocation lies somewhere else. The body has a way of telling us what our minds may not perceive. If it won't take a stress that we may not even be aware of, our spirit will eventually follow it.
And, yes, superiors and councils do lose sleep over these decisions.
God bless.