When we think of a calling, we sometimes think it is only for the “religious” types, those ones who never seem to do anything wrong, who were born and bred in the Catholic Church, who speaks with ease about religious stuff. And you know, once and a while, it is that person, but God has this disconcerting habit of choosing people who are a bit rough around the edges, who might have a tendency to be wild, rash, passionate, or temperamental. One has only to look at the women and men who constituted his first disciples to see that they were a mix of people each with rough edges and great giftedness. Some weren’t even “religious” but in them Jesus recognized a spirit of dedication, kindness, zeal, compassion, perseverance — and other such gifts that were perfectly suited for being a disciple.

So what if you have a tattoo or forget the words to the Act of Contrition (my biggest fear when walking into a confessional) or are not a virgin or enjoy falling in love or want to become a rocket scientist? Think that’s incompatible with being called? Not a chance.

There is no one who is beyond God’s call and in fact every one of us does have a calling. There are lifelong callings like to be in a relationship, to be a parent, to be a missionary, to be a religious sister or brother, to be a lifelong educator. And there are callings to a kind of ministry or service such as healing, teaching, advocating, learning, praying, companioning, protecting, or encouraging. We might experience many of the latter in our lives and within our “umbrella” lifelong calling. For example, my lifelong calling is to be a religious sister, specifically to be an Immaculate Heart of Mary Sister. But within this lifelong calling, I also am called to serve in a particular way using technology and the Internet and theology and spirituality. I am also called to a particular kind of lifestyle that is sensitive to all of God’s creation.

So think about how you are called — how you are living this calling right now even if you might never have thought about it as a calling? And for those of you who thought you were “beyond help” for becoming a nun or a deacon or a monk or religious sister or a priest or a consecrated virgin … what’s blocking you?

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Join us tonight for prayer at 6 p.m. CST at http://aNunsLife.org/LIVE.

Also, Ask Sister Podcast is coming up at the end of the week. If you have questions for us, please email them to us at sister (AT) anunslife (DOT) org.

Listen to AS010 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on January 15, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include family expectations when a person tells them they want to be a Catholic sister; who to talk to when you think you are called to become a nun; and whether or not a person has to be a virgin in order to become a sister or nun.

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

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Ask Sister Podcast – Episode 010
Visit ANunsLife.org/live
Today
6 p.m. Central Time (your timezone)

We’ve received a few questions already and welcome additional ones:

• family expectations: One person asks advice around a family that expects her to become a nun and another person asks about how to deal with family that don’t want her to become a nun. We’ll respond to both!
• becoming a nun: To whom do I talk about becoming a sister?
• the v-word: Must one be a virgin to become a nun or sister?

You can offer your questions in any number of ways:

• comment below
• email us any time before the podcast
• comment in the chat room during a live show

In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

And don’t forget, tonight is a DOUBLE-HEADER. After the Ask Sister Podcast, we are having a special Community Podcast on Saints. We’d love for you to join us. More information here at Saints, Food, and Prayer Podcast.

These days you can not only adopt children and animals but you can adopt highways, platoons, watersheds, and even microbes!

Now you can adopt candidates for religious life and ordained life! Thanks to an email from Jerri, I discovered that the Diocese of Joliet-in-Illinois as well as dioceses across the country have programs to encourage vocations to consecrated life and to support those who are in the process of becoming a religious or ordained. Jerri says that for the past couple weeks, there’s been an blurb about the program in the bulletin. It reads in part:

ADOPT A SEMINARIAN OR CANDIDATE PROGRAM: This program is an opportunity for the youth group, school, religious education class or parish to adopt a seminarian (a man who is studying to be a priest) or a candidate (a woman preparing to be a sister), and encourage them on their journey by writing letters. This type of encouragement would be greatly appreciated by the men and women in formation.

After receiving Jerri’s email I did some more searching around and found a recent article on the subject from Catholic News Service. “Programs to ‘adopt’ women in formation seen as vocations aid” by Jackie Taylor (March 23, 2009) has some more examples of how the program works and its benefits for both the adopters and the adoptees.

My only caveat to this wonderful program is that I wish it also encouraged vocations for men to religious life as well as other Church vocations like consecrated virginity and hermit life.

When vocations are promoted, we sometimes only focus on religious life for women and priesthood for men, as if two gender-based versions of the same calling. Not so. Ordained life is a distinct calling and can be to the priesthood or to become a deacon. Both forms of ordained life are restricted to men.

Religious life is a very different calling and it is open to both men and women. It includes sisters, nuns, friars, monks, brothers. In addition there are hermits and consecrated virgins — not sure if they technically fall in the “religious life” category but all of these are considered forms of “consecrated life.”

So in the ideal world, we’d have a parish bulletin with the headline “The Adopt-a-Sister-Friar-Priest-Hermit-Monk-Deacon-Nun-Virgin-Brother Program” but who would ever want to title something like that!!??

Hmmm … anyone interested in an Adopt-A-Nun’s-Life program?

Here’s a good article on consecrated virginity with encouraging words from Pope Benedict XVI. A consecrated virgin is not the same as a nun or sister. It is a different way of life within the Church. It always amazes me the diversity of our vocations in the Church. God calls each of us in a unique and powerful way. I’d love to hear from any one reading who is a consecrated virgin and what the life is like.

Consecrated Virginity a Gift for the Church, Says Pope
Calls Charism Luminous and Fruitful

VATICAN CITY, MAY 15, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The call to consecrated virginity has roots in the beginnings of evangelical life, and the Virgin Mary was its first fulfillment, affirmed Benedict XVI.

The Pope stated this today when he greeted 500 consecrated virgins today who have gathered in Rome for an international congress. In his remarks to the members of “Ordo Virginum,” or the Order of Virgins, the Holy Father, quoting the theme chosen for the congress, pointed out that consecrated virginity is “a gift in the Church and for the Church.” He invited the women “to develop, from day to day, their understanding of a charism which is as luminous and fruitful in the eyes of the faith as it is obscure and futile in the eyes of the world.”

“The Order of Virgins represents a particular form of consecrated life which flowered anew in the Church after Vatican Council II,” the Pontiff explained. “However, it has ancient roots that go back to the beginnings of evangelical life when, in an unprecedented novelty, the hearts of certain women began to open to a desire for consecrated virginity: in other words, the desire to give one’s entire being to God, which had had its first extraordinary fulfillment in the Virgin of Nazareth and her ‘yes.’

“Your charism must reflect the intensity, but also the freshness, of its origins,” said the Pope, noting how, “when it came into being, the charism did not involve a particular way of life. Little by little, however, it was institutionalized, finally becoming a full public and solemn consecration conferred by the bishop through an inspirational liturgical rite that made the consecrated woman ’sponsa Christi,’ an image of the Church as bride.”

“Your vocation is profoundly rooted in the particular Church to which you belong,” he told the women. “From the diocese, with its traditions, its saints, its values, limits and difficulties, you open up to the scope of the universal Church, sharing particularly in her liturgical prayer.” “In this way your prayerful ‘I’ progressively broadens out,” the Holy Father continued, “until in the prayer there is nothing more than a great ‘we.’ In your dialogue with God, open yourselves to dialogue with all creatures.”

“The choice of virginal life,” the Pope concluded, “is an allusion to the transitory nature of earthly things and an anticipation of future good. Be witnesses of vigilant and industrious hope, of joy, of the peace that belongs to those who abandon themselves to the love of God. Be present in the world, yet pilgrims on the journey to the kingdom.”