Catholic parents, who name their first daughter Mary and who are regular church-goers, doing all they can to give their children a Catholic education, as well as taking advantage of all the experiential spiritual opportunities with them, should not be surprised or disappointed when their child feels called to a religious or priestly vocation. Larry and I can remember the day that Mary came to us to tell us the news that she wanted to enter the convent. Both of us took it way too calmly to satisfy our daughter, who was bubbling over with excitement, and who thought we would surely be extremely happy with her announcement. For a number of reasons which were due to experiences in our own lives or lives of people close to us, it is true that we were “cautiously” happy. This left Mary a little perplexed and disappointed with our lack of an enthusiastic reply. It was strange that both of us reacted in that way when we had never talked to each other about it. It was not at all that we wanted to stop any of our children from answering a certain call from God.
Larry had gone to the seminary for most of his high school years, and I had spent my freshman and sophomore years in the convent. Both of my older sisters had left the convent, one with poor health, and the other had already been a professed Sister. Both of them had some wounds they carried with them from their experiences, and in addition to my own feelings and the problems I had readjusting to the secular world, those things made me gun-shy of any of my children repeating those experiences in their lives. My mother also went from being looked up to for having two daughters in the convent, to having to face people who felt they failed. The general mindset of Catholics toward those who entered the seminary or convent was very different those days than it tends to be today.
In Mary’s case, she was old enough to make a good decision for her own life, but as most parents, we had watched her grow in “age and wisdom and grace”, and we had a few ideas of our own about her future, which we had kept in the silence of our hearts. Mary had finished college with a degree in English and Spanish. She was the only one of our four children who finished her education with marketable skills. She was an accomplished dancer and had a beautiful voice. She had developed good friendships in spite of two family moves at some of the most difficult times in a child’s life. These caused her to have to adjust to new schools and new friends and she did this very well. She liked boys and had dated. Boys liked her. Speaking as a mother, I had entertained many dreams for my little Mary, including dreams for her as the mother of wonderful little grandchildren for me. Or maybe she would become a good dance instructor like her beloved Diane Remy. Mary could have become a good teacher because she knew what it was to study for her good grades. With all of our children, the thought of religious life was always in our minds for them, but only if that is what they really wanted. Her dad took the news with his usual calm attitude, not overreacting in any way.
At the same time, both of us felt that to react as if Mary were telling us she was already completely convinced and that was that would have been premature. Neither of us wanted to put any pressure on her to feel that she had to do what she was now so certain of in order not to disappoint us. She needed to know we loved her no matter what would happen in the years to come, and that she would always be welcomed and supported if she discerned that she was not called to religious life after all.
At some point, Mary told us how she felt about our hesitation, so we explained that we trusted her discernment and loved the idea of being the mommy and daddy of “a nun.” As time went on and Mary progressed through her formation, our feelings changed. Although I think we remained cautious about putting pressure on her, we gradually began to feel more freedom to express our joy at having a daughter who said “yes” to God in imitation of Our Lady. We truly do love the spiritual insights and conversations we have with our Sister-daughter as well as knowing that we have a larger family of Sister-daughters who pray for us and have our spiritual welfare in their hearts. Some people think that a daughter or son is lost to them if they “give them up” to the priesthood or religious life. We can assure them that this is not true at all, and in fact, just the opposite is true. We truly feel our family and our hearts have grown and expanded. In the first place, though, our children are never completely ours. Just as each of us belongs to the Lord in our belonging to each other, so God gives us “marvelous comrades” with whom to travel on our journey home. And we always look forward with joy and hope to the day when we will be together forever in the Father’s house.
