Dec 28, 2017 |
By Cinnamon.
It’s been years now since I left the convent: I’ve passed through all those different stages of grief (or rather, bounced back and forth between them like a ping-pong ball) and finally come to something resembling acceptance. The pain is no longer raw and immediate, which is a relief. However, there’s a drawback: it’s harder to find inspiration than it used to be. How do I set the world on fire, as Saint Catherine of Siena exhorts, when my usual aspiration is simply to use a limited supply of energy to get out of bed and make it through a day at work? And how can anyone rejoice while holding on to the memory of religious life, or even sometimes the Catholic Faith itself, like the remnants of a parachute that failed to open?
The message of Advent is, “Stay awake and keep watch! He is coming, and we do not know the hour!” These four weeks have compelled us to be alert, both practically, as we handle the pre-Christmas rush at work and family duties at home, and spiritually, with reminders of the immanent coming of Christ and exhortations to be prepared to receive Him – and we’re tired.
The message of Christmas, however, is, “Rest.”
The Guest for Whom we were preparing is here, and has fallen asleep in the manger. Christmas is gentle, domestic: a young mother asleep on a hay bale beside her Son, surrounded by quiet beasts and watched over by her husband. We are weary, drained and battered in soul – so were they. They had walked a long way in uncertain times. At Christmas, though, they have reached a place of shelter, safety and peace, and they offer us the same.
It’s not easy to be Catholic, and the longer you make a sincere effort to be so, the harder it gets. God can seem distant to women who have left the convent, but every Christmas we remember how close He came to us, and in the gentlest, least imposing way He could: who could be afraid of a baby? A baby can’t answer the questions we most need answered – why couldn’t I have stayed in the convent? What am I going to do with my future? – but instead, simply looks up at us with the dark, solemn eyes that newborns have, and invites us to set aside our fears and be with Him for a while. We still seek God, and in this octave we remember that He also came to seek us.
If you’ve had a rough year, this is the turning point: a baby is always a sign of the future, and this Baby more so than any. May the peace of Christ be with you, and may you have a gentle, happy year ahead.
Nov 24, 2017 |
Dear sister, may the love of God, the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you!
I write this letter to you, my sister in Christ, who has had the courage and love to respond to a desire, an invitation, and a mystery: to belong wholly to God. You prayed, you strove to discern if this was a call to religious life, and you took a leap of faith. Now you are at a new stage in your discernment, one which is no less a leap of faith. You have left the community in which you lived, prayed, worked, laughed, cried, loved, and have come back into the “the world.” Please do not believe that you are alone. I want you to realize that there is a community of women throughout the world who have also made this step in and out of the convent. For many, if not all, this journey to and from has come with great sacrifice.
Dear sister, the Lord knows your sacrifice. The Lord knows our going and coming and He accompanies us on each step. Psalm 121:8 “The LORD will guard your coming and going both now and forever.” The journey you are on may be sorrowful or joyful—either way, the Lord intends to journey with you. “For the Lord will not abandon his people nor forsake those who are his own.” (Psalm 94:14).
Recently, my spiritual director shared with me about an article he read wherein a novice mistress sadly described the wounds that women carry when they leave the convent. She noticed that for many, who believed that they were to become the “bride of Christ,” leaving felt like a divorce, a rejection. The pain of this wound can be felt so acutely, it leads women out of the Church.
I would like to say to these women: your grief is real, your wounds are real, but please do not confuse your pain with how Jesus feels about you. Please do not believe that He no longer cares. Jesus does not reject anyone who comes to Him (even if it may feel like it and even if you say: well, I have left Him). Sometimes we may be tempted to imagine ourselves as that “ideal sister” we thought we were called to be, to the point of losing our own identity. We compare ourselves to that image of a “fervent aspirant” or “generous postulant” that was ready to do whatever God asked. Then, at some moment along the way of our discernment, we realized that we cannot live up to that ideal. What do we do with this realization?
A major moment of insight and growth came to me in prayer one day (after I had already left the convent) when the Lord lovingly revealed to me that my offering to Him was lacking something. I didn’t understand at first, thinking I had given up everything. But He told me that my offering lacked something personal. As I pondered this, I realized that I wasn’t being authentic with Him because I had been striving to live up to what was asked of me as a sister, while not offering everything that was really happening inside my mind and heart. I was burying the real me in favor of an image of who I thought I should be. What I was trying to offer to God was something other than me.
When Jesus said in John 6:37, “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me,” He did not intend this statement to be true only if you become a nun. Jesus said two very important words: everything and anyone. Can you exclude yourself from this invitation to hope? So, if you feel rejected, alone, and are struggling (I totally get that—I cried every day for two straight months when I realized I was leaving the convent), please reach out to someone you can trust. Jesus did not give us the grace of courage and love to enter religious life, only to abandon us and expose us to useless pain. “The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.” (Romans 11:29). Please, do not lose sight of what you have received in Christ.
In Baptism, you are a beloved daughter of God, a temple of the Holy Spirit, called to intimate communion with the Most Holy Trinity and all the members of the Body of Christ. You are beloved and you belong. You are called by name and have a real family that prays for you throughout the world. God has a purpose and a mission for your life which is a secret of His love and Providence. In Confirmation you were sealed with the Spirit with an eternal seal of love.
So please remember, Bride of Christ, that your soul remains His. As a member of the Body of Christ, you remain His Bride. You are that betrothed, chaste virgin spoken of in St. Paul’s letter (2 Corinthians 11:2). Not wanting anyone to be led away from the love of Jesus which remains and endures forever, I share in the sentiment of St. Paul because I too love you, my sister in Christ, and I pray that you may continue to know the love of God and the peace of Christ “that surpasses understanding” (Philippians 4:7) as you continue your courageous and loving journey into the arms of God.
– Aimée Dominique
Oct 5, 2017 |
By MJ
Roses Among Thorns, Simple Advice for Renewing Your Spiritual Journey by St. Francis de Sales, published by Sophia Institute Press.
St. Jane de Chantal was the foundress of the Visitation sisters (Visitandines), along with St. Francis de Sales, her spiritual director. St. Francis is known for his keen counsels. This book contains 60 excerpts of some his most poignant and sweet advice, and it does just as the title promises: it renews your spiritual journey.
On the practical side, what I liked about this book, is that it is short, almost pocket size, so you can carry it anywhere. And, the excerpts are only a couple of paragraphs long so you can make a short meditation of it, or even read and re-read the same excerpt until the words really sink in. You can also read the excerpts as you wish: pick a topic per day; chose a topic at random; or read it cover to cover, it doesn’t matter – you will find it uplifting and full of hope.
On the spiritual side, I’ve always found St. Francis the Sales to be kind and honest, never condemning or harsh. If you’ve read “Divine Intimacy” or any other of his books you will realize why he is the model of spiritual directors. His style is personable, gentle and encouraging! It is as if a friend that knows you well was speaking with you.
For example under the topic: A Time of Depression, St. Francis writes:
“A melancholy humor has overcome you for a time, and from being sorrowful, you have become anxious. Do not let yourself become anxious. Do not lose your peace. Even though it seems to you that you do everything without any savor, feeling or strength continue to embrace our crucified Lord, and give him your heart, consecrate your mind to him with your affections just as they are…”
My humble and personal advice is that you pray to the Holy Spirit before reading any excerpt in this book, and imagine it is a good friend speaking to you. It will really soothe your spirit, it did mine. I am so happy to share this little gem with you. I hope you also enjoy it.
Jul 25, 2017 |
By Spiritu
Four years ago today, I laid my bags out on the front steps of the convent and waited for my father to drive in and pick me up. Most of my memories of religious life are still vivid and immediate, but that day is broken up into fragments. I remember unfastening the cord that tied my postulant medal around my neck, and handing both to my superior. Checking and triple-checking the drawers in my cell in case I’d left anything behind. Getting in the car and seeing the sisters standing under the veranda to wave goodbye. That night, opening the farewell card they’d written for me, and wanting to frame it and tear it up all at the same time because it hurt to see their handwriting. It was a long time before I stopped expecting – hoping – to wake up in my cell in the morning and find that everything that had happened since then was a dream.
I once heard a line in a film: “When the past dies, there is mourning, but when the future dies, our imaginations are compelled to carry it on.” After I’d been out about two years, someone asked me whether I wished I’d stayed in the convent, and whether I would go back if I could. From memory, what I said out loud was something profound like, “Um… I don’t know.” What had actually shot across my mind without the need for thought was, In a heartbeat. My future in the convent had been cut off at the root, and my imagination couldn’t give up the idea of going back, trying to make it right, to finish what I’d started.
And now? A few days ago, the anniversary of the date on which I’d told my superior I needed to leave, I sat down and made a list of all the people I’d never have met if I’d stayed in the convent. Colleagues. Housemates. Mentors. Clients. Friends – people I knew both in person and online. The list went for nearly a page. Then I started on a second list, laying out in black and white the things I’d done in the last four years that would never have happened if I’d stayed in the convent. Publishing my writing online; preparing for a career; making a journey overseas and coming home feeling like an adult for the first time in my life. And a third list: the music I’d never have heard, the books I’d never have read, the foods I’d never have tasted, the conversations I’d never have had. Set out on paper like that, the richness of what God has given me in the last few years blew me away. I’d have loved to have been a sister, but to wish now that I had stayed in the convent would be to wish everything I have loved since then multiplied by zero. I couldn’t do it, in a heartbeat or otherwise.
Today is the first-class feast of Saint James the Apostle, which means I’ll need to make time, in between all the other things that have to be sandwiched into the next twelve hours or so, to sing the Te Deum. I want to make time to sing it properly: unhurried, and with real gratitude. In the Divine Office this morning, there was a reading from Saint John Chrysostom:
But nevertheless let us now look at how (the apostles) came unto Christ, and what they said.
Master, they said, we would that Thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire. And He said unto them: What would ye that I should do for you? Not, surely, that He knew not what their wish was, but that He would make them answer, and so uncover the wound, to lay a plaster on it.
That is what He has done in these last few days. I’ve spent far too long binding up the wound of regret and anger on my heart as though it were not serious, crying, “Peace! Peace!” when there was no peace (Jeremiah 8:11) and it must be time by now for Him to lay a proper dressing on it. I’ve felt a lot of grief in the time since I left religious life, but today I’m going to focus instead on the joys that have been given me throughout those years. The people I’ve known, the things I’ve done – everything God has given me to love. Four years to the day out of the convent in which I’d once hoped to spend the rest of my life, I am going to sing the Te Deum and mean it.
Oct 5, 2016 |
By J.E. Sigler
If you are one of those women who feels that her departure from the religious life means that God has rejected her from “the heart of the Church” and relegated her to “second-class holiness” in the world, you need to keep reading.
For a graduate course in the philosophy and theology of work, vocation, and calling, I am reading a wonderful volume called The Disciples’ Call: Theologies of Vocation from Scripture to the Present Day, edited by Father Christopher Jamison, OSB. The book is a collection of essays compiled from a conference of vocation directors and religious formators in the UK several years ago. It is a strikingly modern look at issues of critical import in calling and vocation today, and it is refreshingly frank in its discussion of “the hard questions” the Church is currently dealing with in this area.
What I find particularly interesting about this book are the two completely different, conflicting even, views of vocation that are constantly emerging in it. On the one hand, there’s the Thomistic view; on the other, the Ignatian. What’s the difference?
First, let’s review what we already know: All Christians are called to holiness. By our baptisms, we are all consecrated to the Lord and required to live out some form of poverty, chastity (though not necessarily celibacy), and obedience (to God and, if married, to our spouse; if religious, to our superior and sisters; if ordained, to our bishop; etc.). On this point, all Catholics, even Saints Thomas and Ignatius, agree. The two views of vocation emerge when we ask: In addition to this first call to holiness that we all share, is there a second, additional call to a particular vocation?
St. Thomas says that there is not, and what logically follows from this is that the religious life is one response to the universal Christian call to holiness. It is a choice each individual makes, her personal response to the call God makes to everyone. But to St. Thomas, religious life is always the surer (i.e., the easier) path to perfect charity and salvation, and so, he argues, all who feel even slightly inclined to it ought to at least try it. St. Thomas believes that, basically, nearly everyone is capable of living the religious life, and since it is the most perfect (meaning, again, the easiest!) way to fulfill the original, and only, call to holiness shared by all Christians, we ought all to give it a go.
On this view, a lack of perseverance in the religious life is truly a failure to achieve “the better way,” and to return to the world is really to return to something “less than perfection.”
However, St. Ignatius says there is a second call to a particular vocation, in addition to the universal Christian call to holiness. And so, on his view, one ought to wait for this call before embarking upon any vowed state in life. St. Ignatius agrees with St. Thomas that the religious life is objectively a better path to holiness, in the sense that it makes the attainment of holiness easier, but subjectively, the religious life may not be the better path for a particular individual. And so he concludes that all Church-approved vocations ought to be given consideration by each person.
On this view, a lack of perseverance in the religious life is not necessarily a failure to achieve “the better way,” but more likely simply a sign that one was not “built” (by God) for that life (at least not permanently). And a return to the world is not a return to something “less than perfection,” but to one’s real (permanent, God-given) vocation.
As Father Joseph Bolin, in chapter four of The Disciples’ Call, points out, the Thomistic view is the traditional view of vocation and the one most often implied in historic recruitment materials to the religious life: “God is calling you, daring you to follow Him. Are you generous enough?” (p. 74). But this view places all the onus for perseverance on the individual’s will, and as Father Bolin sees it, this is a severe weakness of the Thomistic view: True, such an approach will increase vocations to religious life, and likely capture all, or at least most, of those “true” religious vocations, i.e., people who really are called to the religious life. But it also has the effect of capturing a lot of people who are not suited to the religious life by guilting or inspiring them to embark upon “the (objectively) surer path to perfect charity and salvation,” even if that path is not subjectively the surer one for them. The consequences of these “false positives” are potentially very dangerous, and well known to us.
“The Thomistic approach… will cause people who consider religious life, perhaps enter for a time, and then cease pursuing this vocation to have a negative self-image, perhaps to give up Christian life altogether, or at any rate to be satisfied with mediocrity in living the Christian vocation. For, if the will to embrace and follow the religious life as a way to love God is all that is necessary for a vocation, then leaving the religious life would seem to indicate a lack of love, an unreadiness to serve God without reservation. This lends itself to the practical conclusion that if one is not capable of attaining holiness in the easier and better way, there is really no hope of becoming holy in the lay state” (p. 80).
Of course, Father Bolin argues that this conclusion is patently false.
Many of us are familiar with these two views of vocation. But what, at least in my experience, many people do not realize is that we often conflate the two perspectives. And this, I believe, is where vocational distress begins.
Think about it: You probably felt that you had a second call to the religious life, an Ignatian assumption, as St. Thomas says there is only one call. But when you returned to the world, you may have felt, as many women do, that you somehow “failed” in or had been rejected from “the perfect way” and so are “less than,” a distinctly Thomistic assumption, as Ignatius does not hang the perseverance in religious life entirely on the individual’s will. On the one hand, you may have assumed that people are either built for the religious life, or they are not (Ignatian), and that those who are built for it love more, or are destined for more holiness (Thomistic).
But to collapse these two views is both wrong and harmful. Remember: St. Ignatius requires a second call, but he also strongly emphasizes the subjectiveness of the call to holiness, i.e., that there is a better path to holiness for each individual person, and this path is not necessarily the religious life. On Ignatius’ view, some people are built for religious life, and others are not, and both are best suited to attain holiness in the ways God made them for. St. Thomas, on the other hand, emphasizes the objective superiority of the religious life, for all or at least most, but his view also entails that the choice of religious life is just one way to respond to the universal Christian call to holiness that we all share. Whether a person responds to that call by committing to the evangelical counsels, marriage vows, or whatever else, she’s still got the same call everybody else does: “The difference between those entering consecrated life and those who do not is not a difference in the degree of their love, but a difference in the ways they choose to grow in love” (Frather Bolin, p. 81).
Personally, I am an Ignatian when it comes to discernment. Whatever you are, I hope that you can see how both views provide consolation for the woman who has returned to the world, provided you keep them straight: Either you have a second call to something other than religious life, and following that call is the best possible way for you to attain holiness. Or else you have the exact same call as religious sisters, and the degree of holiness you attain out here in the world will depend entirely upon how hard you work at it!
By Cinnamon.
I would like to say to these women: your grief is real, your wounds are real, but please do not confuse your pain with how Jesus feels about you. Please do not believe that He no longer cares. Jesus does not reject anyone who comes to Him (even if it may feel like it and even if you say: well, I have left Him). Sometimes we may be tempted to imagine ourselves as that “ideal sister” we thought we were called to be, to the point of losing our own identity. We compare ourselves to that image of a “fervent aspirant” or “generous postulant” that was ready to do 
So please remember, Bride of Christ, that your soul remains His. As a member of the Body of Christ, you remain His Bride. You are that betrothed, chaste virgin spoken of in St. Paul’s letter (2 Corinthians 11:2). Not wanting anyone to be led away from the love of Jesus which remains and endures forever, I share in the sentiment of St. Paul because I too love you, my sister in Christ, and I pray that you may continue to know the love of God and the peace of Christ “that surpasses understanding” (Philippians 4:7) as you continue your courageous and loving journey into the arms of God.
By MJ
By Spiritu
But nevertheless let us now look at how (the apostles) came unto Christ, and what they said. 
individual makes, her personal response to the call God makes to everyone. But to St. Thomas, religious life is always the surer (i.e., the easier) path to perfect charity and salvation, and so, he argues, all who feel even slightly inclined to it ought to at least try it. St. Thomas believes that, basically, nearly everyone is capable of living the religious life, and since it is the most perfect (meaning, again, the easiest!) way to fulfill the original, and only, call to holiness shared by all Christians, we ought all to give it a go.
view is the traditional view of vocation and the one most often implied in historic recruitment materials to the religious life: “God is calling you, daring you to follow Him. Are you generous enough?” (p. 74). But this view places all the onus for perseverance on the individual’s will, and as Father Bolin sees it, this is a severe weakness of the Thomistic view: True, such an approach will increase vocations to religious life, and likely capture all, or at least most, of those “true” religious vocations, i.e., people who really are called to the religious life. But it also has the effect of capturing a lot of people who are not suited to the religious life by guilting or inspiring them to embark upon “the (objectively) surer path to perfect charity and salvation,” even if that path is not subjectively the surer one for them. The consequences of these “false positives” are potentially very dangerous, and well known to us.
better path to holiness for each individual person, and this path is not necessarily the religious life. On Ignatius’ view, some people are built for religious life, and others are not, and both are best suited to attain holiness in the ways God made them for. St. Thomas, on the other hand, emphasizes the objective superiority of the religious life, for all or at least most, but his view also entails that the choice of religious life is just one way to respond to the universal Christian call to holiness that we all share. Whether a person responds to that call by committing to the evangelical counsels, marriage vows, or whatever else, she’s still got the same call everybody else does: “The difference between those entering consecrated life and those who do not is not a difference in the degree of their love, but a difference in the ways they choose to grow in love” (Frather Bolin, p. 81).
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