A reader writes:
How did you/do you discern a ‘vocation’ to writing alongside your primary marriage/motherhood vocation?
I love writing and I sometimes feel called to share more. Looking back, I should have listened to my college English 101 teacher and worked for a Writing/English degree. In the end I gave up a college degree for a husband and children (and have no regrets presently about it). I already write for CatholicMom.com and occasionally for my local Diocesan paper and I enjoy that.
I’m trying to figure out if I should seek out other places to publish because this is what God is asking of me or if it is just something I want to feed my ego.
A very reasonable question, but it kind of took me aback. I was reminded of the time my father was approached by one of the lectors in his parish. The fellow had a quibble with the new lectoring schedule. "I'm sure you prayed over this matter before you made the final draft," he said, "But wouldn't it be better if we did such-and-such . . . "
And my father wasn't sure how to tell him that -- no, he hadn't prayed over it. He had just used his brain and common sense, and made the best schedule he could; and, yes, he was wiling to make adjustments.
Of course, some life decisions are more important than how to arrange a lectoring schedule. But some of the same principles apply: while it's always right and good to pray over decisions we make, we can sometimes fall into the trap of giving them more spiritual weight than they deserve.
I very rarely ask myself, in so many words, "What is my vocation?" But this doesn't mean I'm not thinking about it constantly. I know that my first earthly obligation is to my marriage, because I've made actual vows about that! Any voluntary activity that interferes with my marriage has got to go.
Second is my obligation to my kids. I don't think of them in terms of a vocation, either: I just think, "Uh-oh, so-and-so is weepy lately -- gotta find out what the problem is there," or "This one has been keeping his temper so much better! I'll praise him when he gets home," or, "I've been too busy to do much religious education this month. Either I need to tighten up my schedule, or I need to find help somewhere," or "Bleah, the bathroom stinks. Should I discipline myself and clean it, or is it time to pass this lovely skill onto my children?"
In other words, my vocation as wife and mother and homemaker and writer is a constant work in progress -- and most of that work is pretty mundane. When things go wrong, or when things are hard (like when I'm working on a project that I've agreed to do because we'd like to purchase heating oil this winter) it's not necessarily a sign that I'm not following my vocation. Maybe it's just a sign that life is hard right now. Things don't always run smoothly when I'm following my vocation. But I check my priorities regularly, and make changes when I need to, if I can (and sometimes I can't).
So, I never did consciously discern a "secondary vocation" to write (even though I spend time writing most days!). I have always been writing something. It's something I'm good at, and I like it, so I do it. Sometimes I put a lot of effort into it, because we need the money or because there's something important that needs to be said. If it's making trouble and we can afford to ease up, I ease up. It's not really more complicated or profound than that.
I think most vocations are like this: something that changes and shifts, requiring more or less attention from you as life goes on. Living your vocation means answering the call that you're getting right now. Naturally, you take the future into account; but it's rare that vocations require making specific, lifelong vows! This is a feature, not a bug.
So, when we are faced with a decision, the best thing to do really is to pray -- specifically about the question at hand, but also just in general. But we shouldn't expect, most of the time, to get a specific answer in prayer. Prayer prepares us to figure out the answer, which we do using the mundane tools of common sense, alertness, and desire.
Yes, desire. Sometimes we (especially women) shy away from something because we enjoy it. We think that getting a kick out of something is a sign that it's selfish or unwholesome. But pleasure in good things is a gift from God -- something He offers us to help us stay on track (as long as we don't get too attached!).
The idea of a vocation is like the idea of a soul mate, and people who are searching can become so obsessed with finding the perfect match that they pass up on very real opportunities for love, happiness, and sanctification that are right in front of them. Following your vocation is not about finding the perfect hand-in-glove fit. It's about taking an honest and prayerful look at your current talents and obligations and opportunities, and being flexible. It's about preparing your heart through prayer, making a decision with your head, and then asking your heart, "So, whaddaya think?"
If it's helpful to call that process "discerning your vocation" -- if that language makes you take more responsibility for your decisions --then go for it. But if it makes you seize up with the grand implications of it all, then don't say "vocation." Just pray, be sensible, ask advice from people you trust, and do your best. That's the vocation that every single one of us has.
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Three cheers for common sense plus desire plus listening to God. Even Saint Luke did this when he introduced his gospel by admitting that others had already undertaken to write accounts of Christ and his followers, but “it seemed good to me also” to write an account. Divinely inspired? Yes. Common sense mixed with desire? Also yes!!
What if you have vocational crises? Like, if I’m a wife and mother but have been feeling the call to religious life (even though it’s obviously impossible). Are those just temptations from the evil one or could people in this situation end up like St. Rita or St. Monica?
Just my humble opinion, June1, but it sounds like you probably need a realistic break from dirty dishes, stinking diapers and screaming babies. God speaks to us in the moment, so if you’re feeling like dirty dishes, screaming babies and a messy house couldn’t possibly what God is asking of you - more likely, you’re really really tired and need a really good break to refocus on what God has given you in the here and now. A convent full of neatly pressed habits with strict schedules and simple meals sounds really nice most days to me too.
Great article; you make a much-needed point that is seldom made. To June1: it seems to me that calling it a temptation from the evil one might be unnecessarily dramatic and hard on yourself, but substantively yes, don’t you have to conclude that in fact this “call” you’re feeling is mistaken? The one thing we do know for sure about our vocations is that they involve keeping the vows we have made. I know some saints in history have done this sort of thing (e.g., Elizabeth of Hungary, whose spiritual director demanded that she abandon her children to the care of others) but I always think that was related to the fact that the church tended to undervalue the vocation of marriage in those days. Myself, I much prefer the example of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, who insisted that she could only agree to become mother superior if the other nuns understood that her children would continue to live with her and that her duty to them came first.
@ June1: I recently read Heather King’s Book, Shirt of Flame: A Year with St. Therese of Lisieux. One of the themes that truly stood out to me was how Therese taught King to “hold the tension” present in our daily lives and offer that struggle to God. Reality, when face to face with desire, rarely matches up: and instead of being an excuse to waft in uncertainty or misery, it becomes an opportunity to make something beautiful for God when we just “hold the tension.” Does that make sense? King says it much more beautifully: I’d HIGHLY recommend her book.
June1, if your call to religious live persists you might want to give some thought to becoming an Oblate of a monastery. I am a Benedictine oblate. As an oblate I do my best to live out the Rule of St. Benedict while continuing to live a busy, noisy regular life full of husband, children and grandchildren. For me being an oblate struck the perfect balance in my lay-life of work and prayer. The Catholic church is a big tent, and there is a place for everyone…including those of us with one foot sunk deep in family lay life and the other foot sunk deep in the religious life.
Yes. In my youth I did a lot of reading about what constitutes a “vocation”. As time went on I began to realize that I was actually living my vocation because of certain circumstances in my life and opportunities that came my way. Needless to say I am at peace now.
I loved this article. I think there’s a tendency among Protestants to talk about jobs or hobbies as ministries and a tendency among Catholics to talk about them as vocations. Both, I think, are a watering down of the religious sense of the words and do a disservice to actual ministers or folks living a lifelong calling.
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Just recently, a nurse I know posted on her Facebook page, ‘“I do this job for the money!” - words spoken by no nurse, ever.’ And naturally, it had like a zillion likes. Come on, how full of yourself and your own self righteousness do you have to be to post something like that?
Haha. This reminds me of my training to be a Catholic School teacher. They kept referring to teaching in a Catholic School as a vocation. I still can’t tell if this was just a way for them to justify paying is significantly less than our public school counterparts or was leftover from the days when religious mainly held these jobs. I was without children at the time but I can’t possibly imagine doing all I did then with a family. Thank goodness there are still those who are able to!
@ARM: I didn’t know that about St. Elizabeth! Oh, my gosh!!! That’s extreme.
Thanks for all the words of advice and counsel, guys. I did once try to become a Third Order Carmelite, but with a toddler, it would be impossible to make the evening meetings; I guess the Lord wants me where I am right now. I do have these intense feelings for the Carmel or just a religious order in general, but I know that right now, it’s impossible. I’ll see where it leads me and pray, pray, pray! :)
I think this element of what you’re saying is worth a lot of thought: about looking at what you are gravitating toward/how God created you to discover your vocation. For example, one theme in my life has been a love for children, even those who aren’t my “own”—when I was single, that meant inviting a dear friend and her baby to move in with me for a few years when her marriage disintegrated due to her husband’s infidelity. After marriage, that meant having our sons and becoming a mother; after medical issues, that meant adopting two daughters. Now it also means being a safe place for children we know whose dad is struggling with a mental illness, and providing free babysitting for a woman who wants to attend AA.
If I were a bit too formal vocation/official about it, I might think that I should be doing religious education, or teaching, or something. But I simply am not wired to do large groups of children, and I do not enjoy that setting one bit! And so my vocation is lived out on a smaller scale, as part of daily life.
I love this discussion—I think it’s something many people wrestle with in their work lives and family lives. Thanks for writing about it.
NB,
Living on a Catholic school teacher’s pay is difficult but can be done.I did it as a single mom with 8 kids, but just barely.The benefits were free tuition & school lunches.No health insurance, no retirement plan offered.During the summer months & afterschool I babysat to earn extra money.
It is a vocation for sure.
Kathleen,
Oh for certain it is! God Bless you and your children. And your students, what a blessing for them as well!
Simcha, it’s not too late to enter a novel/novella/short story into the contest offered by Catholic imprint Tuscany Press, with nice cash prizes! The submissions will be accepted until September 30th, (and I’ll bet you have some works on ice!)
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www.tuscanypress.com
My form of rebellion was to get married while my husband and I were in college. I stayed in college, until I ended up walking around with a giant, pregnant belly at my conservative school. I wanted to point at my ring finger to offset the funny looks on people’s faces. This post brings up a thought that I roll around in my head all the time. I spent decades thinking I would live a life similar to my mother, who never really used her teaching credential because her role as wife and mother was just fine. But now I realize how dramatically the world has changed. I tell my daughter that her generation needs to plan for work because prices for homes, cars etc. are what the market can bear, and the market is dominated by double incomes. My daughter is an artist so she has decided to pursue her painting while becoming a graphic artist as well. She hopes that she can work from home so she can stay home with her children.
@JH Hahaha you are so right. @June1, I’ve read from several saintly sources that that is indeed a temptation. Place your fervor in your vocation as wife first and then mother. So many religious books have been written by priests and nuns. While good,they aren’t always so great for nurturing the intimate life with one’s husband. Good strong marriages need a healthy outlook in this area. This doesn’t make one a second class citizen when one is compared to a celibate nun.
I agree with other commenters that the word “vocation” should be reserved for marriage and the religious life. However, other activities can be “callings” from God, even though they are not elevated to a vocation. For example, Simcha’s vocation is to be a wife and mother, but she also has a calling to write.
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I have found in my life that when I actively try to “discern” something, I end up tying myself in knots and becoming stuck in “analysis paralysis.” But if I just go with my gut feeling and don’t try to analyze too much, it’s usually the right decision. I don’t know if this is the right way to go about things, though. Sometimes I wonder why I should bother praying about a decision at all, if I’m just going to make the same decision whether I pray about it or not based on my desires and common sense. I have struggled to understand discernment for awhile and I’m still not sure I truly “get it.”
I’m afraid I have to respectively disagree about the use of the word “vocation.” From Latin, meaning “call or summons,” I think there are many people who have vocations in addition to those of a nuptial relationship (meaning marriage or religious life). Let me explain: As a wife and mother, I would wholeheartedly agree that marriage is my vocation. However, I tend to distinguish it as my “primary” vocation, meaning it takes precedence over all other interests and obligations. I also have what I refer to as a “secondary” vocation in the practice of medicine. This is something I believe I have literally been “called to” from a very young age and, by the grace of God, have been blessed to be able to pursue it. There are numerous forms where I use this vocation to serve God (caring for the sick, NFP ministry, teaching, etc.), but always carefully weighing whether taking on those responsibilities will bless my marriage and family or detract from it. For those who also have what they believe to be a “secondary vocation,” I’m sure they will understand how it can be a struggle to *not* attend to that vocation when the call seems so strong and so obviously from the Lord. But again, always with a keen eye toward appropriate prioritization (God, marriage and family first) so as to not sacrifice God’s first calling for the second.
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Perhaps to look at it another way, we have a dear priest in our parish serves our community in the diocesan priesthood and is also a military chaplain. In this way, he lives out a “double vocation,” if you will, both in service to God and in service to our military.
Let me recommend a book The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. He’s not a Catholic, so be ready for occasional salty language and him describing some silly superstitious practices when he sits down to write, but he has good advice about what you will face as a writer (the biggest being Resistance.)
Nice post, Simcha;
and the comments give nice insights also. From a song I recall: “The gifts we have, we are given to share.”
You have a gift for sharing your family’s experiences in your column. My life now divides between sharing my music (gift) with senior groups, and trying to ease the aches and pains that currently afflict my BW of 57 years. I need to talk to our children and grandchildren more often (Guilt feelings) and maybe read less. Don’t know how much sharing of one’s experiences as an aging G-Pa qualifies as a vocation - maybe avocation would be better.
Again, thank you.
TeaPot562
Holy cow! I barely have time to keep up with the laundry much less discern anything other than is it light or dark out! But I agree my vocation is first my marriage & family. I might just be obtuse, but some of the things I find are important in my life just land on me without me seeking them - when I enrolled my children in Catholic school, it turned out that the school needed help with newsletter writing which dovetailed with my life ‘before marriage’. So I worked on it. I still am working on it and helping with the annual fund. Again, that just landed in my lap. I don’t normally consider myself unaware or out of it, but I look back and see that I was led to a place where I could use my education and still be with my family. We needed the school to help our children, and the school needed us to help them. Does this make sense? I didn’t actively seek out that work, but when the opportunity presented itself, I took it without too much hesitation. Too bad I don’t have the same drive and zeal for dusting and vacuuming!
I’m a Third Order Carmelite who has had three children since joining the Carmelite Order. It’s actually pretty common for married women aged 20 to 45 to have toddlers in my community. There is an order of vocations—Carmel always comes second to your primary vocation of marriage and family—but when done with love these two vocations nourish each other, rather than compete with each other.
Email me if you have questions. abigail(dot)b(dot)benjamin(at)gmail(dot)com
For Catholics, the word “vocation” has a unique meaning. (It’s like the way words mean different things in law.) There’s really only one vocation, to love. Then the question is the state of life in which we are called to love: as a married person or a religious/priest (for men, obviously). Essentially, we’re all called to be in a vowed state of life. Being unvowed (unmarried) is always a temporary state even though in a fallen world, many people remain unvowed til they die. That bothered this unvowed woman for some time til I realized the goal is to be open to vows, try everything that can be tried & trust God to lead me where He wants me to be. The hard part is to love & live rather than worry about whether I’m doing them right or have found the right name. God gives us talents & we are to use them to love - what a wonderful thing it is to be alive.
heirsinhope.blogspot.com
First, I’d like to thank all the good men and women lay teachers over the years who have chosen to be Catholic school teachers. At my school during the late 1960’s until I graduated in 1976, initially about two-thirds of the faculty were Sisters of St. Joseph. Gradually, their numbers declined. They were excellent, but the lay women and men faculty were also terrific, and certainly were underpaid. I agree with the comments that there are many vocations. I happen to be single, and don’t forsee getting married at any time. But I do try to be a faithful Catholic (attending Mass weekly and on Holy Days of Obligation, contributing to my parish, taking part in pro-life and other parish ministries,the food pantry for the poor, and going to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, as needed). I did go through a period of rebellion for some years when I was a “C & E Catholic” (attended Mass only on Christmas and Easter) because I felt unworthy, being gay and not always chaste. Howver, I have been chaste for most of my life. It’s still a struggle, but I have found peace through prayer and confession. Great article, Simcha Fisher! I admire you for having the time to write and be both a wife and mother. Great comments by everyone! Tim Donovan
Tim, thank you for your witness. I will be praying for you, especially for your beautiful heart to be guarded from temptation in this fallen world.
Tim Donovan ,
God bless you!
Awesome! I really needed to hear this today methinks!
I’ve been tempted to started thinking about possible vocations in the future - sense. Forgetting that calls are present tense, He only calls now and I can only answer it now.
@heirsinhope
I agree bar your comments re the unvowed part.
I took vows - at baptism, and they never expire. My state in life is single, now, and might be forever, but I don’t need to take vows for that to be recognised. The church doesn’t require it and unless I feel specifically called in that direction, vows to cement your state in life if you are single doesn’t make sense.
Consider a person who is widowed - are they expected by the church to either marry again (to remain in the married vocation) or to take vows to remain single? No, of course not.
I love the insight about prayer preparing us to find the answers. I think those believe God really does work in people’s lives can fall into the trap of waiting to get an answer (out of fear of doing the “wrong” thing?) and thus stop doing what could be preparing them for the answer, or giving them the skills they will need down the road for “The Answer.”
It seems in the Catholic culture where I live “vocation” is used by the Church for one thing only: religious life and priesthood. Vocations Week and diocesan websites only addresses that topic, and not the overall life choice of religious life, marriage, single life, all of which, imho, can be a calling. A dedication to single life for the Lord might be temporary, but it is still a way of life God can call us to that requires a change of thinking from what people have. And then there are those secondary vocations - what else is God calling us to do and how do we discern that and then make the necessary sacrifice for it and (often) leap of faith to do it? Wonderful things to think about that are often buried in our secular culture and not raised clearly in our Church.
My understanding from our priest is that there are three vocations: married, religious, single-chaste life. That’s it. Everything else is a hobby:)
because I am aware of my temperament, I have noticed that I can get all excited about doing something for God and then after a short while that fades. When it has been a real ‘calling’ the desire has remained, perhaps not the excitement but the certainty that it is right. (that, and it fits in with the other priorities of my life, as Simcha said)
I think knowing the temperament God gave you can help, it helps to know how we are motivated to do something.
Our culture has such a short attention span that we tend to rush things…vocations evolve and take time. I am sure that God puts many yearnings into the hearts of young moms who wont get a chance to follow those yearnings for years, and that is ok.
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I learned of the opportunity to pursue my eventual true vocation on my 40th birthday. Yes, I appreciated God being so very clear in His directions. Years or remaining a part time nurse so that I could work weekend shifts to buy cheerios & supplement my husbands income matured into a real mission. It took YEARS to mature, couldnt be rushed, and has yielded a hundred fold of fruits.
I’ve been struggling with this idea of vocation for the last few years. I know I’m called to be a wife, and one day (hopefully) a mother, but in the meantime I’ve really struggled with what kind of work I should do for now. I guess I keep thinking (hoping) that I’m going to get some clear answer as to what I should do, but maybe it doesn’t work that way.
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