I Need Some Help...

[ortus]

[quote name='HisChild' date='20 August 2009 - 11:02 AM' timestamp='1250780528' post='1953216']


Yes. I still say, even to my own family, 'for some reason I've entered and left...it's Providential, and eventually the rest of the story will be revealed.'

But I still hang my head in shame and sorrow thinking my past was a failure. I try to be kind to myself. That's sometimes difficult.



[/quote]


I think I understand something of what you write. When I was 18 I tried my vocation and left part way through my novitiate. For a long time, I went over and over my decision to leave and regretting it - carrying it round like my own private millstone.

It was years later that I started to reconsider the possibility that I may have a call to the religious life and something that my Spiritual Director said to me helped me quite a lot. He said that I bring all of my uniqueness to my vocation and that includes my baggage - all of my frustrations and regrets as well as my talents and capabilities. By saying yes to the possibility of a religious vocation, I am offering all of this to the Lord to do with what He will. I can have no way of knowing how he will use that uniqueness but I guess that is all part of His Providence. All I can be is grateful that He is still offering me the gift of the possibility of following Him. I hope that does not sound too much like a sermon and I am not trying to give you advice but what you wrote struck a chord with me.

I had another thought about another figure with a meandering vocation. Fr Gerard Fitzgerald was a diocesan priest who went on to become a Holy Cross Father and then founded the Handmaids of the Precious Blood and the Servants of the Paraclete. There is a lovely biography of him by the late Fr Hardon SJ, I think it's called Apostle of the Eucharist. Fr Hardon, whose own Cause for canonization is in the early stages, certainly rated Fr Gerald very highly.

Peace and Joy in the Lord

[Indwelling Trinity]

[quote name='HisChild' date='20 August 2009 - 12:02 PM' timestamp='1250780528' post='1953216']
Thank you all! I'm so grateful to all your responses. I will have a lot of reading this weekend I can just tell!

You've all really edified me. I was told by a well meaning someone (a religious) that since I'd been in more than one community (only as a postulant) that must mean I wasn't called to religious life. Perhaps that IS true I'm still discerning and praying... but have you ever placed two or more things before our Lord asking for direction? All are good choices, but only one makes your heart calm? That's me and religious life. I'm not sure I'm meant to found a religious community, although I've journalled my ideas of what came to mind one night after a particularly vivid dream. I DO know whatever I do will be somewhat if not completely cloistered. I also feel called to the Carmelite charism, but our Lord will reveal Himself and His will for me. Sighs. In His time...that's what I continue to tell myself, but sometimes I don't listen.

Dear His Child:

Laughing... don't let your heart be upset. I enetered religious life at 18 was professed left to become a Carmelite and had many ups and downs over the years. yet in my heart I know at its deepest level I am still a Carmelite
Currently I am a consecrated hermit in the Carmelite tradition when seemingly out of no where other women started coming to me asking to start a Carmelite Laura. Trust me i did not go out looking for this and made sure i got plenty of good spiritual direction from other Carmelites both Fathers, hermits and Prioresses. and so I with two others have embarked on this Journey of love not knowing where it will lead. If any saying is true, the one that says God writes straight with crooked lines is very true. After coming out of Carmel i obtained a degree in medicine and post graduate work in clinical psychology. I have experienced complete brokenness feeling completely abandoned by God for many years.

All I can say is that God is found in the journey and everything i have endured to this day only serves to expand my heart in Love not only for God, but for myself and others. It has developed a Mother's heart in me and now all that i have learned through the years i see is now a gift to God and to others. God is ever faithful. He uses trials like this in order to completely strip us of all that is not Him. Yes it is a painful process but isnt that what we wanted? To love Him totally for Himself? He is the Potter we the clay to be formed as He wishes and each creation of His is beautiful and unique. Today we see only the broken threads of the underside of the tapestry, one day we will see the face of the tapestry he has created with our lives and will wonder at the Goodness of God! Keep walking your journey step by step. God will not let you or any other who is truly seeking Him to fall or be lost. He is a God of Merciful Love. Let us ask him for the grace to follow him in blind faith. This is the Carmelite way.

Tenderly,

Indwelling Trinity


Yes. I still say, even to my own family, 'for some reason I've entered and left...it's Providential, and eventually the rest of the story will be revealed.'

But I still hang my head in shame and sorrow thinking my past was a failure. I try to be kind to myself. That's sometimes difficult.




I'm reading Nazarena's book right now! Isn't her story wonderful? Her life builds mine up. She too thought she was called to Carmel and ended up Camaldolese. Her story is why I continue to be open to the gentle guiding wind of the Holy Spirit.

Thank you all for your assistance. May God reward you!

HisChild, who never ceases to be amazed in the love God has for me
[/quote]

[Indwelling Trinity]

[quote name='HisChild' date='20 August 2009 - 12:02 PM' timestamp='1250780528' post='1953216']
Thank you all! I'm so grateful to all your responses. I will have a lot of reading this weekend I can just tell!

You've all really edified me. I was told by a well meaning someone (a religious) that since I'd been in more than one community (only as a postulant) that must mean I wasn't called to religious life. Perhaps that IS true I'm still discerning and praying... but have you ever placed two or more things before our Lord asking for direction? All are good choices, but only one makes your heart calm? That's me and religious life. I'm not sure I'm meant to found a religious community, although I've journalled my ideas of what came to mind one night after a particularly vivid dream. I DO know whatever I do will be somewhat if not completely cloistered. I also feel called to the Carmelite charism, but our Lord will reveal Himself and His will for me. Sighs. In His time...that's what I continue to tell myself, but sometimes I don't listen.

Dear His Child:

Laughing... don't let your heart be upset. I enetered religious life at 18 was professed left to become a Carmelite and had many ups and downs over the years. yet in my heart I know at its deepest level I am still a Carmelite
Currently I am a consecrated hermit in the Carmelite tradition when seemingly out of no where other women started coming to me asking to start a Carmelite Laura. Trust me i did not go out looking for this and made sure i got plenty of good spiritual direction from other Carmelites both Fathers, hermits and Prioresses. and so I with two others have embarked on this Journey of love not knowing where it will lead. If any saying is true, the one that says God writes straight with crooked lines is very true. After coming out of Carmel i obtained a degree in medicine and post graduate work in clinical psychology. I have experienced complete brokenness feeling completely abandoned by God for many years.

All I can say is that God is found in the journey and everything i have endured to this day only serves to expand my heart in Love not only for God, but for myself and others. It has developed a Mother's heart in me and now all that i have learned through the years i see is now a gift to God and to others. God is ever faithful. He uses trials like this in order to completely strip us of all that is not Him. Yes it is a painful process but isnt that what we wanted? To love Him totally for Himself? He is the Potter we the clay to be formed as He wishes and each creation of His is beautiful and unique. Today we see only the broken threads of the underside of the tapestry, one day we will see the face of the tapestry he has created with our lives and will wonder at the Goodness of God! Keep walking your journey step by step. God will not let you or any other who is truly seeking Him to fall or be lost. He is a God of Merciful Love. Let us ask him for the grace to follow him in blind faith. This is the Carmelite way.

Tenderly,

Indwelling Trinity


Yes. I still say, even to my own family, 'for some reason I've entered and left...it's Providential, and eventually the rest of the story will be revealed.'

But I still hang my head in shame and sorrow thinking my past was a failure. I try to be kind to myself. That's sometimes difficult.




I'm reading Nazarena's book right now! Isn't her story wonderful? Her life builds mine up. She too thought she was called to Carmel and ended up Camaldolese. Her story is why I continue to be open to the gentle guiding wind of the Holy Spirit.

Thank you all for your assistance. May God reward you!

HisChild, who never ceases to be amazed in the love God has for me
[/quote]

[Indwelling Trinity]

Yes I love Nazarena. When i was a young missionary in Rome i knew Don Anselmo Nazarena's spiritual director at San Gregorio al Cielio also Father Thomas Matus was a young priest then at San Gregorio. We sisters had a house for the poor at San Gregorio laughing.. and our convent was the old monastery's chicken coop! I am not kidding! Mother Teresa loved it as it was very poor.

I hope you got my last post.

Hugs,

Indwelling Trinity

[littlesister]

Mother Nadine Brown left the Good Shepherd Contemplatives to found the Intercessors of the Lamb.

[Gemma]

[quote name='littlesister' date='20 August 2009 - 05:00 PM' timestamp='1250798446' post='1953331']
Mother Nadine Brown left the Good Shepherd Contemplatives to found the Intercessors of the Lamb.
[/quote]

Mother Assumpta, et al, left Nashville to found the DSSME.

Mother Gabriel (Mother Assumpta's birth sister) left Nashville to found the SSEW.

Sr. Judie Ann left the Felicians to found the Sisters of Christian Love in Detroit.

There have been others.

But in answer to your original question, check Saints Online, where the author of the site has "those rejected by religious orders." Some went on to found communities, some did not. Blessed Kateri is one of the latter, although one site said she was permitted to be a sister by the Mission's Jesuits.

Anywho. . .

Blessings,
Gemma

[HisChild]

[quote name='Gemma' date='20 August 2009 - 03:02 PM' timestamp='1250805773' post='1953378']


But in answer to your original question, check Saints Online, where the author of the site has "those rejected by religious orders." Some went on to found communities, some did not. Blessed Kateri is one of the latter, although one site said she was permitted to be a sister by the Mission's Jesuits.

Anywho. . .

Blessings,
Gemma
[/quote]


Do you have a link for Saints Online? I googled it but only got Catholic Online and some LDS link...

[zunshynn]

St. Benedict Joseph Labre entered several communities (he wanted to be a Cistercian), and each asked him to leave. He spent the rest of his life travelling from church to church to keep vigil and begging.

[shortnun]

Great thread... I read through just to make sure I wouldn't be repeating what anyone else said.
[b][url="http://www.ascjus.org/our_foundress/index.asp"]Mother Clelia Merloni[/url][/b] is the foundress of "my" community- [b][url="http://www.ascjus.org"]the Apostles of the Sacred Heart[/url][/b]. I can't remember off the top of my head (and it doesn't say exactly on the website), but I do believe she entered 4-5 convents before she founded the Apostles. An earthquake closed one of the communities she'd entered, fire destroyed another convent, her father forcefully removed her from another still, and in one she nearly died of disease. This was never an easy journey, but it all was God's plan for her as each of those communities influenced how she founded her ultimate community (which she was later exiled from!!). It's a fascinating story that resonates in my heart.

[Thomist-in-Training]

[url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=61428"]Sr. Consolata Bertone[/url] has been brought up before on PM. A Sister-penpal wrote to me about her when I was a bit astonished at switching to consider a religious community I had been firmly set against.

[quote]When I heard about Suor Consolata (Servant of God whose cause is going ahead) she wrote in her diary that she had really wanted to be an active sister and even joined a convent where she was very happy, but God had something else in mind.... He sent her to the cloister, something she dreaded! But the admirable thing that makes saints is that she accepted it as the Will of God as a vocation is not about doing what I like but doing what He wants. Anyway, I laughed when I heard about it and thought of you <grin>.

[Later]

I've taken up reading Suor Maria Consolata Betrone again because she had a very interesting mission. She started with a desire to be very good but when she started going to school became swayed by the world, boys etc. She herself said that she would have been lost if not a particular grace had saved her (her future spiritual director told her that he saw Our Lady with St. Joseph intercede for her conversion due to Suor Consolata's devotion to the rosary). Suor Consolata finally plucked up the courage to enter the convent after terrible persecution from the family. Entered into 2 institutes (even the novitiate) but left because she couldn't find peace. Finally she was advised to enter into the Poor Clares Capuchin, I report what her spiritual director wrote in her biography:

[color="#0000FF"]"Pierina [later Sr Consolata], who had entrusted herself to St. Joseph as a daughter, entered the Poor Clare Capuchin Monastery of Borgo Po at Turin on the feast of her Patron, April 17, 1929, putting herself thus under his special protection. But while she had previously entered with enthusiasm the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians and at Cottolengo, she admitted [now, at her third entrance into religion] "Nothing attracts me to be a Capuchin." And at bottom this can be an authentic sign of vocation. It is the Lord, and He alone, who draws the soul where He has put the place of its rest from all eternity. In "true" vocations there is nothing of the human [preferences, etc]."
[/color]

It was the path God had wanted for her and she finally became a professed religious. Suor Consolata was inspired to take on a special mission from God - to be a victim of love, especially for her brethren religious and priests. God allowed her to suffer all the temptations the religious of all times would suffer - temptations against obedience, chastity, repugnance, aridity, etc etc, which she fought and won, until her death. [/quote]

She entered 2 different places and finally entered the right place the third time.

St. Anthony, as mentioned above, began his religious life as an Augustinian canon and was ordained there. He met the Franciscans "on the job" as porter and eventually asked to be allowed to go, which he was, with some reluctance. It's not like he was a bad Augustinian or anything.

[Luigi]

St. Philippine Duchesne entered the Visitation monastery of Ste. Marie d'en Haut shortly before the French Revolution. The revolution disrupted religious life; the Visitation sisters went home, including Philippine, who had not yet made permanent vows. When things settled down, she wanted to re-enter the Visitation, and she did, but the mother superior couldn't re-establish commuity life. Philippine eventually contacted Sophie Barat, who had recently established the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (RSCJs). So from (approximately) 1804 until she died in 1853, Phillipine Duchesne remained an RSCJ. But she always retained certain Visitation influences, too.

[LilyofSaintMaria]

The one that came to mind first was Sister Lucy Santos of Fatima. She became a full professed Sister of St. Dorothy and then received Papal permission to leave and enter the Carmelites.

Bernadette