Why I'm Glad I Discerned Religious Life

My husband and I just celebrated two years of Marriage. We have a beautiful 1 year-old. Life is good. We are by no means experts in the field of Marriage, but as someone who has many friends in the dating/engagement discernment season of life, I frequently get asked one question. 

“What’s your best piece of dating advice?”

And unless my response is tailored to a couple’s unique situation, in a “I really think you need to hear this,” sort of way, my go-to response may seem counter-intuitive. 

“Discern religious life.” 

To explain, I need to rewind the tape of my own personal experience. I met my husband in college and we were friends for many months before even dating (my second piece of advice: “Be friends first.” But that’s a separate post!). Prior to our dating relationship, however, I had experienced other relationships that ended poorly and planted both deep and shallow seeds of wounds in my heart. And these negative experiences had led me to have a rather bad taste in my mouth when it came to dating. So many men and women have this experience. 

The pain of one bad break-up alone, the tortuous healing from toxic and unhealthy relationships, can leave us timid and wounded enough to never want to open ourselves up in that way again. To avoid possible hurt, we avoid the possibility all together. 

And so my wounded, once-bitten twice-shy heart swung in the opposite direction. “Well, never want to be treated that way ever again. Know what will make me avoid that possibility all together? Guess I’ll become a sister!”

And this was the round-about way that our Lord got me to a religious vocation discernment retreat. 

I will never forget that retreat week. Smuggled away in the beauty and stillness of a secluded convent, I was able to experience deep intimacy with Jesus. I walked the daily walk of these sisters, and I was moved. Never before had I witnessed quiet and stillness that generated joy and serenity in my soul, rather than anxiety and spiraling thoughts. Never before had I realized that there is profound freedom in simplicity and humility. Never before had I first-hand witnessed the religious as an eschatological sign, a true beacon of what our life in Heaven will be. 

Never before had I truly seen the beauty of that vocation. Never before had I actually desired it.

And the Lord told me no. 

I remember sitting before the Eucharist one night, pleading for an answer. I told Him I would do this. I told Him I was ready. I told Him I wanted it. But something in me wasn’t peaceful, wasn’t sitting right, wasn’t confirmed. 

I was hoping for a neon-green-go sign from the Lord. But instead I got a red light, as I heard a small message, “for you, I have something else.”

I remember finding the Vocation Director’s office, word-vomiting and crying to her. “I don’t understand. I can see how beautiful this is. I want it! Why won’t He say yes?”

She took one look at me and quietly asked: “Gracie, are you here out of fear? Or are you here out of love?”

This was definitely one of those moments when the Holy Spirit speaks directly through the mouth of a human being. Those words resonated inside of me. Through her guidance, I was able to discern the deep parts of my heart that were turning to this vocation because of a fear of Marriage. Out of a fear of being hurt, I was looking to what, in my eyes and my experience, seemed the safer vocation. 

And slowly as those knots became untied, abundant peace flowed forth. Deeper-seated desires for Marriage and family life started to blossom. While I remained hesitant, I began to know in what way God was asking me to make a gift of myself.

So I went back to school. A friend of mine who I had respected and admired for awhile, who I was attracted to (though this was another letting down of walls for me!) asked me out on a date. I was terrified. I was excited. I really didn’t want to get hurt again. But to love is a risk, so I said yes. And somehow, with un-explainable peace, we both just kept saying yes. 

So, two years into Marriage with my best-friend, now navigating the new role of mother as well as wife, why am I happy that I discerned a religious vocation?

Because I can genuinely say that I find it heart-wrenchingly beautiful and deeply desirable. I can appreciate priests and brothers and sisters so much more for having tasted the life that they live. 

I think too often in vocational discernment, we think we are called to one vocation actually because we are secretly scared of being called to the other. How many times do we as young Catholics assume that we are called to Marriage, when we are actually deathly afraid that God might be calling us to religious life, and we don’t know what to do about that? Or how many, like me, might run to religious life out of a hesitancy to love another imperfect human who is fully capable of hurting you and inevitably will because they are human? 

Every yes involves some sort of no. And I don’t think you can fully give your yes to the vocation you choose until you know the beauty you are saying no to. 

So don’t assume. Reflect on what scares you. Follow your motivations of love, not fear. Acknowledge the beauty in different forms of self-gift. 

And knowing the full weight of it, say yes.