a religious sister..//_-

Ang pagiging madre ba ay talagang mahirap? Mahirap kayang magdasal buong araw sa loob ng monasteryo kasama ang kapwa madre? Mahirap ba talaga ang buhay na wala ka nang iintindihin kundi ang pagsilbihan Siya ng buo mong pagkatao (like your whole life, whole heart, whole time)? Is being a religious sister really that hard? Wala lang…just a thought.

Just the other day, I and a friend went to church. We were talking about praying, “dagkot” and those kind of stuffs when she suddenly pointed a woman to me. She said that the woman is an old maid who goes to church everyday- praying, staying there for hours. She told me that the woman was her auntie’s (who is a religious sister in Spain for more than ten years now) acquaintance. According to Caroline, her auntie told her that the woman wanted to be a religious sister, but because she’s already old, she can’t anymore have her papers processed.

I was staring at the woman- her face could pass for a nun, so innocent-looking with her age. The wrinkles on her face showed no sign of discontentment, but only of pure aging. I don’t know the woman but, in my own view of her physique, she could well pass for a nun. If only she had not been old enough to enter the convent. If only she had figured out that she doesn’t have plans of marrying, then she could have been in the convent by now- praying, facing her everyday life with the contentment of eternal service, having her head bald after saying the ‘solemn vows’.

Here’s an article from the net about how a woman becomes a religious sister:

“When a woman enters a convent she first undergoes an initial period of testing the life, known as postulancy, for a period of six months to a year. If she, and the order, determines that she may have a vocation to the life, she receives the habit of the order (usually with some modification to distinguish her from professed nuns) and undertakes the novitiate, a period (that lasts one to two years) of living the life of a nun without yet taking vows. Upon completion of this period she may take her initial, temporary vows. Temporary vows last one to three years, typically, and will be professed for not less than three years and not more than six. Finally, she will petition to make her "perpetual profession", taking permanent, solemn vows”.

I have been thinking of how hard it is to be a religious sister. I am wondering of the life they have in the cloister. What do they do when they are there? Are they just praying the whole day? What do they eat? Are they allowed to use the telephone? The computers? Are they allowed to see their families? Are their lives still as normal as our lives? (aw?sorry na gud sisters).

These religious sisters have made the years in the convents. They have spent life without seeing half of the world. They have stayed inside their monasteries without seeing the people they have been used to seeing everyday of their "ordinary" lives. I think that the life that a religious sister has is very challenging. Not only because she is prohibited to things that people outside the convents are in to, but also because when a woman decides to enter the monastery, her faith is tested. I say that a woman who chooses to answer their calling of becoming a religious sister is brave- braver than any other woman in this material world.

There are only a few who devotes their whole life serving the Lord. There are only a few who could stand life inside the convent. There are only a few who could bravely enter the convents without- of course, turning back.

Well, just a thought...
Can I?..

//_-..


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NOTES:

"A Nun is a woman who has taken special vows committing her to a religious life.[1] She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent. The term "nun" is applicable to Roman Catholics, Eastern Christians, Anglicans, Lutherans, Jains, Buddhists, and Taoists, for example. While in common usage the terms nun and sister are often used interchangeably, properly speaking a nun is a female religious who lives a contemplative life of prayer and meditation within a monastery while a sister (in the Christian religions) lives an active vocation of service to the needy, sick, poor, and uneducated."

"Nuns properly so-called have solemn vows with a strict enclosure, regulated by pontifical law which prevents the religious from going out (except in very rare cases, approved by the regular superior and the bishop), and also the entrance of strangers, even females, under pain of excommunication. Even admission to the grated parlor is not free, and interviews with regulars are subject to stringent rules. Though some mitigations have been introduced partly by local usage, partly (in the case ofcertain convents in America) by express concession of the Holy See. The building should be so arranged that the inner courts and gardens cannot be overlooked from outside, and the windows should not open on the public road".

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"Hard siguro talaga maging madre".//_-

think.weigh.think.

//_-