Active vs Contemplative

[Guest]

In the first few posts into this thread, there were a variety of contributors - but no longer.  I am hoping that that might mean that interested members are quite happy to read only and arrive at their own conclusions.

Prayer for all discerners

[Sponsa-Christi]

From outward appearances, I do have a fairly "active" life. I have a demanding full-time job that can involve a lot of pastoral interaction with the people I serve. And I try to make myself available to be of service to the diocese in other ways even outside the parameters of my day job. But, I go home to solitude, which does provide a lot of very helpful silence that I likely wouldn't have if I was a member of an apostolic religious community. 

So I'm not saying all CVs need a literal certain number of solitary hours per day. I was trying to compare and contrast the general character of my life vs. a life where "community" was a major emphasis.

Maybe my experiences won't resonate with absolutely everyone, but I'd guess there are probably some common threads with CVs in general. 

And honestly, I would strongly discourage a woman who wasn't spiritually drawn to solitude on at least some level from discerning a vocation to consecrated virginity. This is for a couple of reasons: 1. a CV is going to de facto have a lot of solitude in her life almost basically no matter what, so you need to know how use it fruitfully and have it not be a routinely terrible experience; but more importantly: 2. the core of a vocation to consecrated virginity is a call to a distinctively spousal relationship with Christ, and you need a lot of quiet time with God to nurture this. 

Being a CV can be really, really hard! And having your prayer life in order is what will make or break a CV's vocation. It's the difference between being a fruitful spiritual mother or winding up as a lonely spinster. If a woman for whatever reason was chronically unable to find time or space in her life for a great deal of prayer and a sufficient amount of silence (however much "sufficient" truly means for her), for her own well-being it really is best she not become a CV. 

Like Laurie, I'm also writing these things out of sincere concern for potential future CVs--a lot of this is what I wish someone would have told me ten years ago when I was preparing for my own consecration. 

[Laurie]

On 6/21/2018 at 10:10 PM, Sponsa-Christi said:

[#1]....But, I go home to solitude, which does provide a lot of very helpful silence that I likely wouldn't have if I was a member of an apostolic religious community. 

So I'm not saying all CVs need a literal certain number of solitary hours per day. I was trying to compare and contrast the general character of my life vs. a life where "community" was a major emphasis.

[#2] And honestly, I would strongly discourage a woman who wasn't spiritually drawn to solitude on at least some level from discerning a vocation to consecrated virginity. This is for a couple of reasons: 1. a CV is going to de facto have a lot of solitude in her life almost basically no matter what, so you need to know how use it fruitfully and have it not be a routinely terrible experience; but more importantly: 2. the core of a vocation to consecrated virginity is a call to a distinctively spousal relationship with Christ, and you need a lot of quiet time with God to nurture this.

I took the liberty of putting numbers & brackets above to make my responses clear.

For [#1] -- - Thank you, your clarification regarding not going home to a community, and not having a community as resonating with you in your discernment, makes sense. I think some are fed, in a crucial way, by communal life. Others are not. I see now that you are using the word "solitude" in some sense as "not having a community & communal obligations." In that sense, I now understand what you are saying, and I think I get what you mean.

For [#2] --- I think we might both agree that solitude can be defined a few different ways. I was coming much more from a sense of internal & prayerful solitude, knowing that any person of holiness must crave, cultivate, and have this. Mother Theresa & Pope John Paul II jump out as beautiful examples of this kind of solitude & centeredness in Christ, deep in the midst of themselves, no matter whom they were with or what they were doing. I think this kind of solitude is essential to anyone who desires to be a consecrated virgin, but it is also crucial to anyone in any vocation who desires to be holy. (This gets back to my example of the apostolic sisters with whom I lived in Rome. They had days of "solitude" where they took themselves apart, but because they ran a home for female students, they had to rely on inner solitude more than external silence to feed their souls.)

What I was trying to emphasize earlier is that any true vocation must have this type of solitude. The degree to which the person interacts with others is another kind of solitude (in that hermits have little interaction and active religious sisters have a lot). Whereas if we are talking about solitude in regards to communal life or the lack of it, what I was trying to say is that a woman might or might not be drawn to a community, but at the end of the day, that would just be one piece of her discernment. Being a woman who could be happy & fulfilled in communal life does not mean she isn't in fact called to be a consecrated virgin in the world.

I know a number of CVs who could be quite happy in community. They don't actually have the same need for the same degree of solitude that you & I both seem to have. That adaptability to potential communal life, though, doesn't mean they don't have a vocation to be a CV. Quite differently from you, most of the CVs I know discerned first with active religious orders, not contemplative ones. I think what is more crucial to the vocation is solitude in the sense of #2. In the sense of #1, a CV might fall on the spectrum closer to a contemplative nun or hermit or closer to the apostolic religious. But just because could be happy in communal life doesn't mean she wouldn't make a good consecrated virgin in the world.

[MaryBethany]

I was drawn to the active life at first because I wanted to be able to see the difference I was making in people's lives, if that makes any sense. Now I'm much more open to the contemplative life, because I see the value of prayer and being in a community that prays for the world. It's like being in the beating heart of the world, hidden but vital. 

[Sister Leticia]

I think a lot of people, when they begin to consider religious life, don't really know what exactly they're called to. That's why it's so helpful to be able to talk with someone, who can help the discerner see where and how they're being drawn, and also to be able to spend time with religious. Websites are fine and lovely, but meeting and getting to know a community IRL is crucial.

I've met various discerners here who have looked at or visited a variety of communities, simply because they're still feeling their way into how and to what sort of life God is calling them. If they're lucky enough to live in a city or area with several congregations they might just start with who is around them, or else respond to adverts for Come & See events and attend those. This means they could end up meeting a very eclectic mix of religious! But hopefully, in all that, especially if there is wise guidance, there will also be some useful sifting and reflecting, and some helpful questions and suggestions from VDs.

Quite a few women who have joined apostolic orders visited at least one monastery during their discernment. This is quite natural: after all, a person is feeling drawn to religious life precisely because of a growing, deepening relationship with God/Jesus, nourished by prolonged prayer - and she will want to have more, deeper prayer, leading her to look at Carmel or other monasteries (eg Benedictines if her prayer centres on Divine Office). Luckily, there are some very wise and insightful prioresses and VDs out there: one of our sisters tells the story of visiting a Carmel and the prioress, with just two, very short yet insightful questions, helped her to discover - through her replies - that actually her deepest passion and therefore her call lay in the apostolic life.

As for me, although I felt a strong call to be a contemplative, I also knew I wasn't called to enclosure, and to monastic stability (vowing to live in one place only). This eventually led me to the Society of the Sacred Heart, whose members are contemplatives in action, and by God's grace, here I still am.