Second Entrance: Let's Get It Right This Time

[maximillion]

^^^^^

 

Can't prop you enough nunsense!!!!!!!

 

 

As usual spot on and your own sense of hope and still being in love with Him shines through....

[Hemma]

Maybe I should make it more precisely: Leaving a community (and entering another one) wouldn't be as bad for me as returning to the world again. So my emergency plan for this time is leaving the community only by entering another. (Of course: finally everything will go completely else than I have planned before and yes, everything will be good.) Has anyone of you read the novel "Cosmas" by Pierre de Calan? Cosmas finds his peace with La Trappe, finally, but not how he or others had planned. Cosmas dies on the way to his third attempt of entering La Trappe, and he becomes buried on the monastery cemetery... The book is really worth to be read.

[Hemma]

Well :)

Tomorrow I go for about 9 days to the monastery I'm actually discerning with. I'm very much looking towards it. On the other hand, there's still so much to do until I leave tomorrow in the morning, that I shall be very glad when everything is done - I'm not ready to think about it yet. But in a few hours it will become true...

 

:nun1:

[Feankie]

Prayers for a fruitful stay at the monastery. Don't stress about getting things done.  If they are not pertinent to your leaving, they'll still be there when you return :)

[Deus te Amat]

I don't really have a lot of advice, but I just wanted to comment on your statement above (in bold and underlined by me). Yes, you can survive it. But every time you 'fail' (in our own minds - no one else really sees it that way), it gets a little harder each time, not only to trust others, but also to trust our own judgment. And, no matter what kind of a saint you might be (and who am I to say there aren't some out there! :) ), it is going to hurt like h.e.l.l. any and every time you feel like you have failed or been rejected. I know whereof I speak.

 

And sometimes we need to go through all kinds of manure before we can crawl back up out of our holes of disappointment, disillusionment and disgust (with others and/or ourselves). The funny thing is that no matter how much we might wish it from time to time, HOPE never actually dies. Sometimes it goes into deep hibernation and we think it has died, but it is the nature of hope never to die. But, and here's the catch, sometimes when our hope starts to emerge again, as a little shoot perhaps, there is also an increase in pain, so we try to turn away from the hope and disappear back into forgetfulness again. But, because of its nature, that little shoot just won't go away, no matter how much we ignore it. It might get transformed into different dreams and desires, or it may resurrect in us our original ones, but as it grows, each time we acknowledge it, the pain also resurfaces - sorry to say.

 

Sounds depressing, doesn't it? But no! And here is the good part. The pain isn't our enemy, it is our wake up call - alarm clock, if you will. It tells us that it is time to start moving forward again and to leave behind all the dark matter attached to our memories. Until we move through the pain, we can't let go of the little (or big in some cases) sorrows, resentments, bitterness, anger, etc, that are holding us back from the next adventure that God has in store for us.  Once we stop fearing the pain, then we can move on to healing in our heart, and open ourselves to forgiveness, compassion for others, and even start to trust again - in ourselves, in others, and mostly importantly, in God.

 

As someone who has entered not once, not twice, not three times... well let's stop counting shall we and just say that 'as a person of some not inconsiderable experience in entering religious life', I can honestly tell you that God has plans for your good, and that no matter how painful some experiences can be, it is His love that will see you through it all. So, get angry at Him, if He deserves it (we often think He does, don't we?), and even threaten to forget Him, like Jeremiah did, or run away, like Jonah did, or tell Him that the ball is now in His court because you've had it with Him, but perhaps with some small part of your heart, try to hang on to His little finger, just in case you change your mind later.

 

I am always amazed that God really can and does heal us, but sometimes we have to reach rock bottom first. Resurrection comes, but the lead up to it is pretty grisly. Some of our Crosses might not actually kill us, but there sure are times when we might feel like they have, or even wish they had. But - as long as we hang around - we can be sure that little shoot of hope is going to emerge again sooner or later.

 

On a practical level, there has been a lot of good advice on here: take it slow, don't burn your bridges at home, don't beat yourself up over apparent failures. God bless you - it's your efforts He loves.
 

 

This, this, a thousand times this.

 

Nunsense, it is good so see you again. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us.  :buddies:

 

Senesis, your emphatic insistence that you will never leave the religious life again troubles me. I entered religious life with the intention of never leaving, and trying to reconcile that -- my will, with God's will for me to leave, nearly broke me. God's will be done! not mine, oh Lord.

 

A true sign of spiritual growth is "He must increase, I must decrease" -- a true surrendering of self in the will of God, and the authentic peace and joy that accompanies it. Do not enter with a "back up plan" or a dictation of what will happen. Enter desiring to do the will of God, and seeking to say yes at each step along the way.

 

Just my two cents from the other side of the world.

 

 

Prayers for you. Please pray for me.

[maximillion]

Can't echo this ^^^^^^^ enough. I came out after 14 years. You just don't know what He has planned for you down the road. It was the hardest decision I ever made and now I know it was the right one, but it was not something I ever imagined or expected.