Religious Discernment

Aug 14

August 14 & 21, 2022

Holy Redeemer Parish is blessed to have religious vocations. In the narthex we have a vocations board with pictures of men and women from our parish who have entered religious life. More pictures will go up over time, yet realistically, some of the pictures that go up will come down too.

Some people mistakenly assume that when a man or woman enters the seminary or religious life, they will now live happily ever after. Entering religious life is seen as getting married, or at least a serious engagement, and quality engagements and good marriages are rarely called off. More accurately though, reaching solemn vows or being ordained, takes many years and is an arduous journey for everyone who tries. This is how a vocation to religious life works.

A typical vocation to religious life takes many years to mature. It’s fairly accurate to say that for each person who enters the seminary, monastery, or convent, about seven years of discernment have passed, some beginning their discernment in childhood. A lightning vocation would be about two years of discernment before entering religious life, a slow one is a decade or more – just to enter.

If it is a man who pursues parish priesthood, he gets a bishop to formally support him as a seminarian; you can’t be one without a bishop’s support. The seminarian will have a year of preparation called the propaedeutic year, then work toward a college degree in philosophy, then work through four years of graduate theology, with a year-long internship in many cases. In the last year of being a seminarian, he’ll be ordained to the transitional diaconate where he will make his vows of lifelong celibacy, obedience, and prayer; to be repeated when he is ordained to the priesthood. If he is ordained to the priesthood, then he will belong to that bishop’s diocese (region) for the rest of his life, ministering in the parishes there. All told it takes nine or ten years of schooling and seminary to make it to the parish priesthood.

If a man or woman enters a religious order, then they enter the first phase called the postulancy which lasts one month to one year, depending on the order. In some religious orders the candidate joins the community for months before they even enter the postulancy. If they and the order both want the candidate to continue after the postulancy, then they will enter the novitiate which lasts a year or two, again depending on the order. It is upon entering the novitiate that the candidate gets a new name (only religious orders, not diocesan priests). If at the end of the novitiate, the candidate and the religious order each agree, then the candidate moves onto temporary vows. Temporary vows last three years but most religious orders require two or even three rounds of three year vows! If after temporary vows (3-9 years) the candidate and the religious order each agree, then the candidate takes final, solemn, lifelong vows of poverty, celibacy, obedience, and prayer. All told it takes a religious vocation between 4½ to 12 years to reach final vows.

When a man or woman responds to Our Lord’s invitation to “cast out into the deep” and enter the seminary or religious life, they are doing something heroically different – and scary. They are leaving behind their family of origin and life in the world, which are the only two ways of living they have ever known. In addition to learning how to live apart from everything they have ever known, there is the normal loneliness that comes from separating from family and friends, as well as the difficulty that comes from learning everything all over again. There is also the stress of living in community; living with non-family members for the rest of your life, dinning with them, doing chores with them, praying with them, recreating with them, studying with them, traveling with them, etc., it’s overwhelming until you get used to it, then it becomes a real blessing. Together with vows of obedience, celibacy, prayer, and poverty (holding all things in common), it is a life that is simply a shock for most people to get used to.

Needless to say, most who leave home to enter religious life don’t make it to final vows. For example, there were 21 men in my first year of graduate theology at the seminary, only seven of us made it to the priesthood five years later: only one in three made it. The 14 men who didn’t make it went home to live out their universal vocation to holiness through the vocations of marriage or remaining single, and in their respective careers. Hopefully, the time they spent in the seminary helped to make them better Catholic men; the Church and the world desperately need more good Catholic men.

And this – spiritual warfare. The demons hate all of us and simply prey upon us wherever we may be at in life. However, when a man or women seriously discerns “leaving the world” (a world given to the enemy) to give their lives completely to the Kingdom of God, the demons pay notice. They go after all those who think about religious life, and they go after all those in formation to become a priest, monk, or nun, in a special way. The one whom Jesus said was a liar, accuser, and murderer from the beginning, is going to use every temptation, lie, insecurity, accusation, and conflict to sow doubt and despair. Satan’s goal is simple: get this person to think that God doesn’t want them to be there; after all, they wouldn’t be suffering so much, or doubting so much, if this was really from God – right? So please pray for the men and women in seminaries, monasteries and convents, and don’t stop. Every one of those vocations are hanging by a thread, and I mean every one.

Brother Andrew Brands, a vocation from our parish who is at Mt. Angel Monastery, wrote me this short email below on his progress. Hopefully he’ll make it into the novitiate on September 7th, if he does, I’ll be there.

May Almighty God Bless You,

Good Morning!

The Bells of the Abbey ring as I write to you today, wishing you a happy feast of the Assumption. I pray that all is going well with the parish, and wanted to provide a quick update on how things are going.

Shortly after Easter, my classmate, Postulant Brother Thomas Perry discerned out, leaving me as the only remaining member of my class. Despite this, I have been able to flourish and grow in many ways.

In June, I developed some kind of back injury, (doctors suspect sciatica), and provided me with a mortification that I did not anticipate in my postulancy. Thankfully, in the last few months, my back has healed extremely quickly and I have been able to carry on with my normal tasks with minimal discomfort, even when I was still recovering. I have also been assigned to work with the IT department and the Brewery, which has allowed me to apply some skills I had learned previously to help the community and learn some new skills along the way.

This past week, the Senior Council met to discuss my desire to petition for entry into the Novitiate, and gave their recommendation. At this time, there only remains the Monastic Formation Council's recommendation, and finally Chapter before I am able to continue on to the novitiate. I don't have a timeframe yet on when the Chapter will be, but assuming all goes well, I will enter the novitiate on September 7th during Vespers.

Overall, I am thankful above all things that God has guided me through the formation process thus far, and while at times I have had to face challenges in work and in prayer, it is incredible being able to know and at times feel God helping me overcome challenges by remaining faithful to Him. Know that you are in my prayers every day, and I pray that Holy Redeemer may continue to build up and strengthen God's Kingdom on earth.

May Mary, Queen of the Angels, bless you and guide you,

Br. Andrew Brands O.S.B.