How To Feel About This?

[Julie de Sales]

Let's say that you have seriously discerned with a community, but after a while you realize that you are not called there and you become interested in another order. Would the first community feel offended or hurt because you don't want to continue your discernment with them? I kind of tend to have the same feeling like when you break up with a boyfriend and you hurt his feelings.

[Maggyie]

No, they shouldn't. Now they might have a human emotional response "oh I wish Julie was still interested in entering here! we need her and liked her!", but this is not like breaking up with a boyfriend. Religious communities have the role of helping you discern. Whether you discern to enter there, or enter elsewhere, or that you do not have a religious vocation, the relationship has been a success.

 

A properly formed religious knows this and lives this. If they reacted with tremendous hurt and upset, that would be a huge red flag and confirmation that you don't want to continue discerning with them.

[Fr. Antony Maria OSB]

Along the lines of what Maggie said, I remember one of the first times I met the vocation director for my home diocese, he said that his job as a vocation director was not to recruit men to the priesthood, but to get them to sit in front of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament and then help them figure out what God's will for their life was. If that was with the diocese, great! If that was not with the diocese, great! If you don't think God is calling you to a particular community, then while they might have the human emotional response as Maggie indicated, they should also have the response of, "Well, if God isn't calling Julie to our community then it's God's will for us, too."

[TheresaThoma]

There probably will be that natural human reaction (oh we really liked her and wish she was called here) but they should be able to move past that and be happy that you are progressing in your discernment. 

I would also suggest stay in contact with the community, if you were seriously discerning with them then you obviously developed relationships there and just because you aren't discerning with them doesn't mean those relationships have to end. It can also be very helpful as you continue in your discernment to have a Sister or two outside of the community you are discerning with to talk to and help keep things in perspective. I keep in contact with two other VDs, one of them I have not discerned with her community but she is such a blessing as she knows me and is willing to ask the hard questions about my discernment.

[Spem in alium]

I agree with what's been said. It would be natural for them to feel a little disappointed, I think, but if they were seriously hurt by it then that would be cause for concern. 

I actually had a similar thing happen to me recently - I had to tell an order I've been discerning with that I've found another calling to me more strongly. It was hard because I didn't want to cause upset and because I love the Sisters, but they were very supportive which indicated to me that they're open and loving.

Once you make it clear, you don't need to stop communicating with the first order at all. Before I had that discussion I was going to the convent for prayer and dinner once a month and having spiritual direction every month also. I still hope to continue these things, not only because they're helping me in my spiritual life, but also because I've grown close to the community and don't want to sever the relationship just because at this stage I don't feel I'm drawn to them vocationally. 

[Catherine Therese]

I agree with all the other comments on what has been said about the importance of detachment in terms of the natural friendships that arise, in recognition of the fact that the mutual discernment of God's will for both individual and community is the priority. There was one thing I wanted to build upon, however.

A few of the commenters mentioned it was a bit of a red flag if there was anything other than a response of detached joy at the successful discernment of whether or not a particular order was 'the one.'

If you, or anyone from within the community with whom you were discerning, experience this, it's not all doom and gloom - there is something to be learned here, an opportunity to grow, too! 

I think this little tug of regret/loss on your (or another's) heart can be an invitation to meditate upon what it is to truly love God with an undivided heart. I think we all, at some level, DESIRE to love God in this total, unreserved and undivided way, and none of us really quite manage it as well as we'd like to! Every now and then He sends us little events in our lives that give us the opportunity to reconsider this, and to lay whatever it is we find in ourselves at His feet.