"What Have I Gotten Myself Into?"
In discerning for my vocation; God leads you every where; testing you and seeing if you can be faithful to Him. But, how many times do we want to listen and follow His lead? In this world we live in today, not many but the young men and women who are listening and following God's lead; they are ending up at traditional religious orders, Order of St. Dominic, Carmelites that was reformed by St. Teresa of Avila, Franciscans; Mother Angelica's Francisican sisters.
In my life, early life when I was very sinful and thinking of what I wanted to do but not what God wanted. I thought Special Forces, Army sniper, Marine Corps Scout sniper, Navy Seal, all those things; which are good; but it's not good if you aren't asking God if this is the right thing for me or for you. God does have His ways of making us listen and follow His lead; a injury to slow us down and think for a few moments or for a while.
You need a strong body and bones and everything to go through all that hard and nearly deadly training and once you start having a injury; pretty soon another injury will occur or you will get sick. So, instead of looking for info from the worldly way; I turned my focus to God and He popped in my head the question a wonderful priest had asked me when I was six or seven; I was very young, "Do you want to become a priest?" At the time I said I don't know.
Now, many years later and retold that story thousands or so times. When you find out you are on the right track and heading to the place God wants you to be at, the demons and the devil come out of the wood work and attack you and try to change your mind. You start to think, "What have I gotten myself into here?"
When you request entrance into the ancient order of the Carmelite Monks who follow the Ancient way of life and the way of life developed by St. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross; you know you will become targets and be tempted; everything thrown at you; including the kitchen sink. You can do one thing, flog yourself with a dog leash or belt; or you can use Holy Water; they; the demons hate it; I'm going to try and get my priest to bless some salt too; but I think I'll have to wait till my friend comes back to town; Fr. Tony.
Every night St. Teresa of Avila used Holy Water and she said, "the demons ran off trembling." Also, humility does it too; the demons and the devil hate humility and that is why St. Francis went to get Br. Leo; because Br. Leo was more humble than St. Francis; he was actually Fr. Leo but was called brother and Leo did the exorcism; I don't think it took that long; the devil was scared of Br. Leo; because of his humility.
To think that thought is good; it keeps you reflecting on your vocation and call to be a Carmelite Monk and the great sacrifice you make to become one. Where you are in the Cloister for the rest of your life praying, reading and working. The Ancient way of life; means if the community needs more priests; the superior will go give the nudge to some guys and get them to pray on it and see if God says yes and they say yes. I'm just looking forward to becoming a Monk and if they need more priests, I'll gladly go to Seminary in Denton Nebraska.
One must not wait to begin the detox from the world but start now and when you enter; it won't be as hard and very quick transition into the Monastic way of life. Start by trying to live that way of life here at home; but you won't be able to live the cloister life style; because you have to travel for Mass, Confession and Adoration. When that thought comes into your head or my head; we must smile and say, "Oh it will be so great to give up everything for the Kingdom of God and to become Saints."
God bless
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