Discernment - The Early Years

Wow. I never knew that about Mother Frangelico. Now I understand a lot more about her. Thanks, Mother Frangelico!

This is another installment of my story. Basically, it was like a pendulum for awhile....one day I thought that I would like to be a Sister, the next day I didn't. And it seemed that whenever I was "cold" on the idea, someone would pop into my life and suggest it anew. I felt like I was being torn to pieces.

But I HAD to know what my family thought about it, so I told them. Mom just cried and said I was running away like Dad did, and everyone else just kinda shrugged. They didn't really care, one way or another...except Mom. And Mom made it sound like I was just going to knock on a convent door and be locked up forever, but everyone knows that's not the way it works! But I couldn't convince her of that, so I just stopped mentioning it to her. And really, put it out of my own mind for awhile.

And then I told a couple friends, and they were fine with it, said they'd help me. But that's when all the "advice" started. By that point I'd maybe been researching for a few months, but they treated it as if I had no info whatsoever and started emailing me multiple links for different communities and even the big websites. I explained over and over again that I already KNEW about those. And then people started sending me THEIR favorite communities and telling me that I should go look at THAT ONE.

And it got worse. All I really wanted was to figure this out in peace, have a few people praying for me or something. But instead it was like people were shouting at me from everywhere, telling me about this or that order or charism or apostolate or community...even to the Carmelites in India! Now I ask...HOW in the WORLD am I supposed to get to INDIA!?

And it got worse again, but I have to go to work now so I'll tell that story later.