{"id":3251,"date":"2008-02-07T07:20:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-07T07:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/02\/better-late-than-never.html"},"modified":"2008-02-07T07:20:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-07T07:20:00","slug":"better-late-than-never","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/02\/better-late-than-never.html","title":{"rendered":"Better late than never"},"content":{"rendered":"

I write a lot about late vocations around here — most deacons, after all, become deacons later in life — but a post earlier this week about the diminishing number of nuns and monks<\/a> prompted this e-mail from one woman: <\/p>\n

I think it would help if religious orders themselves did not exlude some of their best vocations on the grounds of age. <\/p>\n

Formerly, it was not that unusual for a middle-aged person to experience a call to religious life after a more active secular career. There are many examples among the saints! And that was in a time when life-spans were shorter, and people matured at an earlier age than is true in our culture.<\/p>\n

Now, most orders won’t even consider anyone over the age of 35. This may be due to economic fears, which is, in my opinion, a pretty bad reason to exclude vocations. It probably isn’t even a valid reason: Many middle-aged people have retirement savings, which would prevent them from being a burden to a community as they age, and could even alleviate the current problem of supporting elderly nuns and monks who have been in religious life since their 20’s.<\/p>\n

In my own case, I am currently needed to care for a handicapped parent. I firmly believe that this is what God wants me to do. But when I am no longer needed there, I would love to enter a comtemplative order. Fat chance. I’m 51 years old. <\/p>\n

People like me (and there are lots of us) end up trying to follow an individual adaptation of a contemplative religious rule. We won’t show up in the statistics. We probably won’t get the spiritual guidance that we would have if we could actually be in a regular order. Nor will we have the support of a like-minded community, which can be a huge problem – not all contemplatives are called to be hermits!<\/p>\n

Pray for vocations . . . and pray for vocations to be accepted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I sent out an SOS to a favorite blogger pal<\/a> who follows these sorts of things, and she kindly sent me several links, which I passed on to the woman who wrote me. <\/p>\n

If you know a woman who is interested in religious life and thinks she’s too old, the links below might be a help. These all accept late vocations: <\/p>\n

Toledo Visitation Sisters<\/a><\/p>\n

St. Benedict Monastery, Texas<\/a> <\/p>\n

Daughters of Our Mother of Peace<\/a> <\/p>\n

Visitation Nuns of Philadelphia<\/a> <\/p>\n

Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity<\/a><\/p>\n

Carmelites of San Diego<\/a><\/p>\n

Intercessors of the Lamb<\/a><\/p>\n

Communities for Women Over 45<\/a> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Remember: better late than never!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I write a lot about late vocations around here — most deacons, after all, become deacons later in life — but a post earlier this week about the diminishing number of nuns and monks prompted this e-mail from one woman: I think it would help if religious orders themselves did not exlude some of their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vocations"],"yoast_head":"\nBetter late than never - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/02\/better-late-than-never.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Better late than never - 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}