Vocations, Nuns, and Dating
You want to hear a funny joke?
I decided what my vocation was at sixteen.
Yeah.
I know.
Sixteen.
I spent many weekends between the ages of ten and eighteen with what I now call my nun friends — a community of third order active Franciscan sisters. And I learned from them almost everything I know about working hard and joy.
Not happiness, that feeling when you buy a pair of shoes. Joy, that fruit of the spirit. As in, intense spiritual excitement. Or, soul-deep contentment. Or, sustained cheerfulness through hard work.
Nuns are bombdiggity. You should make excuses to spend time around them. I do that all the time now, I just show up at their convent to pray with them and give them money when I have it and give them my phone number in case they need volunteers and tell them to pray for my mom and then tell my mom to pray for them (ha!) and just accept it when they give me enormous bags of fruit and cakes I really don’t need.
Anyway, vocations.
Ah, yes.
As a sixteen-year-old, I was like: Look at all that joy!
And poverty.
And obedience.
Hmmmmm.
I don’t like poverty…
I do NOT like obedience…
But I like boys…
And babies…
And boys…
And babies…
And boys…
And my mom keeps on reminding me about how I’ve always wanted to be a mom…
And then I had a conversation with a friend at a youth retreat who said a priest told her that if you had always felt a specific vocation was for you, then maybe, it probably was.
So then I was like, marriage is for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
And often, one of the sisters would walk up and interrupt my work. Any and all of them. I would be dishing out the food for their retreatants or wiping down tables or what-have-you, and she would ask with a big grin when I planned to join their community.
And I would laugh awkwardly.
And then I learned to laugh and follow it up with: “You should pray for me…”
Because “you should pray for me” is a great general statement. It covers all the bases. You really win, with that statement.
And in the back of my head I would think, “No way, I’m going to be a mom. And definitely have twelve kids, just two more than my parents to out-do them.”
My family is BIG competitive.
Ok, here’s the kicker.
I meant, “You should pray for me in general.”
They probably heard “You should pray for that to happen.” Or did they?
Recently, after a great spiritual test and then a great spiritual awakening and pizzazz and fireworks and drama (God always makes drama happen to me, though I never look for drama, I have hated drama ever since middle school if you know what I mean), I’ve been resting and rejoicing. I was attending an event at the retreat center and walked up to my spiritual mama, my old boss and mentor, my favorite sister, to give her my most recent phone number, and she looked at me, lowered her voice, and asked,
“Gen, do you have a boyfriend?”
I looked at her and thought of a few recent failed starts. I sighed and said, “No, sister, you should pray for that.”
“Oh no, Gen, I’m praying you become house superior!” She laughed.
I smiled at her.
In the front of my head, I thought, “YOU WHAT?”
In the back of my head, I thought, “Huh.”
Huh. I see the appeal.
Not because I want to wrangle a bunch of nuns and be their leader and run a convent and do all the money stuff besides and travel around the world.
But I finally get the appeal of religious life. It makes a lot of sense. The poverty. The chastity. The obedience.
And also…
GOSHDARNNIT! HAVE THEY BEEN PRAYING FOR THAT THE WHOLE TIME???
This could explain so much about my love life! Or lack thereof….
I sometimes wonder how many people pray for me in this world. Definitely my parents. Probably my siblings. And then the nuns…
And what do they pray for? Specifics, or me in general? How often do they pray? How many Hail Marys are we talking? Do they make sacrifices and fast for me? Really, what are the statistics on this?
Is my mom still praying for me to get married? She really just wants that, I know, because she never quits mentioning having more grandkids…
And then I realized my massive mistake. My fatal mistake. Fatal for my love life, if you will. It’s been dead on arrival. Stillborn.
I never prayed for my future spouse.
I never prayed to find the right man.
I never did any of the things you’re supposed to do.
You know, the cheesy things you learn in high school CCD class.
…Said cheesy things which are probably very wise…
So, well. If prayer is a competition between my mom and the nuns –
Then the Franciscan sisters have probably been winning.
Cause the dating has sucked.
And I don’t know how I feel about that.
