Followup on Dating While in Pre-Discernment Regarding a Religious Vocation

[[Dear Sister, I read your post on dating while in the "pre-discernment" process of entering a religious order (cf., Dating While in Pre-Discernment). I was surprised to hear you talk about dating while doing this. Shouldn't you be pointing people to celibacy and to religious life instead? You said that perhaps the person would find that they were called to marriage or associateship, but what happens if they are called by God to religious life and then get pregnant or decide to marry because they are infatuated? What happens if they never are able to enter religious life? I wonder about your advice!]]

Thanks for your questions. I am happy to answer them and try to show why I advised what I did. First though let's get something really clear. I am not a recruiter for a religious congregation. My "job" is not to point people to any specific vocation or try to get them to live in any particular way beyond as an authentic Christian (or human being!). Instead it is to  answer whatever questions I am asked in a way which is honest and which, I hope, will open up a future to the person. Sometimes this has to do with religious life generally, often with eremitical life specifically, and sometimes with the requirements of canon 603, etc. In cases dealing with religious life of any sort I am going to try to stress the maturity required, and quite often, the formation needed to achieve this maturity.

Secondly, in advising the person to go ahead and date someone whom she thought she was in love, I also reminded her she was called to chastity in whatever state of life she found herself. Nothing I said suggested transgressing chastity simply because I recommended dating! Quite the opposite in fact. When a person is considering entering a religious institute to discern a vocation in a mutual process they should not only be considering this single vocation --- or better put maybe, they should be open to other possibilities entering their life as their true vocation. The person who wrote me had at least as much chance of discovering she had a vocation to marriage as to religious life. A number of other possibilities also existed and may still! It is incumbent on her to maintain her spiritual life and to focus on truly growing in her capacity for love and generosity in mature relationships prior to and during any vocational step she might eventually take.

I am troubled that you connect dating so automatically with having sex. Of course I know that this is not only your association. It is part and parcel of the society and culture and that is profoundly troubling to me. I am not sure we have ever lived in a time or culture where something as sacred as sexual intercourse was so thoroughly demeaned and trivialized. But if a person cannot date without giving him or herself away to another in this manner, if "hooking up" is a routine transgression of significant boundaries everyone does because it is fun or expected or simply meaningless --- much less a way of exploiting another or "proving" one's masculinity/femininity or demonstrating one's love for someone --- then how can we expect them to live a life of radical generosity in celibate religious life without transgressing significant boundaries there as well?

The same goes for marriage. Dating is a time of exploration, yes, but it is also a time of restraint and real care while each one learns to honor the other, their God, and the boundaries which help constitute and protect each person's selfhood and personal integrity. Dating is an intense process of learning to love another and maturing in that capacity (as well as helping them mature in theirs) so that, should one discern one is called to marriage (whomever that involves!!), one will be able make the complete and unique self gift that implies. If that self-gift is to be made instead in religious life, then the process of dating while remaining chaste will have helped the future religious prepare for this complete and unique oblation in celibacy. It also will enrich his or her life in ways which are almost immeasurable. A male or female religious who is capable of healthy, chaste, and strong relationships with someone of the opposite sex is an incredible gift to the Church and world. Dating helps prepare the way for this as much as it helps prepare the way for marriage.

It seems to me then that two young persons who are dating need to realize they are helping one another to grow in their capacity for a life commitment. It is as much about the fact that God is calling the other person to a unique vocation as it is that God is calling oneself to that! One needs to bear in mind that God has a singular calling for each of us! Parents help form the foundation for such a commitment, but it really is with peers that our capacity for this is solidified. If one is only thinking about their own vocation while dating another then they are not nearly generous enough in their relationship. BOTH persons have divine callings and both need to grow in their capacity for responding to and living such a calling --- not only in learning to love others genuinely, but in developing the capacity to sacrifice one's own immediate desires and so forth for the sake of the other and the other's vocation as well. Dating can serve as a significant part of this specific form of maturing.

Will young (and not so young) people make mistakes? Yes, they will. Some will get pregnant, some will marry before really being sure this is what God is calling them to. But some will be able to act wisely and lovingly and some relatively few of these will also be called to religious life. The real or most fundamental vocation any of us are called to is authentic humanity and this itself is about being loved and loving in genuinely mature ways. Thereafter we may find one path or another is the best way for strengthening and expanding this capacity in us, but, whether we miss that path or not, the essential or fundamental vocation is still the same. While I think it is a terrible shame if someone fails to discern a genuine call to religious life, for instance, I recognize that God does not cease calling any of us to be ourselves in the most exhaustive ways possible. We have to trust in God's creative power and will. We have to focus not on what we missed (or on mistakes we made) but on the future God calls us to nonetheless.

You see, the greater risk I see is in religious vocations embraced and lived by those incapable either of mature relationships with persons of the opposite sex or of living a mature (and chaste) sexuality than with "missing" one's specific vocational path. The first is genuinely disastrous and may hurt many people; the second may be a significant bump in the road but it does not end the vocational journey itself.

Dating While Discerning a Religious Vocation?

[[Dear Sister, I am discerning a religious vocation and thinking about entering in a couple of years. I also think I am in love with someone. I was told I should not date him though because I am in the process of discernment. But it is so hard just to cut off contact with him. I saw your post about discernment recently and wondered if you had an opinion? Thank you.]]

Thanks for your question. I think it is important to be clear about language so let me get a bit picky about some of what you have said. You say that you are discerning a vocation to religious life, but really, you are deciding at this time whether you will try a religious vocation and enter into a formal process of mutual discernment with a community or congre-gation. While discernment of course comes into play for you right now, you are not "discerning a religious vocation"; instead you are deciding whether or not TO DISCERN a religious vocation. Until you actually enter a community you may  (and should) be discerning many things, but you are not (yet) discerning a religious vocation.

Too often today I have read people speaking on Catholic bulletin boards of this pre-discernment period as though they have already entered. Often they have not even been accepted for entrance while others have been rejected several times. Nevertheless, they tend to put the rest of their lives on hold in the process. Some advise them not to date, not to get involved in social situations, begin living as informal candidates or postulants, dress the part, etc --- and unfortunately they do this --- all under the rubric of being in the process of "discerning a religious vocation". For many, this pre-discernment process stretches on, is transformed into a kind of limbo which is supposedly dignified with the title "discernment" and life simply stutters to a stop as these folks neither enter nor discern anything else which demands a life commitment. They are not religious and may never be religious but somehow being in this "process of discernment" gives them a kind of cachet and status which they seem loathe to leave --- fictitious as it has actually become.

I don't want you falling into this trap. Once you enter a congre-gation, if in fact you ever do, there will be plenty of opportunity to discern a religious vocation. The period from entrance to reception to first vows to final vows extends for up to nine years and all of these are specifically regarded as years of mutual discernment. But at this point you need to discern where God is (or rather, might well be) calling you more generally and that may be marriage just as well as it might religious life. It may be you are called to the life of a consecrated virgin, for instance. It may be as a lay associate with a religious congregation --- which means you could well be married or single and serve God in many many significant ways. Since I don't know your age or education level let me point out that education (college and graduate school) is also something you need to consider pursuing as part of ANY vocation to which God might be calling you.

 Regarding dating, you say you believe you are in love with this person. Date him! You are still called to chastity and to developing an affective maturity which a vow of celibate love also demands. Love him as a good friend. Share this time with him. Be honest with him and be open to where God is truly calling you --- including to marriage should that be the direction things develop. I would suggest you find someone near you with whom you can talk occasionally about all of this to help you maintain perspective. It could be a counselor, a campus minister, an actual spiritual director, your parish priest or a religious there, a parent, etc. (With some religious congregations their vocation personnel would be a good choice for this.) Continue to develop your spirituality and maintain your active religious praxis at the same time (prayer, lectio, or whatever you usually do), get the education you require, and above all pay attention to your heart and the voice there that calls you to maturity, integrity, responsibility, real joy,  and a fullness of life you might hardly be able to imagine.

By the way, if there is a chance you really love this young man, then dating will give you the chance to see if he is going to fall in love with you. It will certainly give him the chance to love you as a friend who respects you and your goals and ideals. It will give both of you the chance to develop a good friendship, support each other in your dreams --- as far as you are truly free to share them at this point in your lives, and learn more about both of yourselves in the way real friendships allow. If he cannot do that then it is also unlikely you will be able to love him either and if he can, then he may well be a friend you keep long after you have decided to enter and been professed should that eventuate. 

Let me know occasionally how things are going for you! I hope this has been helpful.