How Did Your Vocation Start?

[VeniteAdoremus]

When DominicanPhilosophy said
[quote]Anyway, though, now, the way society is, religious life is talked about so little that until a girl actually has a visible, tangible encounter with a religious, she's probably not going to even realize that her calling may very well be to espouse Christ.[/quote]
something struck a chord with me...

In hindsight, I first had a hunch waaaay back when. Maybe even in primary school. I'd read all the stuff about "leave [i]everything[/i] and follow Me", and thought, well, that makes sense! Being not very sensitive to the minds of other people I assumed everybody thought that, and this was just one of those things we Don't Do Anymore! Hey, it sounded very logical to me

So, I've heard that some people only knew their call was marriage when their future husband walked into the street, and that others said they'd be a priest while still in kindergarten and stuck with it... what was your very very first hunch?

[DiscerningSoul]

When I was in high school(Mary Immaculate Academy) I met a sister(Sr.Immaculata) who lit the flame in my heart.
Over the years my flame in my heart has flickered from wane to bright, its has only been about a month that I can honestly say it has set me afire with God's love, it burns so bright now I can only see my life with our Lord.
There were times in my life that I thought my flame went out, however I now know it never went out, God held on to it so I would never loose it.
I feel so deeply on fire for Jesus's Sacred Heart of Love!

[Deus te Amat]

I'm not very eloquent about personal things, but I'll try.

I think it first started when I was little,... I remember putting blue towels on my head and pretending I was Mary. I would soak up the *little* Catechises I received in Sunday School, and was the first one to learn all of the prayers.

When my parents stopped taking us to Mass in 5th grade, I knew that something was missing. I would ask when we'd be going again, and receive a "maybe soon" answer, but I knew better than to nag. I didn't know what to do, and since I didn't know with my head that not going to Mass was wrong, I didn't worry about it. But there was a hole in my heart, and it was only at peace when I was able to go to Mass, or when I'd sit next to my grandma as she prayed the Rosary.

My grandma died when I was twelve, but her intercession is probably why I had the courage to come back to full communion with the Church. When I was fifteen, I was invited to a Steubenville Conference with my Youth Group, and was able to go. It was there that I met my first religious sisters (Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus) and it was there when I first truly felt the Call.

I was open to the Holy Spirit that weekend, and He infected me with Zeal for the faith. I had never stopped believing, I just hadn't been able to question my parents-something I was taught not to do. I felt God's love, and even though I felt dirty, unworthy, I knew that I wanted to serve Him, to Know Him and to bring that Love to other people. The Holy Spirit changed my life in just a few days, a few hours, and I never have wanted to go back.

Seeing the religious sisters there, so full of joy and happiness, Brides of Christ, kindled a fire in my soul. I wanted to be like them, to be a Handmaid, little and unworthy, but Serving the Lord with heart and soul. I wanted to bring others to Him by example, by the Holy Spirit shining forth on my face.

I returned home and faced opposition from my parents. They thought I had been brainwashed, and were reluctant to let me return to Church. But I remembered my grandmother's devotion to the rosary, and began praying it daily. With Mary's intercession, I was able to return to the Mass and Full Communion with the Church.

Since then, my relationship with God has matured from an emotional one, as first felt at Steubie, to a personal one. There are high times, and there are low times. There are moments where praying is the last thing I want to do. I fail a lot, but I try to do it anyway.

I know God is calling me. I am Happiest when I speak of Him to others, when practicing apologetics, in the Adoration Chapel, at Mass. Those are the times when I feel complete.

I am still discerning, and I will always be discerning, but if God wills, I will someday be a Bride of Christ.


This got a little long... I'm sorry. I guess I've been needing to write something like this for awhile. I even omitted some things!

edit for spelling.

Edited June 12, 2008 by Deus_te_Amat

[DiscerningSoul]

[quote name='Deus_te_Amat' post='1568911' date='Jun 11 2008, 10:50 PM']I think it first started when I was little,... I remember putting blue towels on my head and pretending I was Mary.[/quote]

I did that too!

[dominicansoul]

DtA, that is very beautiful, thanks for sharing! Your story is very personal, and moving. Your witness will help others who may be in similar situations. There is a very delicate beauty in the way Jesus calls each and every single one of us to fall deeply in love with Him...

[Fr. Antony Maria OSB]

Amazing, DtA! And I couldn't help but laugh about the towel thing and acting like Mary: that's so cute!

As for me, I'm sure it all started back when I was 7 at the end of my second grade year. My grandparents were visiting from FL and celebrating their 55th wedding anniversary, and in honor of that we had a Mass at my grade school (a small one for family and friends). My cousin and I were going to sing, but the priest, Fr. Boniface (may he rest in peace) said he needed servers, so my cousin and I served. Fr. then invited me to come to daily Mass in the morning if I wanted to learn how to serve, and me, being the literal little inquisitive boy, took him up on his offer and had my mom drive me to the next town to serve Mass in the summer. I was later dubbed the "illegal altar server" since we weren't supposed to become servers until 4th grade. I've been a server ever since.

I know that the thought of the priesthood crossed my mind sometime in 7th grade, but I don't know why, and that didn't last too long, but the time when I really started to really think this is my call was the end of 8th grade. My parish is run by Marians of the Immaculate Conception, and along with that came a great devotion to the Divine Mercy message. In April of my 8th grade year, a person came and gave a presentation on the Divine Mercy message, and I went (it helps living two blocks from church ). I don't quite remember everything that happened there, but I have loved the Divine Mercy ever since. After the presentation was over, I stayed a prayed a bit in the pew, and I went to Confession, said my penance, and was about to go when a lady I had never seen before came up to me. Now, the church is dark except for candles shining in front of the Divine Mercy image, Gregorian Chant was playing was playing over the speaker system, and it was just a very prayerful environment in a very prayerful environment, and this lady said to me, "Excuse me, I don't know you and you don't know me, but I have been praying for you for the past five years, and will continue to do so, because that is what the Virgin Mary wants me to do." I told her thanks, she walked away, and except for her winking at me in the Narthex after I finally left, I haven't seen her since. So yeah, I really got down on my knees and prayed then, the hardest I had ever prayed before, and I really thought that maybe God was calling me to the priesthood. After four years of discernment, I'm pretty confident that this is what God wants me to do with my life. So yeah, that's how I began my discernment in a nutshell: the Mass, Divine Mercy, and Mary.

[Gemma]

[quote name='DiscerningSoul' post='1568918' date='Jun 11 2008, 10:56 PM']I did that too! [/quote]

So did I, esp. after our public school class visited the local historical proto-cathedral. I was a Baptist, too.

I remembered seeing habited sisters around town when growing up, and I wanted to be with them. I also saw Jesus (literally--for only a few seconds) at their motherhouse when we were attending a wedding reception being held there. Then, the VatII changes hit. Years later, after becoming Catholic, I was deemed too headstrong to be a good candidate by one of the sisters. I couldn't believe some of the stuff they used which passed as their Liturgy of the Hours. Literally made me ill.

I'm still drawn to their campus for the sake of recollection. How I wish I could get back there even now.

Blessings,
Gemma

[Only4Him]

For as long as I can remember I have always had the desire in my heart to do mission work, especially in South America, I love the language and the culture. But growing up, while I was exposed to sisters and priests, vocations to the religious life was never really talked about as a life option. I lived in Florida for some years and did actually speak to some sisters down there but it just didn't fit.

I fell away from the Church for quite awhile. But that all changed when my Dad died. I just saw the strength and courage my two sisters got from prayer and believing and wanted that. So I made an appointment to speak with a priest that my sister knew to start my way back into the church and I think it was the first visit I had with him that I "admitted" that I wanted to be a sister. That was three years ago and now I will be entering The Servants of the Lord and Virgin of Matara on June 17.

Christine

[Caramelonion]

Mine has been an interesting and joyous journey...

When I was in elementary school, I had to walk past a Catholic Church/School on the way to my school. I used to see the nuns outside and was very curious about them. I was a shy child and though I really wanted to know more about their lives, I was too embarrassed to ask.

My family were Methodists and after about Grade 3, we shopped going to church all together. I knew I was feeling a void in my life...but couldn't pin-point what it was. Little did I know that it was Jesus that I was missing!

Time passes (a lot of time to be precise) and one day over 30 years later...I was flipping around on cable and came across EWTN. I was instantly mesmerized and watched it almost non-stop for a week...it was as if I couldn't take enough in. I watched everything! It was at that moment that I decided that I [u]had[/u] to become a Catholic! I called the parish closest to me (coincidentally across the street from where I live...the Holy Spirit works in mysterious ways!) and started RCIA. It was while I was in RCIA that I felt the call to enter religious life and I knew it was to enter a cloistered order. It has been six years since that then...and it looks like I will be entering hopefully by the end of the year.

I guess it's never to late to feel a call or act on it. I thank God everyday for this wonderful grace.

[RosaMystica]

[quote name='Only4Him' post='1569419' date='Jun 12 2008, 09:32 AM']That was three years ago and now I will be entering The Servants of the Lord and Virgin of Matara on June 17.

Christine[/quote]

Oh my! That's only a few days away!! Congratulations!!!

[Stacey]

At the back of a Catholic church when i was 15, i picked up a light blue rosary and knew with a certainty that if i had been Catholic i would be a nun - but the next thought was, well i'm not so i can't be and it took me another 15 years before i did anything about the niggle that wouldn't go away, and came into the church. Several people since - including my family - have found it difficult to accept that God would even dream of calling someone who wasn't Catholic, had never been around reilgious or gone to religious schools - but He seems to have done, He can do anything after all. The thing was, my mom had remarried, my step-father is Catholic and they wanted the younger children baptised and brought up Catholic so we started going to church - God only needs a tiny opening and that's it. I also bought the rosary, learned all the prayers in the Simple Prayer book and still have it, it is very precious to me and has been with me ever since. My family have still not accepted my faith sadly. pax sr marie-therese.

[DominicanPhilosophy]

Hey there! Replying to your response to my response, lol:

Reflecting on my childhood, as early as I can remember, I've liked things plain and simple. I never enjoyed the frills of life, be it with clothes, food, anything. It's hard to express just [u]how[/u] much of an "indication," I suppose you could say, this was to me. I had never looked back upon my life until one night at a retreat called Destination Jesus. There was a vocations booth set up and I asked one sister who actually drove us up and was "working" under the booth if I could talk to her. We took a walk and found an empty room and sat in desks next to each other and she asked me questions and I basically poured out my soul to her without having previously thought about what I was going to say. I just felt like I was meant to tell her. It turns out that she was the assistant vocations director for the congregation that runs my school, the congregation that I feel a most ardent desire to enter, and even though I had eaten lunch with her at Panera with our school group on the way up to the retreat, I didn't know that about her and really didn't give any hints to her that I was considering religious life. But back to my childhood - ever since I was very little, I've been one to jump into something and give myself whole-heartedly. I had never been a bad kid, but I was raised in a family where spoiling took place, even though it was against my will, and religion was disregarded. I had absolutely no reason to behave or anything, but for some reason I always felt the need and the obligation to be what I now recognize as being "morally upright." I can say with confidence that it is only by the grace of God that I rejected being spoiled and that I stayed morally upright when even kids with religious households and morally-upright families chose to be disobedient and uncontrollable. Another small sign that I find kind of funny is that my first serious crush [other than Robin from Batman & Robin] was when I was about six on a soccer player named Dominic that, though much older than me, gave me private soccer lessons. A few years later, we got a dog and his name is Dominic. To see how my life played out, me now at a Dominican school and feeling called to a Dominican vocation, I see the truth in the statement, "God has a sense of humor!" I don't think that people understand His sense of humor until they actually experience it firsthand; I know I didn't. I never even knew what a religious was until this schoolyear; as I like to say, I knew [i]The Sound of Music[/i], and that's it. It's past 4 AM and I can't keep my thoughts straight, but until I really focused on the way the sisters carried themselves, the joy and holiness they lit up rooms with, I had been distant from God. When I went on my first retreat, one that was held at our school, I first heard the calling from Christ during Adoration. It shook me up to the point of tears, and a sister talked to me and shared her story until she, too, became teary-eyed. Every day, I marvel at the sisters and at the beauty of each "type" of vocation when they are truly lived out as they were intended to be. I marvel at my own vocation, even though I haven't fully discerned what it is yet; one can never truly know his or her vocation, for discernment is a life-long process undertaken by us imperfect humans. I'll close in saying that my vocation story has many, many parts to it - a lot of which even I haven't noticed yet - and I've tried to condense it here. Closing with a famous and really enlightening line, the one thing that I do know about my general vocation as a human, "My vocation is LOVE."

[srmarymichael]

I want to comment on this more later, but for now, I first felt called in the 8th Grade. I really didn't have the most inspirational Sisters as examples, so at first (for the first 8 years), it was very scary to me. Then, God in His goodness and with His powerful grace, helped me to overcome my fears and to embrace and want my vocation more than anything!

More later....

[VeniteAdoremus]

I love this thread

Thank you all. (Really, everyone personally.)

[cathoholic_anonymous]

[i]How did your vocation start?[/i]

When I was born.