Saints who left home to follow their vocation

[JessicaKoch]

What saints have left home to follow their vocation?

[NadaTeTurbe]

Sainte Claire of Assisi, and it was brutal ! St Francis of Sales, his father disagree with his vocation, but he waited until his father said it was okay (i love this story, because it shows you don't have to disobey to your parent to follow your vocation). Sainte Thérèse of LIsieux, and all her sisters... 

[MarysLittleFlower]

What saints have left home to follow their vocation?

St Clare, St Faustina - both left secretly (I think St Faustina wrote a letter)

St Margaret Mary - her relatives tried to stop her at first 

Many Saints who were religious had some sort of opposition. 

Edited May 11, 2015 by MarysLittleFlower

[Luigi]

St. Philippine Duchesne went to the Visitation school in Grenoble (her home town). When she was eighteen or nineteen, she wanted to joined the community, but her father refused his permission - he was not religious himself, and he could see the French Revolution coming. But a woman couldn't join the convent unless she had family permission. So her aunt (I believe her aunt was her godmother) went with her and signed the paper as the family representative.

During the revolution, the convent was dissolved and all the nuns went home to their families. After the revolution, Philippine used her own money to buy the Visitation monastery (it had been used as a jail by the revolutionary forces) and tried to re-establish regular Visitation life. That didn't work out. So she contacted Sophie Barat in Amiens who had just started a new order, Religeuses du Sacre Coeur de Jesus, and the Grenoble convent became the second convent of the RSCJ's.

Still later - 1818 - Mother Duchesne left France and came to Missouri in the US. She never went back to France; she stayed in the US until she died in 1853.

[marigold]

St. Philippine Duchesne went to the Visitation school in Grenoble (her home town). When she was eighteen or nineteen, she wanted to joined the community, but her father refused his permission - he was not religious himself, and he could see the French Revolution coming. But a woman couldn't join the convent unless she had family permission. So her aunt (I believe her aunt was her godmother) went with her and signed the paper as the family representative.

During the revolution, the convent was dissolved and all the nuns went home to their families. After the revolution, Philippine used her own money to buy the Visitation monastery (it had been used as a jail by the revolutionary forces) and tried to re-establish regular Visitation life. That didn't work out. So she contacted Sophie Barat in Amiens who had just started a new order, Religeuses du Sacre Coeur de Jesus, and the Grenoble convent became the second convent of the RSCJ's.

Still later - 1818 - Mother Duchesne left France and came to Missouri in the US. She never went back to France; she stayed in the US until she died in 1853.

​Ooh, interesting!

[Swami Mommy]

This is slightly off topic, but when I was venturing out onto a different spiritual path than that of my family's heritage, I met with great opposition from my father-in-law. I had to do some serious thinking about what it would mean to me to appease him by keeping the status quo and imagined how I would feel in the future as he lay on his death bed.  Would he say to me 'Thank you for not rocking the boat and my view of the family in 1992 by denying your heart's longing.  I really appreciate it.'?  I think not!  I had to be firm and say to him, I'm sorry that my life choices are not to your liking, but it's a good thing that as an adult woman, I now no longer need anyone else's permission or approval to live my life in the way that satisfy's my deepest needs.  He never said a word to me about my choices ever again.  

[Luigi]

​Ooh, interesting!

​If you want the full story, find yourself a copy of Philippine Duchesne: Pioneer Missionary of the Sacred Heart 1769-1853 by Louise Callan, rscj. There's a longer hardback version published in about 1940, with lots of footnotes and references; you can probably find this in the library of a Catholic university. Then there's a shorter (350 or 300 page) version that came out about 1965 without all the footnotes and references, but it does have a good index. That's the one I read.