On the vocation crisis, charity, and discerning well
Not a rant, but almost there
I write this a few days after Good Shepherd Sunday, also the Fourth Sunday of Easter. It is named as such because the Gospel reading is usually taken from Jesus’ “I am the Good Shepherd” statement from John 10. It also is traditionally associated with praying for vocations — typically vocations to the priesthood, but also to religious life for men and women.
The Mass I attended was, as usual, beautiful. I have no notes.
But what I do have notes and thoughts on are a few sentences on the homily I heard, and some conversations that were had after Mass.
The general gist of the homily was focused on vocations: Why we need more priests, the decline of vocations in North America, and the need to pray for vocations. I wholeheartedly agree with each of these points.
However, things took a turn for me when I heard statements such as “It is so sad when men leave the seminary” or “It’s a tragedy that some men don’t go all the way and finish and become priests.”
One can easily substitute “men”, “seminary” and “priests” with “women”, “convents”, and “nuns”. I know the ease of which this conversation can be had, because I found myself having these conversations a lot — both right when I came home, and this past weekend.
It is heartbreaking to hear rhetoric like this, and I don’t believe it is healthy.
Some might say that I feel this way because I am one of the statistics: Yes, I discerned to enter a religious community for a sustained period of time. Yes, I did leave most things behind because I truly did feel the Lord’s invitation into pursuing a more intimate life with Him. And yes, I ultimately discerned not to stay. I left the convent, the schedule I became accustomed to, the sisters I came to love so deeply, a community I came to appreciate, and in 11 months I was packing my stuff again to go back home.
My story isn’t unique, and my story is sometimes a quiet and painful one. There are many of us — “ex-cons”, we affectionately and jokingly call ourselves — who spent months or even years in religious communities, pursuing the heart of the Lord as He was so radically pursuing ours. We trusted Him with our lives. We gave Him everything: our temporal needs, our families, our careers, our dreams of ever getting married or having our own family. And in that quest of discerning what God was calling us to, for many of us, it became clear that God was calling us to “a still more excellent way” (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:31) — to follow Him even closer, to trust Him even though it made zero sense, and to leave the convent and return back into “the world”.
I can’t tell you how many tears were shed and how many hours were spent in front of the Tabernacle begging the Lord that this couldn’t be what He was calling me to. But I also couldn’t deny the small ache in my chest, telling me that while I was happy, I knew that this wasn’t where I was meant to stay. However, the thought of going home, starting over — being perceived as a failure — was an even bigger ache in my chest that I didn’t know if I could realistically overcome.
But about 18 months out, in the midst of sure hardship and challenge, I can also say that this was indeed what the Lord was calling me to: He wanted me to enter, but didn’t want me to stay. And I couldn’t be more grateful for it.
Again, this isn’t a story unique to me. Countless women and men experience this year after year. And please, please read me correctly: Of course my heart breaks a little when I hear about men or women discerning out of seminary or the convent. But I also trust that this decision did not come lightly, and was not made overnight. When discernment is done well, then the decision really is good discernment. These men and women are close to the Lord, hearing His voice, and following His direction made visible and audible through superiors and formators, who we trust in obedience.
If a good discernment was made, then that means that men and women aren’t just leaving seminary or the convent because they simply gave up. It’s because they discerned that they are being called to grow elsewhere. They are opening up a new chapter with the Lord. They are now being planted in a place where they can become even more of who God is calling them to be.
It’s not a tragedy. It’s a grace and a joy.
What a privilege it is to witness when men and women are taking up their cross and following Him — even if it means being misunderstood, judged, or talked about in a critical way.
Again: I fully agree that we’re in a vocations shortage, dare I even say crisis. I witnessed first hand the way that some religious communities have sisters aging faster than young women can enter. The same goes for priests retiring faster than we can ordain them.
We need priests. We need religious men and women. The health of our Church depends on these ancient structures. We need priests in order to lead us through the most important rituals and celebrations of our communal life as a Church. We need religious men and women, with all manner of charisms, to pray for the world and serve the Church in the way that only they can.
But similarly, we need holy families. We need holy men and holy women in the work force. We need them to get married and have children. Otherwise, where will the vocations come from? Who will fill the Lord’s vineyard?
At the end of the day, this isn’t a competition on what vocation is better or holier. Our primary vocation is holiness — the documents and teachings from Vatican II already made that quite clear.
The way we live out that holiness is up to us to discern and discover with the Lord. A person who is in love with Him — who takes the time to grow in relationship with Him, walk with Him, and go outside of themselves — will inevitably be drawn into some kind of discernment path. For each of us, it will look different, and certainly not like anything we would expect. I would have never imagined that when I entered the convent in October 2022 that I would be packing my bags in September 2023. And yet, even though I didn’t understand, I knew that I had to follow Him — even if it meant confusion, pain and rejection.
At the heart of our vocations crisis in North America is a fear of commitment. I say vocations more broadly because the same fear and flakiness that could come up at the thought of giving our whole life over to poverty, chastity and obedience also can rear its head at the thought of commiting to one person for life.
One come and see doesn’t automatically mean you are locked in to enter a religious community.
One seminary live in doesn’t automatically ordain you.
One date doesn’t automatically get you an engagement ring.
But it could be the start of something new. It could be the start of deeper self-exploration with the Lord — something that you may not otherwise learn if you don’t first go outside of yourself and surrender your plans to Him.
We are scared — I am scared — of making mistakes. Of failing. Of messing up so badly that we will never be able to recover. Because of that, we fall into the purgatory of perpetually discerning. But this limbo period isn’t discernment if it doesn’t lead to action.
As my formator said to me one time, “Rachel, there is no possible way that you can mess up God’s plan. There is nothing you can do that would possibly derail what He has in store for you. And more importantly, there is nothing you can do that will keep Him from loving you.”
It was a humbling vibe check. Because the reality is that I’ve paralyzed myself from making decisions not because I was afraid of the choice, but of the outcome. What if this is the time when I make a huge mistake, and ruin my life?
But God loves us too much to let us “ruin our life”. The God of the universe cares for us more than any other creation on earth. And if He clothes the flowers and give birds their food each day, how much more will He care for us? (cf. Matthew 6:26).
If we truly want to build up a culture of vocations, I hope that we can have more honest conversations about this very topic: That vocations and vocation stories look very different from person to person — and thank God for that. They are not linear, and they are certainly not predictable.
Hear me when I say that I’m not discouraging men and women to go to a come and see or two. I think that it’s an important thing to do, especially if you have even the slightest inkling that God may be calling you. I think it would be foolish to ignore the tugging at your heart, the God who stands at the door of your heart and knocks (cf. Revelation 3:15).
But we need to really be careful about how we have conversations around what it means to discern, and especially be careful when we talk about those who have discerned to leave the seminary or convent. It’s the same when we talk about two people who have broken up. We need to be sensitive to the fact that, as outsiders, we’re not privy to a person’s prayer life, the spiritual direction and formation they’ve received, and ultimately, we’re not God. We don’t know what God has in store for them.
“Going all the way”, getting ordained or professing vows is not a game to be won. It is not a prize to be earned. It is the culmination of men and women falling in love deeper and deeper with the Lord to the point where they are ready to give a total gift of themselves to God and the Church. And even if they leave within a year, five years, or right on the cusp of “getting to the end”, it is not a failure or weakness or tragedy. It is the culmination of discernment, hard inner work, and deep prayer and self-reflection.
It is my prayer that we can be more charitable with one another when it comes to discussing vocations, so as to build up a culture that welcomes the discerning and supports those who discern something new within their journey.
And please, pray for vocations. Pray for those who have already found their primary vocation, and pray for all those who feel the pressure of “choosing the right path”.