I believe I am called to become a monk.
How do I proceed?
How to become a monk
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Decide which order you wish to join and check the "How to Join" section of their website.
I am not even baptised. Yesterday night while in bed I was compelled to get up, get on my knees and pray that I renounce all carnal things and will devote my life to God.
How do I decide which order to join?
I am very mathematically inclined. Is there an order with a strong intellectual focus? Is this the right way to choose?
Deciding on which order to join is a matter of deciding how you want to devote your life and what you want to help accomplish.
The Jesuits.
I am no expert but aren't Jesuits involved in a lot of nefarious dealings? They seem to be the subject of many conspiracies (presumed or actual).
I am going to sleep now.
I will be back tomorrow.
So please still post if you have some advice.
Yeah, well, since the Jesuits have such a strong emphasis on education - both religious and secular - they become the target of those groups who are anti-intellectual, anti-academia, and anti-education. They're really not the boogeymen people say they are. They also have no Third Order, which means they have no laity. All Jesuits are priests/monks, so they look like a "secret society", but they're not.
And, hey, the Pope is a Jesuit!
You have at least 5 years of spiritual preperation lad. Get baptised and spend a few years attending mass, participating in the community etc. To see if this really is your calling. Its for the rest of your life so no rush!
There are no orders in the Orthodox Church. The procedure is usually the following:
1. You go to the monastery and stay there for a couple or so days as a guest on their expence.
2. After these few days, if you still remain in the monastery, you become a novice, one under obedience and you remain such for several years. They may order you to do some pointless task, or to do something in an obviously wrong way. If you do the task not exactly as you were told, they may suggest to you to leave the monastery.
3. During this time you will have to obey many orders designed especially to bend your will, you will have to do things you wouldn't want to do. (What about cleaning the toilets?)
4. While you are in this state, it won't be a sin if you decide that you can not take it any more and ask a blessing to leave the monastery.
5. Years will pass, the monks around you will get promoted, some will be ordained as deacons and priests. You may start thinking: what is happening, apparently some people in this monastery are preferred to others.
6. Even more years will pass. You no longer care what order they give to you. You simply do as a child whatever is required and you feel happy.
7. When this happens, they will propose to you to take monastic vows. Congratulations, you have become a monk proper!
Interesting, though that sounds to me like you're obeying the monastery, not God.
Get a spiritual father.
Speak to a priest.
You're not a homosexual are you?
Ah, I've lived long enough to see a Catholic speaking as a Protestant. ☺ ♡
Now seriously: the act of obeying is unimportant. What matters is that through such excercise one becomes humble and a master of his sinful will. Only then one can trully submit himself to the Holy Spirit in order to become an Angel in flesh and citisen of the heavens while still on the Earth.
I can recommend a book, that i'm reading from my Priest. Called The Arena. From the orthodox perspective on living in the monastery. But also for layman. I started using the Jesus Prayer it recommends. And it's helped a lot in my prayers. Also the book breaks up each topic once you're past the introduction. It breaks up into really small parts. So it's really easy, to understand the specific topic, and offers some good advice from what i've read so far.
OP here again, probably with a new ID. I found a test for which order might best fit one this morning, and my result came off as the Carmelites. Unfortunately, it was aimed at women so I do not know how much weight to put in it.
I also found a vocation/spirituality type test, and my result ended up being "the path of intellect (Thomistic prayer)". This one seemed more in line with what I think my talents are, but it did not direct me to any order.
I also tried looking into the Society of Jesus more this morning, since user recommended it yesterday, and I am honestly surprised by the abundance of conspiratorial content that have it as a subject. I knew that they are viewed with suspicion but I was not aware that it is this intense. This honestly makes me fearful, especially in light of what happened after I prayed the day before yesterday. (More bellow.)
I am 28 years old, and I would say, a thinking adult. I am not saying this on a whim.
I used to joke as a kid that I will become a monk. Maybe God was preparing me for this from a young age.
I also know that right after I finished praying that night a couple days ago, I had what I can only describe as a vision, or something like it. A very vivid waking dream. It wasn't an entirely pleasant experience so I do not yet know what to make of it. A voice seemed to be ringing at the back of my head, asking "is this my future? or is it an enemy I need to confront?", while I was watching tall men wearing dark red (almost as red as sour cherries) robes walking in a sort of procession past my field of vision, with light smoke in the air above us (I could not smell it, only see it). The "dream" ended when a man without a face/without a head (he was wearing a kind of black and gold hat/crown – I say crown because it seemed to be made of hard material, maybe metallic, but it looked more like a hat or a hood), holding a long sceptre or staff (made from gold and encrusted with gems) in his left hand approached me. This happened inside some sort of chapel with a very, very tall domed ceiling.
I believe God is calling me to become an instrument of His will among men, not to live a sheltered life in a cloister.
I will, but before that I need to have a clearer picture in my mind of what exactly my path is. I am the kind of person that is very slow to make decisions.
I am as straight as an arrow. I watched a few presentation videos for various monasteries and I can see why you'd ask that (surprisingly many monks came off as gay, or at the very least somewhat effeminate).
(Why are people complaining about anime on a site with roots in Japanese imageboards?)
All the corruption related to homosexuality among the clergy, pedophilia, and child abuse (and its subsequent cover-up) are also making me extremely fearful. My chest hurts when I think about this. I wanted to get baptised a couple years ago but these news kept pouring out and I became extremely conflicted about it. I kept vacillating between Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and 'high church' Protestantism (mainly Anglicanism); at times angry with myself, at times angry with God for the state of darkness and confusion I found myself in. At times I my prayers felt like echoes in a cave.
And now I suddenly get a compulsion to not just become a full-fledged Christian but assume a religious order as a mendicant, a monk, or a priest.
I feel like Jonah about to be swallowed up by a large fish.
I am sorry for the above. It was not my intention to burden you with this.
I am a little overwhelmed, that's all, I think.
I think I have to figure this out alone.
Roman Catholicism preaches a false gospel, beware.
I find this debate emotionally and intellectually draining. Like I said, it's something I've been torn over for a few years now.
The way I weigh things right now all claims of veridicality, and the arguments produced to support the veracity of one Church hierarchy to the detriment of another, are deeply flawed.
I have not been able to have this conflict resolved, and criteria that would allow me to make a sound, solid choice (made in the Spirit of Truth, as per John 16:13) that leaves little room for doubt, distilled from it.
I only have an emotive compromise: "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matt. 18:20)
In light of this, I have decided to suspend all such considerations. I will abide by whatever place God has prepared for me, even if that should turn out to be a lion's den or a pit of snakes. The Truth will obtain.
I think there was another user a while ago who said he was going to become a monk. I wonder what happened to him.
I'm hoping he joined a cloistered order and gave up this vile internet forever.
So what do you keep doing to get yourself banned repeatedly?
It looks like you're in need of a retreat yourself huh? What's still keeping you here Christanon?
Why jump to conclusions? What if he has a dynamic IP?
I was called to marriage and family, rather than the cloistered life. Why am I here? Fellowship.
I've been here too long.
Consider becoming a Salesian instead. Check out their documents…
The IDs normally resets after a day or so, even with the same IP.
No they don't. My IP is static and my ID never resets in the same thread.
I should consider it. In what ways do they differ from the Piarists and why would you recommend the Salesians over them?
you post anime pictures.
you do not have what it takes to be a monk.
Explain.
Or rather don't. It was a rhetorical question anyway.
You misjudge me.
Be very careful of visions. It is way more likely that it was the deception of demons than it was guidance of God. Yes you have just finished praying and devoting yourself to Christ but this may be the perfect time to deceive you if you are giving into sentimentality. You should go speak to a priest as soon as possible. Both regarding your vocation, baptism and your vision. Always be watchful for delusion and always be weary of visions and apparitions as they are deceiving more often than not.
I am aware of that but thank you for reinforcing my caution.
I have a dynamic IP and don't leave my computer running when I am not on it (that would be wasted electricity), so it resets after every restart.
I also have the habit of not keeping my phone internet connection on all the time to save battery life. That too leads to me changing IPs often.
By the way, I think I have made my decision.
...
The search was arduous but the answer was kinda staring me in the face in retrospect. It just so happens that it was also the first concrete suggestion in this thread, among other – let's say – coincidences. It's like everything I went through these past 3 years was building up to this.
I feel exhausted but I can't sleep. My mind seems to be hyperactive right now. So many possibilities. I can't remember the last time I felt so driven.
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