Cowboys have it easy at eight seconds, try holding on for life...

A couple weeks ago, I was talking with a friend of mine and I was venting about some of the struggles that I was having and my friend said to me, “Your in religious life, I thought it was going to be easy”. I kind of laughed inside and then I said to her, “Anytime you embrace your vocation, it is not going to be easy but as long as you keep God in the mix you will be able to get through it.” That experience with my friend really got me thinking about vocations and the journeys that we embark on to understand them.

          This week we were blessed to have some candidates who are looking into our order come and share in our lives for a week. It kind of felt weird to me at first because I can remember just last year coming up to Milwaukee to meet the postulants and learn about their program. Now it was my turn to host and share with them my experiences of postulancy. My goal from the beginning was to be very honest with them and to share with them my joys and struggles. To say that religious life is easy would be grossly understated. Just discerning ones vocation already defies the law of social norms. You have all these websites that help you to find the perfect match and all these songs about finding your true love. You don’t hear very many songs about finding the perfect religious order. Then when you do decide to join the order you defy the laws even more, but that is not what I want to focus on.

          I want to focus on the joy in finding your vocation and the struggles you will face. When one makes the decision through prayer and Devine grace to embrace their vocation it does not come alone. Somebody once told me that when you decide to embrace your vocation (whatever it is) the devil will do anything in his power to stop you. This unfortunately has happened to me. My heart and my mind have been focused on finding my treasure in life through material wants. It was not until about three years ago that I began looking for my treasure with God. In that process I found my vocation and I found my hearts true desire but unfortunately my mind was still stuck on the material.

           Moving up to postulancy I had to face the reality of living life in poverty. This is a constant struggle for me because I still have that mindset of materialism. Everyday I have to face that struggle but I have a couple weapons that I didn’t have before that and that is my community and my God. So is religious life easy the answer is no but what I have found out is that as long as you have that desire, that joy and that love for Christ than you can make it through. For it says in Matthew 6:21: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” So the next time that you are struggling with your vocation just find your treasure and there you will find your heart and you will be able stay on that bull for a longer period of time.