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Question

Dear Father Angelo,

First of all, I would like to thank you for your valuable work. I read your answers on a daily basis.

I ask for your advice and opinion regarding consecrated life for women. I am a… year-old young woman, I feel I may be called to religious life and this fills me with joy. I am about to finish university and I will soon have to decide about my future. Some questions are invading my mind: do I really want to live a consecrated life? If yes, which order should I choose? This is precisely what creates great fear in me. It seems clear to me that nowadays too many orders do not embrace a holy lifestyle anymore, but rather focus on earthy and vain things. I don’t want to join a community and then discover that consecration is not experienced fully!

Perhaps, my fears originated from the experience of a dear friend of mine. He was attracted by consecration but left the monastery as soon as he realized that few good things were done, while the majority time was spent watching TV.

To die for Him and to sacrifice myself for Him day after day, just like He did for us: that is how I imagine consecrated life…not quite the same as wasting time watching TV!

How to understand prior to enrollment whether a certain monastery/convent will allow a vocation to flourish? 

Thank you, I will remember you in my prayers.

Answer from the priest

Dear friend,

1. Your attraction to a committed, fully immersive religious life fills me with joy. In every period of history we find people who are called to a life of radical commitment to Jesus. These people’s deepest desire is to live the same life that He lived with his incarnation. 

2. This radical, extraordinary desire despises the possession of the goods of this world, instead replacing them with the possession of the true Treasure.

Such a conduct requires a whole-hearted, uncompromised commitment to Jesus. No distraction should ever be introduced (chastity). Individual freedom (obedience) is completely left at God’s disposal. This kind of life is always, and everywhere, fearlessly at His service, and for His Kingdom.

By living for Jesus, and in Jesus, love for the others is learnt, and life becomes a continuative prayer for the others to also acquire the possession of God in their own hearts.

3. Your desire to fully commit yourself to this path of consecration, with no compromises, is a very valuable and positive one. The concerns you describe are understandable and legit; indeed, you must avoid places where religious life is relaxed and secularized. Nevertheless, there’s another consideration you should do before even getting to this issue, that is: what kind of consecrated life do you want to live? A contemplative and cloistered or rather an active one?

4. Regarding that friend of yours who entered a monastery and left it because the lifestyle and the others’ conduct did not match his expectations, all I can say is: I doubt anybody forced him to waste his time watching TV. I doubt anybody forbade him from praying intensily and whenever he wanted (of course, assuming he fulfilled his community duties). No one forbade him from practicing penance in secret. Perhaps, we could say that he did not find the spiritual help he needed, especially from his teachers. Nevertheless, even if spiritual life in that monastery was not rich, my guess is that the real reason why he quitted consecrated life is because he did not make sufficient discernment before approaching it. If his vocation were true, he would have not renounced it, returning back to his previous life. Instead, he would have evaluated with his superiors the possibility to switch to a different form of consecrated life that matched his aspirations.

I thank you for your prayers and I assure you of mine. Meanwhile, I wish you a peaceful and holy Easter.

I bless you.

Father Angelo