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Since so many religious orders don't seem to be for me, should I found a new one?

Sean asks:

I have felt called to religious life for about a year. I have investigated many religious orders, hoping to find one that was of interest to me. Although different aspects of these orders were interesting, not one had all that I am looking for. Is it silly to think that I could, after much discernment and questioning, found a new order with other interested men? Thank you for your help.

 

 

Dear Sean, 

Everything is possible, and God can choose any way he wants to do his work, so it is not a totally silly idea. However, from what I have read of the foundation of religious orders, it is not usually the case that the founder examines the scene and comes to a rational, clear, perfectly reasoned decision of what is needed, and then sets about applying that very specific idea of which he is totally sure. It seems to me that the inspiration usually comes unbidden, at times to the perplexity even of the founder himself. Often the foundation is started "unintentionally", being an informal group that then gels. When steps are taken, it's always after seeking light and confirmation from a spiritual director and then the Church herself.

  

My advice would be to perhaps leave the eventuality of founding a new order on the backburner for now and examine your approach towards your vocation. If you have felt a call to religious life for more than a year now, and your main focus has been to find the order that has what you are looking for, I think you should adjust a little. Get a spiritual director to help you as you examine your motives and the importance of the things you are looking for, to see if they really bear the signs of God's inspiration or if they are trivial. (For example, a certain color of habit is trivial, spiritual life is substantial.) That may cause you to re-examine some of the conclusions you have already come to.

 

From there on out there is not much I can say to you. You and your spiritual director will have to take it as it comes and figure out which way God is pointing.

 

God bless,

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