How Do You Deal With Parents When Discerning?

[emmaberry]

[quote name='MaterMisericordiae' timestamp='1343105693' post='2458360']
I hope your testing goes well! I can't wait to finish mine on Saturday.
[/quote]

It went very well, thank you. I knew I was mentally sound, but it is nice to hear it from a professional!

Will be praying for your 'finishing up' on Saturday!

[PhuturePriest]

I concur with much that has been said. It may not be that they are not devout (From the sounds of it, they are actually more devout than most Catholics), but their relationship has matured, as has been suggested. I was very on fire when I had my reversion, and I still am. I can talk about it all day, read books about it, and I willingly pray for a set time each day (I won't state how long so as to avoid pride, which is an issue of mine), but I have noticed how different I am now than from a year and a half ago. Sometimes people keep the fiery excitement, but others don't. This is not them slowing down spiritually necessarily, but them maturing into the next stage of their relationship with God. Give your parents the benefit of the doubt and try not to think that they aren't religious. I used to think this about my parents, but I noticed I tended to have thoughts along the lines of "I'm more spiritual than them because I pray for X amount of time each day and they rarely even do the Rosary." But the thing is, how do I know they don't pray every day? How do I know they rarely even do the Rosary? What I found out from my dad (Thankfully without asking him and thus avoiding a shameful act on my part) is that he prays the Rosary every day, and that when he was a trucker he would sometimes do it two or three times a day.

I really wouldn't worry about your situation. One thing parents do is they take an interest in what interests their children. If you are deeply interested in Religion and the Religious life, they will be, even if it takes longer than you would like. Spend time with them, speak with them not only about what interests you but what interests them (This is something we all fall to), and enjoy your time while you have it. Before you know it you will be off in a convent somewhere and you will find that you miss them very dearly and wish you had spent more time with them, even if that meant you didn't talk about Jesus all the time.

Edited July 28, 2012 by FuturePriest387

[emmaberry]

Thanks FP. Since I posted this (just weeks ago-oh irony), my relationship with my parents has settled somewhat. The Poor Clares totally did not let my dad talk down to them..Not to sound like a feminist (I'm not), but they really are a strong group of women, those cloistered nuns! Anyways, they put him in his place, and he hasn't been so brooding about my vocation since then. I think we wll start to get along even better once an entrance date is set, because then they will know that any efforts to change my mind are kind of pointless.

You are totally right about parents having hidden spirituality/prayer lives. Looking back on my OP, I can see that my problem was that my parents had a different mentality of the spiritual than I did, and neither of us was willing to go to the other's level so we could relate.

Thanks for the advice!

[Annie12]

[quote]How do you deal with parents when discerning?[/quote]

...I don't. I have issues.

[PhuturePriest]

[quote name='emmaberry' timestamp='1343448001' post='2459614']
Thanks FP. Since I posted this (just weeks ago-oh irony), my relationship with my parents has settled somewhat. The Poor Clares totally did not let my dad talk down to them..Not to sound like a feminist (I'm not), but they really are a strong group of women, those cloistered nuns! Anyways, they put him in his place, and he hasn't been so brooding about my vocation since then. I think we wll start to get along even better once an entrance date is set, because then they will know that any efforts to change my mind are kind of pointless.

You are totally right about parents having hidden spirituality/prayer lives. Looking back on my OP, I can see that my problem was that my parents had a different mentality of the spiritual than I did, and neither of us was willing to go to the other's level so we could relate.

Thanks for the advice!
[/quote]

This is good news. As for the Nuns being strong women, I know what you mean. I'm a Mother Angelica groupie, and if these Poor Clares are anything like that specific Poor Clare, your dad was most likely afraid of them by the time they put their point across. Nuns are lovely and nice, but they have a backbone of steel.

I hope this is what happens, at least for your sake. Sometimes when a date is set parents and their opposition are inflamed like never before, but other times they just make their peace with it because they know it will make you happy. In my case, I think my mother will be having anxiety attacks every day once a date has been set, and after I leave, but I am not worried because I know God has everything covered.

[ACS67]

This is one of my favorite "prayers." It is by St. Ignatius of Antioch. It actually was a letter he had written before he was killed. It could apply to parents (or anyone else) not understanding a vocation I would think....

[color=#000080][size=4][font=Times New Roman]"No earthly pleasures, no kingdoms of this world can benefit me in any way. I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sakes is my one desire.
The time for my birth is close at hand. Forgive me, my brothers. Do not stand in the way of my birth to real life; do not wish me stillborn. My desire is to belong to God. Do not, then, hand me back to the world. Do not try to tempt me with material things. Let me attain pure light. Only on my arrival there can I be fully a human being. Give me the privilege of imitating the passion of my God. If you have him in your heart, you will understand what I wish. You will sympathize with me because you will know what urges me on. "[/font][font=Times New Roman] [/font][/size][/color]

[i][size=3][color=#000000][font=Times New Roman]St. Ignatius of [/font][/color][/size][/i][size=3][color=#000000][font=Times New Roman][i]Antioch[/i][/font][/color][/size]

Edited July 30, 2012 by ACS67

[emmaberry]

[quote name='ACS67' timestamp='1343610764' post='2460105']
This is one of my favorite "prayers." It is by St. Ignatius of Antioch. It actually was a letter he had written before he was killed. It could apply to parents (or anyone else) not understanding a vocation I would think....

[color=#000080][size=4][font=Times New Roman]"No earthly pleasures, no kingdoms of this world can benefit me in any way. I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sakes is my one desire.
The time for my birth is close at hand. Forgive me, my brothers. [b]Do not stand in the way of my birth to real life; do not wish me stillborn. My desire is to belong to God. Do not, then, hand me back to the world. Do not try to tempt me with material things. Let me attain pure light. [u]Only on my arrival there can I be fully a human being[/u]. Give me the privilege of imitating the passion of my God. If you have him in your heart, you will understand what I wish. You will sympathize with me because you will know what urges me on. "[/b][/font][font=Times New Roman] [/font][/size][/color]

[i][size=3][color=#000000][font=Times New Roman]St. Ignatius of [/font][/color][/size][/i][size=3][color=#000000][font=Times New Roman][i]Antioch[/i][/font][/color][/size]
[/quote]

emphasis mine. Wow, thank you for this prayer ACS67! I love it, especially the parts I bolded and underlined. Very beautiful....I don't know if I can share this with my dad though, because he does not seem to "understand what I wish" or "sympathize with me" because he knows "what urges me on." This worries me, because in the prayer it says if you have Christ in your heart, you will understand.

He is not outright bullying my vocation at this point, more of a reluctant acquiescence since meeting the nuns. I so wish he would understand or sympathize, but maybe that is too much to ask when so many are disowned by family for entering religious life.

Thanks for sharing!

[ToJesusMyHeart]

I'm happy to hear that your situation has settled a little bit, emmaberry. My parents are only nominally Catholic, and only attend mass on Christmas and Easter, if I remind them. (And then we have a whole other conversation about being in the state of grace for Communion...and that [i]never [/i]goes over well...) My sister has renounced the faith. I understand where you're coming from, and hearing about these small, gradual improvements with your father are very encouraging. I still have 2 years of my education before I enter formation, so I pray that with time my family will accept my vocation, or at least come back to the Church.

Matthew 19:29 comforts me when I experience heartache over my family's lack of faith. "And everyone who has left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children or land for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times as much, and also inherit eternal life."

And St. Paul's words to the Colossians, too: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church."



All for Jesus! Pax. (:

[OnlySunshine]

[quote name='ToJesusMyHeart' timestamp='1344021334' post='2462253']
I'm happy to hear that your situation has settled a little bit, emmaberry. My parents are only nominally Catholic, and only attend mass on Christmas and Easter, if I remind them. (And then we have a whole other conversation about being in the state of grace for Communion...and that [i]never [/i]goes over well...) My sister has renounced the faith. I understand where you're coming from, and hearing about these small, gradual improvements with your father are very encouraging. I still have 2 years of my education before I enter formation, so I pray that with time my family will accept my vocation, or at least come back to the Church.

Matthew 19:29 comforts me when I experience heartache over my family's lack of faith. "And everyone who has left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children or land for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times as much, and also inherit eternal life."

And St. Paul's words to the Colossians, too: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church."



All for Jesus! Pax. (:
[/quote]

Take heart! I have been right where you are today. My parents couldn't have cared less a few years ago about taking their faith seriously. In just that short amount of time, my mom now attends the Sacrament of Reconciliation much more often. She never used to go unless she was with my sister and I for our first Sacraments. She and I have also participated in a CRHP weekend together and we are in Bible Study together. We are EMHCs and we volunteer VERY regularly around the parish.

My dad -- well, he's still a work in progress. He was born into a Southern Baptist household and converted to Catholicism before my parents were married. He sometimes misses Church to do yard work or other chores, but I have to give him credit for making improvement over the years.

My sister is a totally different story. She and I were both raised in a nominally Catholic household. We only attended Church when our parents weren't too tired so she and I had a difficult time understanding how important our faith was. When she left for college, everything unraveled. I was still searching then, too, and was very interested in other Christian and non-Christian religions. She was very lonely at college for the first year and found comfort in a non-denominational church that her new friend introduced her to. She quickly became involved in the Christian Campus Fellowship and a new non-denominational church that is anti-Catholic. Their beliefs involve second baptism and they often baptize people in kiddie pools or the university fountain. Now, I realize that for people who have never been baptized, it is better than nothing, but my sister was baptized as a Catholic when she was a baby, so there was no need for a second baptism.

Even now, I struggle to understand why she is still a member of the church she attends and my family would like to get her away from there because we've been privy to some very strange things including her pastor convincing her that she did not need her thyroid medication and that she should pray for healing. Hypothyroidism is nothing to mess around with and I would have supported her more if she talked to her doctor about it first, but she just stopped taking it one day and did not listen to my mom, other family members or me when we said she needed to have blood tests done first before ending treatment completely. She waited about a year until she finally made the appointment. Fortunately, her tests came back normal at the time, but it could return so she needs to be vigilant since it runs in our family.

My sister's church tried very hard to recruit my mom and dad whenever they visited, and that did some damage. I kept trying to convince them not to attend my sister's church and to let her go alone while they went to Mass, but they did not want her to be alone during their visit. So, up until last year, they gave her the impression that her church was legit and it caused her to believe that they are in full support of her beliefs. My mom recently came to the conclusion, after attending Bible Study and CRHP meetings, that she should have paid more attention to what she was doing and she told me she wished she had listened to me. Now, my mom is firmly against attending services with my sister, but my dad does not hold the same conviction.

I am very happy that my family has changed, but we are still works in progress. I am discerning a religious vocation and I am always trying to be the model Catholic for our family because I won't be around forever. I can only hope that, when/if I enter religious life, my prayers and work in the apostolate will have effect back home. I want my family in heaven with me -- including my sister. I don't think she is damned to hell for eternity because she doesn't believe in the Catholic faith -- she is still a very strong Christian -- but I would like to see her out of the unhealthy environment she is in.

So, take courage and take heart! God is always working in our lives! Prayers!

[ToJesusMyHeart]

Oh Mater, thank you so much for sharing that about your family. It is so encouraging to hear about improvements in families who have been in the dark place my family is currently in.

And whomever mentioned St. Catherine, YES. I read her biography (by Sigrid Undset...if you are wondering which book to buy on Catherine, buy his!!) and she has been such a heavenly companion for me. Her mother gave her the worst time about her vocation (as did her siblings!). One part of her biography details how she spent 3 years living the fully contemplative life in her small little cell, and when Jesus asked her to go out and be of humble service to his people, she seemed so alien to her family that none of them would even talk to her, other than to order her to clean something. She, of course, accepted this as a way to love sweet Jesus all the more perfectly. She said that because her family was so horrible to her, and caused her such pain, the only way she managed to serve them in charity and humility was to pretend that her mother was Our Lady, her father was Jesus, and her siblings were the apostles. With this mindset, she served everyone with the utmost patience and compassion, and soared to her very mystical heights.

Not to ramble and reveal my obsession with St. Catherine, but one time, she was in the kitchen (cooking dinner for her ungrateful family), standing over the hot stove (which included fire, embers, and/or coal of some sort), and when she went into ecstasy, she lost her ability to stand upright and thus fell face-first into the red-hot coals of the stove, and--being in ecstasy--was unaware of her flesh being pressed to these smoldering embers. One of her spiritual children (she guided/guides many people--known as the Caterinati) was fortunately in the kitchen with her, and managed to hoist Catherine from the embers, and miraculously, there wasn't a single burn on her!

Anyway, I believe that for many of us discerning, the lack of faith in our families is simply one of the thorns in the crown we must wear for our Lord. This, as with all our struggles, is part of our path to heaven. And for our families, we are (hopefully) one of the instruments our Lord will use to bring about their salvation. We have all been born into our particular families by the design of our God, and perhaps our vocations are just what our families need to come to know Christ in His fullness.

[emmaberry]

MM: Thank you for sharing! It is so encouraging to hear that other's families are not completely and totally supportive-not that I am happy for your pain, or anybody's, but misery loves company, right!?

TJMH: Wow. What a great post. I am bookmarking that one!

[ToJesusMyHeart]

Maybe tomorrow I will find the exact passage from her bio and paste it onto here, since it was such an encouraging read for me, and can probably offer consolation to the others here with families of less-than-enthusiastic acceptance. St. Catherine's mom went so far as to bring suitors to the house, and in utter protest, Catherine went into her cell and chopped off her hair without notifying anyone. She emerged, lacking her beautiful golden locks, and her mother was absolutely horrified, and didn't speak to her for several days.

Sigh. I just love our heavenly friends!

[emmaberry]

Please pray for me, VSers. In DC and my dad and I just had a meltdown fight...kind of sad. Basically, he humiliated me on the metro, and my eyes began leaking (tears/easy cryer). People were giving him dirty looks, and he did not like that, so he really got angry with me at our stop. I don't know how to reconcile with him, as I am a teenage girl who is overly emotional, and he is a hot headed stressed out lawyer dad. sigh.

I keep thinking that if I just try HARDER, then these things won't happen. I suppose that I think saints never got in fights with anyone.

Is it bad to be newly excited about the cloister because of the separation it gives from difficult relatives?

[OnlySunshine]

[quote name='emmaberry' timestamp='1344571591' post='2465389']
Please pray for me, VSers. In DC and my dad and I just had a meltdown fight...kind of sad. Basically, he humiliated me on the metro, and my eyes began leaking (tears/easy cryer). People were giving him dirty looks, and he did not like that, so he really got angry with me at our stop. I don't know how to reconcile with him, as I am a teenage girl who is overly emotional, and he is a hot headed stressed out lawyer dad. sigh.

I keep thinking that if I just try HARDER, then these things won't happen. I suppose that I think saints never got in fights with anyone.

Is it bad to be newly excited about the cloister because of the separation it gives from difficult relatives?
[/quote]

I'm sorry to hear that. Sometimes, it can be so difficult for our parents that they don't know how to handle it. If he has stress in other areas of his life, such as his job, he may be trying to get control in his home life in bad ways. Don't make yourself feel guilty for crying -- that's normal. If it makes you feel any better, I had these same kind of arguments with my mom earlier in my discernment. She didn't understand religious life and it scared her. Now, she is the one who helps keep me sane and cheers me on. Hopefully, your dad will come around with time.

As for the leaving difficult relatives behind, that's probably just a natural reaction you are having to the stress. As long as you don't constantly think that way (as your motivation for leaving), then I wouldn't worry about it. It's not a good reason for entering the cloister, by any means. From your other posts, though, I wouldn't think this is what is motivating you to enter.

[LittleWaySoul]

This is slightly off topic, but I feel such peace knowing that others who are discerning struggle with pride and parents who misunderstand. When I first told my parents about my desire to discern religious life, they immediately assumed that it was just a "phase" and that I might change my mind. Now, I'm not sure they're wrong and I'm all confused. It's just, after being in love with Jesus, even after my "fire" has burned out a bit, how could I settle for any earthly man? But then again, that might be my pride coming out again. Also, I'm not sure I'm well-suited to motherhood, so there's that, but only God knows.

I'm also just really confused about my vocation, and my family is very, very Catholic, and when I bring up becoming a nun, my parents don't shut me down, exactly, but they just sort of look at me like "Oh, hm. She thinks she wants this but I'm sure it'll pass..." I mean, they could be right, but some part of me feels like their hesitance is a test of my true love for Christ. Does this make any sense?

Also, I'll be praying for you, Emma! Stay strong