Parents and the Journey to Religious Life

 

I was, for the most part, raised in a single parent household, by my mom. My two sisters and I grew up with my mom, mostly in New Jersey.  I think she was generally confused by my interest in religion. She had been raised Catholic but in a number of ways had rejected the Church; we seldom attended Mass and she only voiced negative opinions about the Church. Despite this, I was drawn to religion at a young age. It was something I took initiative on: I went to Vacation Bible School with one friend and to church with another friend.

But I was also surrounded by secular values. I went to public school until college. My mom encouraged me to get a professional, competitive career where I could be independent and make good money.  Overall, I wasn’t raised to be a religious person. As I got older, these attitudes became a part of who I was. I didn’t become actively Catholic until college.

In other ways, though, my childhood prepared me for my future vocation. For instance, I always did well in school, and it was partially due to my mother’s support. She encouraged me to challenge myself and believe that I could do it. She instilled in me a confidence in myself and my abilities that has carried me through many difficult situations. This has helped me as a sister, and it makes me want to do the same for others.

My mother had a number of concerns. Some were helpful in guiding me to make better decisions. Others were more reflective of her needs.

 First, she worried that I was rushing into this decision. When I was first discerning religious life, I was in my young 20s. She cautioned me not to make big decisions in my 20s, as women change a lot in that decade. This was based on her own experience: she got married in her young 20s and it didn’t end well. But it was also good advice. At the time, I had barely been done with school and hadn’t moved out on my own yet. I also hadn’t dated much. What if I did those things and realized that’s what I really wanted? A few years later, I revisited the idea of religious life, and I was ready to move forward on it.

I think she was afraid I was leaving her, like I wouldn’t be her daughter anymore. At one point, she told me I could do it IF I didn’t change my name—I remember her saying, “I gave you that name!”—and if I didn’t move out of our home state, New Jersey, when I became a religious sister. She said this early on, but by the time these things happened, she was accepting of them. I took the religious name Sister Grace Marie, instead of keeping the name Carla, when I made first vows and made my first of several moves out of state.

She also worried that she hadn’t given me a good example of marriage being positive and loving, that I was renouncing marriage because I had a negative association with it. She’s been divorced twice, and neither could be called amicable. I assured her that while her experiences with marriage couldn’t be called positive, it wasn’t why I wanted to become a sister.

 

I was asked what communities can do for parents and newcomers to religious life and…

I think what helped my mom the most was time. As time passed, she saw how happy I was and was happy for me. She realized that she wasn’t losing me to the Felicians. She also appreciated that I was settled into something, and she valued the opportunities I had as a sister. But all of this took time.

It also helped when religious life, particularly life in the convent, became less foreign to her. When she was exposed to my life with the sisters, she became more familiar with what my daily life was like. Meeting the sisters also helped. The Felicians did a good job with this, reaching out to her. They invited her to events and dinner in the convent. Before I became a postulant, my candidate director and soon-to-be postulant director came to our house for dinner. It helped my mother to meet and get to know the sisters.

My family, particularly my mom, had a lot of questions. They were not so much against my choice as they were confused by it. I think communities can help parents, families, and newcomers to religious life most by simply answering their questions throughout the discernment and formation process.