Dear Athanasius,

Thanks for sending in your question again. I hit a very busy time and did get behind in answering all the mail to the site, but it seems like I'm getting back on track now. Thank you for your patience.

Regarding your question, you have to remember that when you are "looking for an order" you are really looking for what God has already chosen for you. Oftentimes our search and the uncertainty we go through as we do it help us to purify our souls and improve our dispositions, centering on his will rather than ours, just like what seems to be happening to you.

Keep in mind first of all that God has called you "from even before you were formed in your mother's womb" as the prophet said. So the qualities he gave you as he created you, your talents, were given to you with this plan in mind (not to mention all the spiritual gifts and the particular sensitivity he gave you - some are spiritually moved by the needs of missions, others by the need to pray and sacrifice for the Church, still others by the immediate needs they see in their diocese and parishes...) and so they usually become indications of what he made you for, what your particular call is. So, when you find "your place" you are going to have the sensation that it fits. It's like finding your home.

But that's not the whole picture. Since in our vocation Christ wants us all for himself totally, there are many tendencies in us (to comfort, self-centeredness, vanity...) that will find his call a shock and will resist it. Not everything that happens in our hearts and not everything we feel comes directly from God and reflects his will.  So when we find "our place" it is always going to seem like a bit much, like Christ is going too far, and we will be afraid. That happens not only with a religious vocation but also when we listen to Christ in the Gospel and consider what he tells us he wants of every Christian, or when a couple is preparing for marriage and through the Church's teaching they begin to realize God's total plan for that vocation too. 

Now, not only has God created us with our call in mind, he is also in charge in our lives. Put it in these non-theological-sounding words: if he wants something of/for us, he is intelligent and practical and powerful enough to make sure that we find it, that we "cross paths" with his plan for us.

Don't worry; I'm not digressing from your question. The best way to go about choosing an order is this: to know for sure that God is in charge of your life that he has something concrete in mind for you, he is not going to play games with you, and therefore you are not searching blindly. You are not determining the outcome, you are trying to put yourself in his hands so things get where he wants them to go. 

If God has not yet put an order in your path that seems to be "it", keep on finding out more about religious orders one at a time, or at least not many at a time. It is very important that you do not do this searching in a vacuum, isolated from your prayer life and faith. Every time you pray put your life in God's hands with trust and confidence. Tell him you know he has something in mind for you and ask him to open your heart to accept and do his will. Tell him you are doing your search in the knowledge and trust that he will use it to show you his will. Ask from him the grace that your pride, rationalism, comfort-seeking, lack of faith or any other weakness you have doesn't get in the way of his speaking to you. 

Set deep roots of trust and faith in him, and love for his will and the Church. Be ready to do great things for him. These will stand you in good stead when you do find and begin to follow your vocation because as you know it is a high calling and there are many challenges on the way. If God is calling you to be his priest it is not so that you can paddle along lazily through life on comfortable ponds and backwaters. He is going to call you out to the rapids, where his eternal message meets the rough-and-tumble frenzy of life today to enlighten, engage, correct, channel and challenge man's ambitions and passions as he builds the world, too often blinded by the spirit of God's (and his own worst) enemy. 

God bless.