Single Vocation

[Spem in alium]

21 minutes ago, Sister Leticia said:

Just to throw something else into the mix...

There was a time when certain professions, like teaching and nursing, were regarded as a "vocation" by people of all beliefs and none. Many people who entered these professions remained in them for decades, until retirement, and female teachers and nurses were often lifelong spinsters, who dedicated themselves to what they saw as their calling. Yes, there were probably others who wanted to marry and for whatever reason couldn't/didn't, but some definitely saw their work as a near-lifelong vocation.

(And one of our sisters, who had trained as a nurse, used to say that Florence Nightingale's letters to her nurses were often very spiritual)

There were also many unmarried women who joined church mission societies and spent their lives in mission territories.

And there was also a time, until about 80 years ago, when it was quite common for families to have a daughter who remained unmarried, and cared for elderly parents, or who stepped in and kept house for her father and brought up her younger siblings if their mother died or became an invalid. This happened to the oldest sister of Janet Stuart RSCJ (1857-1914), a well known former superior general from England. Theodosia was about 19 or 20 when their mother died, and Janet, the youngest, was still only about 3. Theodosia brought up all the younger children, mothered and cared for them and taught them strong Christian values, and remained with their father until she died of TB aged 37, when Janet was 20. That was her vocation - and Theodosia did regard it as something coming from God.

If you've read "What Katy did" then you'll recall that Aunt Izzy was a spinster who stepped in and cared for her widowed brother and his children. This wouldn't have been seen as unusual by the book's original readers.

Sadly, society's norm being marriage, and novels and fairy tales ending with marriage and living happily ever after, means that many people would have pitied Aunt Izzie and Theodosia for their unmarried state, even while admiring their dedication. But what I'm trying to say is that there was a time when nobody wondered whether there was such as thing as the vocation to the single life, at least for women. There were so many examples of single women living very selfless, dedicated lives, sometimes stemming from very strong Christian beliefs, but certainly from a sense of duty and service.

Great points, Sister. Culture can also play into it a lot. In European countries, it was until several decades ago sometimes the case that the youngest daughter would remain unmarried to be able to care for her parents when they became old (and my family overseas practiced this. When I travelled in 2006 I actually met one of my cousins who had remained unmarried for this reason). I know a young woman from Papua New Guinea who entered a congregation and was going through some of her formation here when she suddenly left. It turns out that in her culture, once a person reaches the age of 55 they need to stop working and the eldest daughter in the family needs to provide for them. She had to leave the order and return home and is now working and looking after her family. I don't know how she felt about that or how her family or community felt. So in some places, living a single life can be regarded as a duty or expectation, even as a vocation perhaps, and when a woman is unmarried it's not always questioned or seen as "unfortunate".

Edited July 15, 2016 by Spem in alium

[Guest]

I agree with you, Sister. 

Hope the following will come out ok .........

I was born in 1946 hence had quite a bit of experience under my belt by the time both pre V2 and then post V2, when we started to experience the changes as a result of the Council.  Remaining in the Laity and as a call and vocation only became more defined after Vatican 2 and in response to the Council.  Prior to V2 there might have been single women living outstandingly dedicated and holy lives for one, but they would not have dared (under the then circumstances) presumed to call it a vocation per se, nor generally would anyone have thought to point out their lifestyle as a vocation.  Back pre V2 the options were priesthood or religious life if one desired to live a holy and committed life - even marriage came later as a means of holiness.  Marriage back pre V2 in Catholic cultural conscious anyway was regarded as the proper embrace for those not becoming priests or religious.  Marriage was generally thought of as the proper destination for those 'less perfect'. Those who were single for one reason or another were not thought about at all in a theological sense in our consciousness, other than to be quite admired sometimes, as you have pointed out.

One could embrace a certain vocation but not live it out as the person is called to do.  On the other hand there is the person who  lives an outstandingly holy life without thinking much about it at all, let alone call it a vocation and call from God.  Nowadays The Church is emphatically pointing out to the Laity the vocational call to holiness in Marriage or celibacy. The Church is pointing out very clearly the importance of the Laity in The Church and as a potential vocation and call- we never heard such things pre V2!

It is only post V2 too that theologians have begun to define how to discern or discover one's vocational call from God. It is a whole spirituality of its own.

Nowadays with The Church's emphasis on the Laity either married or celibate the situation pre V2 has changed; however, the change in our general consciousness is taking longer to internalise and there is still that heavy emphasis at times in our Catholic cultural consciousness on the pre V2 situation and the discounting of celibacy in the Laity as a potential vocation and call.  The fact of a vocational call to marriage or the celibate life is not an innovation of V2, the teaching existed prior to V2; however it  had never received the quite loud and clear emphasis of our own day.

The problem might be that while there are Documents specifically on the Laity and as a potential vocation, because there is no Document  specifically on" Celibacy as a Vocation in the Laity" and as the sole subject, hence the whole theology of the Laity is ignored or not recognised in some quarters.  The fact is that there is no real need for specific Document on celibacy in the laity as a vocation as there are references to lay celibacy as vocation in the Documents on the Laity themselves.  Another reason there is not might be also, I suspect, because The Church is still trying to understand and define for The Faithful the vocation, while knowing it exists and that it is a theological and Gospel reality.  Certainly in my own 35yr journey in private vows, I have had to define things for myself in the day to day as my journey and commitment unfolded.

 Truth is, the vocation and call to celibate Laity is not an easy road at all.  It can be an exceptionally difficult one that only Grace can support and ensure one will live out the call faithfully.  I think celibate laity as one's vocation and call is probably rare - but because it is rare is not a reason to discount it in any way.  I think it is a different call and vocation to the single celibate committed to something specific (nursing, career, caring for another etc.) as a vocational call.   I think of my own call as a commitment to Poverty, Chastity and Obedience per se with any apostolate adopted as a secondary connected matter - that is whatever I am about, it is to be lived in a spirit of the evangelical counsel and as they are defined to be lived out in my rule of life.

Therein The Church's problem i.e. "How do we definite clearly the vocation and call from God to celibacy in the laity?"  It is ok for me for example, I have just gone ahead and defined it for myself with only myself (with spiritual direction) to be concerned about as to the specifics of my way of life and call,.  When The Archbishop gave permission for my Home Mass, he added the comment to our Vicar General (subsequently pass on to my SD and then me) "That is a good way to do it". 

 

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I think that maybe at times there is a presuming that one's particular and personal call is superior to the call to holiness.  Rather the call to holiness is prime with the personal and particular call to a certain way of life is the road which God asks one to travel to achieve holiness.

[Guest]

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The question can be asked "Why doesn't the person join a Third Order or even a Secular Institute??" and a fair question.  In the main and to summarize, one needs to discern a call by God to such institutions in The Church and ideally one will do so with spiritual direction and a faulty discernment process leading to an incorrect decision can be 'disastrous/most unhappy' as I think someone else has pointed out..  Along my own journey, I have discerned with them all, including two entrances into monastic life - one in my teens, the other in my early forties.  I discerned with the Third Order of Carmel OCDS.  I discerned with the Carmelite Secular Institute O.Carm "The Leaven".  Over that whole period, although unrecognised at the time, a whole way of life and vocational call was unfolding in my path. Unrecognised until my SD (priest religious theologian) pointed it out to me i.e. I was already living a whole 'evangelical' type of lifestyle and though at that point not consciously thinking of the evangelical counsels, I was unconsciously striving to live them out in spirit.

I certainly do think that if one has the necessary qualities  (and God's gift) for consecrated life of some category and/or priesthood, then one should seriously discern in gratitude to God for His gifts, providing that is that one has some sort of attraction to one of these vocations.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Spem in alium said:

So in some places, living a single life can be regarded as a duty or expectation, even as a vocation perhaps, and when a woman is unmarried it's not always questioned or seen as "unfortunate".

General Comment: The Doctrine of Divine Providence (as in the CCC) is not as yet internalised in our consciousness culturally and therefore lived out in daily life.  We view the misfortunes of life as indeed misfortunes - and fall short of the whole.  The problem can seem to me possibly that in our 'advanced' type of cultural thinking, we are asking important questions - without equally knowing the theology that applies - or our personal  theological grasp is not equal to the question asked.

I think for something to be a vocation, the person needs to experience it as something God is asking of me,  Something I am called to do and I am responding to God in doing it.  If it is something I am doing only because it is expected of me by others or my culture etc. then I don't think it can be called a vocation other than indirectly.  However, with spiritual direction, the person may indeed come to experience the reality and as a call and vocation from God, which happens to be what others and my culture expects of me.

[Antigonos]

You're very right about nursing being considered a "vocation"; even 20 years ago I was told by a patient that it was wrong that nurses were paid for doing a mitzvah [good deed].  We were expected to live on air, apparently.

But Florence was also very hard-headed.  She did not like the model of the religious sister of her time who was far more interested, too often, in the patient's spiritual welfare while ignoring his physical state.  She actually spent some time with a group of Protestant Deaconesses in Germany, before the Crimean war, and was quite critical of them.

After returning to the UK from the Crimea, when she began to set up the first school to train professional nurses at St. Thomas' Hospital in London, she was deluged with a lot of well-meaning advice from the public, much of it in the vein of organizing her "lady nurses" on the model of religious nursing sisters.  Annoyed, she wrote to a doctor friend: "I would far rather establish a profession highly paid than a religious order", and felt so strongly about it that she underlined the sentence three times.

The term "vocation" makes me uneasy when used for other life pathways than the religious life.  I don't feel that nursing was for me a "vocation"; it was a profession.  Being a wife and mother was simply living a normal life.  "Vocation" has a nuance of being an exceptional way of life, beyond ordinary and being unique, being totally absorbing.  Many persons have multiple identities: I'm a retired person, a midwife, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a knitter, and a user of the internet.  None of these takes up 100% of my time; being a religious, as I understand it, does.

Edited July 16, 2016 by Antigonos

[Guest]

Whatever one's call and vocation might be, it will be a call to commitment of 100% of our life, not a call to part time commitment now and then.  Our primary call is to holiness and any further call is the road to take to holiness.  Some indeed, may live more than one personal call in their lifetime as many of our saints have done.

Religious are called to be religious in religious life for 100% of their time.  As the lay person is called to be a lay person in the laity and for 100% of their time.  If I do not experience my life in the laity as a commitment 100% of the time, it might be that my understanding of my vocation in the laity as defined theologically and proclaimed in Church Documents........ with perspective and attitude........... might need to be reviewed.

  This includes times of relaxation:

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Christifideles Laici: " Speaking of the lay faithful the Council says: "For their work, prayers and apostolic endeavours, their ordinary married and family life, their daily labour, their mental and physical relaxation, if carried out in the Spirit, and even the hardships of life if patiently borne-all of these become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.............The term secular must be understood in light of the act of God the creator and redeemer, who has handed over the world to women and men, so that they may participate in the work of creation, free creation from the influence of sin and sanctify themselves in marriage or the celibate life, in a family, in a profession and in the various activities of society"(39)."

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Apostolicam actuositatem (Decree onApostolate of The Laity) "This life of intimate union with Christ in the Church is nourished by spiritual aids which are common to all the faithful, especially active participation in the sacred liturgy.(5) These are to be used by the laity in such a way that while correctly fulfilling their secular duties in the ordinary conditions of life, they do not separate union with Christ from their life but rather performing their work according to God's will they grow in that union. In this way the laity must make progress in holiness in a happy and ready spirit, trying prudently and patiently to overcome difficulties.(6) Neither family concerns nor other secular affairs should be irrelevant to their spiritual life, in keeping with the words of the Apostle, "What-ever you do in word or work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through Him" (Col. 3:"

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Christifedeles Laici (Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation "Vocation & Mission of The Laity in The Church and in The World") "The "world" thus becomes the place and the means for the lay faithful to fulfill their Christian vocation, because the world itself is destined to glorify God the Father in Christ. The Council is able then to indicate the proper and special sense of the divine vocation which is directed to the lay faithful. They are not called to abandon the position that they have in the world. Baptism does not take them from the world at all, as the apostle Paul points out: "So, brethren, in whatever state each was called, there let him remain with God" (1 Cor 7:24). On the contrary, he entrusts a vocation to them that properly concerns their situation in the world. The lay faithful, in fact, "are called by God so that they, led by the spirit of the Gospel, might contribute to the sanctification of the world, as from within like leaven, by fulfilling their own particular duties. Thus, especially in this way of life, resplendent in faith, hope and charity they manifest Christ to others"(37).Thus for the lay faithful, to be present and active in the world is not only an anthropological and sociological reality, but in a specific way, a theological and ecclesiological reality as well. In fact, in their situation in the world God manifests his plan and communicates to them their particular vocation of "seeking the Kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God"(38).

Precisely with this in mind the Synod Fathers said: "The secular character of the lay faithful is not therefore to be defined only in a sociological sense, but most especially in a theological sense. The term secular must be understood in light of the act of God the creator and redeemer, who has handed over the world to women and men, so that they may participate in the work of creation, free creation from the influence of sin and sanctify themselves in marriage or the celibate life, in a family, in a profession and in the various activities of society"(39)."

 

 

 

Edited July 16, 2016 by BarbaraTherese

[Antigonos]

Bit of a non-sequitur, but it's been a long time since Nunsense has contributed to the forum.  Anyone in contact with her, knows how she is and what she is doing?

[Gabriela]

On 7/18/2016 at 9:11 AM, Antigonos said:

Bit of a non-sequitur, but it's been a long time since Nunsense has contributed to the forum.  Anyone in contact with her, knows how she is and what she is doing?

I believe in her last post she said her final goodbye. If I recall correctly, she decided to log off once and for all and start a new life in the UK.