'I wanted seven kids but instead I became a nun

BBC ^ | 16th June 2024 | Sister Catherine as told to Pail Mosley

[Cronos]

While faith has always been important to Catherine, 26, she did not always plan on joining a religious order. "I'd had this dream of getting married and having seven children - you know, proper Catholic, you need to have lots of babies, right?".

Yet here she is, part of a small group of women in a convent on the edge of Dereham, a small Norfolk town. Growing up a Catholic and working for the local diocese, .

She initially had doubts about joining them, working instead as an au pair in Austria. She hoped to find "a nice, handsome man", but that did not happen.

"There were lots of moments on my day off I'd go exploring some of the beautiful surroundings," she says. "And I can remember those times where I'd come across a chapel or a church and have that real sense of deep peace - almost a sense of being held - in God's presence. "And so I realised this desire to belong totally to God was still there."

Shortly after the first Covid lockdown, Sister Catherine joined the convent of The Community of Our Lady of Walsingham, based in a converted barn. "I thought I'd give it three weeks. Almost four years later, I'm still here," she says. A typical day involves at least three hours in prayer and silent contemplation.

But Catherine and the other sisters are also involved in the community, giving talks in schools, working in prisons and also with university students. They also maintain the convent and its grounds, as well as its website and social media channels.

...She met "some really joyful sisters" and says that, through prayer, she came to trust that what God wanted "is what's best for me".

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Some speculate that even Jesus had a wife with some saying that undermines his message. No, he needed to become totally human to understand us, to forgive us. What better way than to be married? Married or not, it adds not a bit to his message of love, repentance, and forgiveness. If He married Magdalene, a reformed hooker, it would confirm that no one is beyond redemption. (This happened before in the Bible).

[Varsity Flight]

The Green Dolphin

[Varsity Flight]

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+green+dolphin&&view=detail&mid=A691402DDCF5BF3BF7D5A691402DDCF5BF3BF7D5&&FORM=VRDGAR

[Cronos]

Jonty30 I’d rather have somebody join an order, knowing full well that they plan to leave that order when they are ready for something like marriage, so they serve God with complete devotion while they prepare for marriage, even if they never marry.

you want to take away their God given right to be devoted to a life of prayer?

If someone wants to marry, they can still lead lives of devotion to God, but there are some who wish to devote all their lives

[daniel1212]

There is indeed a "shred," as Paul states that all the other apostles were married, making Him and Barnabas the only celibate ones, and who were not bound to that state:

Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas? (1 Corinthians 9:5)

And refrain from trying to argue that the other apostles were leading a women who was not a wife, but a female assistants, for not only is "gunē translated "wife" over 90 times - including 1Co. 7:27 - but contextually Paul is referring to sacrifice and Paul himself had female assistants. (Philippians 4:3; Rom. 16:2-4, 9, 12)

That said, being celibate and continent is a valid call of God, but which is an ability and call, and is not and cannot be mandated for pastors or deacons by excluding marriage. Instead, being married with well-ordered children is stated to be a positive affirmation of one's ability to pastor the flock of God, (1 Timothy 3:1-12; Titus 1:5) and married was the normative state for them.

But of course, Catholic priests are not the valid presbuteros/episkopos (same office) of the NT church.

[Cronos]

The Catholic did to protect their assets from claims of children that were fathered by priests. It’s not based on some standard of holiness.

That is false

The reason for the celibacy rule coming in the late Middle ages was that people contrasted the parish priests (who were allowed to be married men) with the monks and wanted more monks

Children that were fathered by priests, just like the children of Anglican vicars, have no claim to the "assets" of the Church

The link you posted - did you actually even read it?

It says

Jesus lived a chaste life and never married and at one point in the Bible is referred to as a eunuch (Matthew 19:12), though most scholars believe that this was intended metaphorically. The implication was that Jesus lived a celibate life like a eunuch. Many of his disciples were also chaste and celibate. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, recommends celibacy for women: "To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion." (1 Cor. 7:8-9)

and

The first written mandate requiring priests to be chaste came in AD 304. Canon 33 of the Council of Elvira stated that all"bishops, presbyters, and deacons and all other clerics" were to"abstain completely from their wives and not to have children." A short time later, in 325, the Council of Nicea, convened by Constantine, rejected a ban on priests marrying requested by Spanish clerics.

The one part where it talks about children of married priests (which was allowed at that time) is about "children of priests from inheriting property." --> not church property

You should have read it really rather than skimming - as it has

Several explanations have been offered for the decision of the Church to adopt celibacy.

• the policy was initiated to distinguish the clergy as a special group:"A celibate clergy became the paradigm of separation from the sinful world."
  
  
• the ban on marriage was adopted to lift the status of priests at a time when their authority was being challenged by nobles and others.

[Cronos]

Jonty30 when I hear somebody tell me that to join the priesthood cannot be a temporary thing

Question to Jonty - do you also think marriage can be a temporary thing?

Because as a Catholic I believe that it is permanent, it is a sacrament that we solemnly vow with God to love and to honor all the days of our lives.

So marriage should not be taken lightly - we have pre-marital courses etc

Even more so for the priesthood - you have years of novitiate where you can drop out. Only when you are utterly sure for the rest of your life should you then take the priestly VOWS to God.

[Jonty30]

Service can be temporary. There is nothing wrong with having an order for lay people to give service and have institutional support while doing so,imo.

[Cronos]

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

If you take things sola scriptura and read verse by verse, you'll see that a Jehovah's witness, a Mormon, a Baptist and a Oneness Pentecostal (who reject the Trinity and embrace Modalism) would each read that one verse and come to utterly different conclusions if they go by their own interpretation.

Far better to stick to the interpretation set by God to the Apostles and handed down by the Apostles from God

[Cronos]

Jonty: I think it’s a useful thing for the church to have lay members who can completely devote themselves to the service of the church without the expectation of permanent service while they prepare their life in other ways.

The Church HAS such lay members. In addition you have the ministrant priests (as all of us are part of the priestly nation of Christ)

[Cronos]

Jonty30 If you cannot rely on the Bible, then there is nothing at all to rely upon.

That is incorrect - Jesus didn't leave us a collection of Books, He left us a community, a Church

We must rely on what the Apostles taught us

2 Thessalonians 2:15 Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold to the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle.

1 Corinthians 11:2 I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you.

In Peter's sermon in the upper room (Acts 2) and in other recorded sermons, St. Peter gives an authoritative New Covenant interpretation of salvation history, interpreting the Old Testament messianically and “Christianly.” It was binding and equally authoritative and inspired before it became “inscripturated” because it was from an apostle. Throughout the book of Acts we see Peter and Paul exercising apostolic authority and preaching—not merely handing out Bibles or mouthing (Old Testament) Scripture.

Having said that, those men you listed crafted their Bibles to match their philosophies and not the other way around. The didn’t let the Bible explain itself.

And each of the Mormons, Jehovah's witnesses, pre-tribulation rapture dispensationalists, Christian scientists, Oneness Pentecostals, etc. etc. all did the same -- the Bible has a sacred interpretation that Jesus taught to His disciples and which they passed down in the Catholic/Orthodox/Oriental/Assyrian Church

Acts 8

Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south[a] to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. 27 And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” 30 So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?”

[Cronos]

Nazarites were a 2nd temple Jewish practice.

Christianity i.e. the Jesus movement is a 2nd temple Judaism sect - the other sects all died with the destruction of the temple in 70 AD (the Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes etc.) - only after the destruction of the temple did the Rabbi Yohannan ben Zakkai create rabbinical Judaism, what we today call simply Judaism - it replaced the temple and priests and animal sacrifices with synagogues, rabbis and todah

Christian monks in the 4th century took aspects of the Nazarite vow, but are not Nazarites nor a continuation of that 2nd temple practice.

[Cronos]

Jesus was unmarried -there is zero hint about this among either the early Christians or their detractors.

[Cronos]

your link has lots of text but little truth in it.

Firstly - it takes one excerpt from Jerome to try to prove its false point - this is a standard dispensationalist fallacy of excerpting the biblical books (and other works) and making strawmen

[Cronos]

But this is not a “service” - this is a Holy vow.

I consider marriage to be similar - permanent.

Do you consider marriage a permanent sacrament?

[Jonty30]

I consider marriage to be permanent. But we are all priests within the church.

[daniel1212]

If the Bible is to be rejected as the sure supreme sufficient (in formal and material senses combined) standard on the basis that Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler etc. both read the Bible at some point, then Catholicism is to be rejected since Hitler was baptized RC, with a practicing mother, and Joseph Stalin was baptized RO and joined 600 priests in seminary where he attained high marks, while Martin Luther,and Huldrych Zwingli were ordained to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church and John Calvin was brought up his mother to be a good Catholic. And Mohammad was influenced by Catholic teachings.

And like Roman Catholicism, Luther was anti-semitic as broadly defined.

Of course, they also all breathed air, while the devil as well as the Lord Jesus invoked Scripture, but one must differentiate btwn conformity with something and the invalid use such.

And it remains that distinctive Catholic teachings are not manifest in the only wholly God-inspired, substantive, authoritative record of what the NT church believed (which is Scripture, in particular Acts through Revelation, which best shows how the NT church understood the gospels)

Which includes the novel and unscriptural premise of ensured perpetual magisterial veracity (EPMV) of office, under which Rome asserts she is and will be infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares. And also presumes protection from at least salvific error in non-infallible magisterial teaching on faith and morals.

[daniel1212]

If you take things sola scriptura and read verse by verse, you'll see that a Jehovah's witness, a Mormon, a Baptist and a Oneness Pentecostal (who reject the Trinity and embrace Modalism) would each read that one verse and come to utterly different conclusions if they go by their own interpretation. Far better to stick to the interpretation set by God to the Apostles and handed down by the Apostles from God

You should know better by now than to imagine that their is a unified Catholic interpretation of what is "set by God to the Apostles and handed down by the Apostles from God." Besides the substantial conflicts btwn RCs and Orthodox, as yet irreconcilable after 1,000 years, you have you various sects and schisms, extending as expressed on FR itself - even as whether you have a valid living pope.

As a former weekly mass-going RC, CCD teacher and lector, I find more real spiritual unity ("of the Spirit") with those who have been spiritually born of the Spirit (Jn. 3:2-7) by effectual, penitent, heart-purifying, regenerating faith (Acts 10:43-47; Acts 15:7-9) with it's profound basic transformative change in heart and life, than I did Catholicism, despite what we disagree with.

And those who most strongly esteemed as the accurate and wholly inspired word of God, with its basic literal hermeneutic, have long testified to being far more conservative and unified in polled core beliefs and values than Catholics overall.

The redeemed are those who have been spiritually born of the Spirit (Jn. 3:2-7) by effectual, penitent, heart-purifying, regenerating faith (Acts 10:43-47; Acts 15:7-9) in the Divine Son of God sent be the Father to be the Savior of the world, (1 Jn. 4:14) who saves sinners by His sinless shed blood, on His account , rendering them "accepted in the Beloved" (Eph. 1:6; Eph. 2:6-9) - not deserved by any merit of themselves or any church.

And which faith is imputed for righteousness, (Romans 4:5) and is shown in baptism and following the Lord, (Acts 2:38-47; Jn. 10:27, 28) whom they shall go to be with or His return (Phil 1:23; 2Cor. 5:8 [“we”]; Heb. 12:22,23; 1Cor. 15:51ff'; 1Thess. 4:17) In contrast to those who were never born of the Spirit or who terminally fall away. (Gal. 5:1-4; Heb. 3:12; Heb. 10:25-39) Glory and thanks be to God.

The main difference on this versus Catholicism is that the latter believes in salvation by actually becoming good enough (via the act itself of baptism, and then via sacramentally aided attainment and - for most, Purgatory) to actually be with/see God in Heaven.

[daniel1212]

“Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?”

Among certain other ideas, that SS excludes the teaching office of the church is absurd.

Meanwhile, since the Interpreter itself is subject to interpretation, one poster wryly commented,

The last time the church imposed its judgment in an authoritative manner on "areas of legitimate disagreement," the conservative Catholics became the Sedevacantists and the Society of St. Pius X, the moderate Catholics became the conservatives, the liberal Catholics became the moderates, and the folks who were excommunicated, silenced, refused Catholic burial, etc. became the liberals. The event that brought this shift was Vatican II; conservatives then couldn't handle having to actually obey the church on matters they were uncomfortable with, so they left. ” - Nathan, https://christopherblosser.wordpress.com/2005/05/16/fr-michael-orsi-on-different-levels-of-catholic-teaching (original http://www.ratzingerfanclub.com/blog/2005/05/fr-michael-orsi-on-different-levels-of.html)

[Cronos]

we are all priests within the church

And that is exactly what the Church has taught - we are a priestly nation like Israel was in the Old Testament - and just as that priestly nation had ministrant priests in the temple, we too have ministrant priests.

by baptism, Christians have a share in Christ’s priesthood.

The difference is that we have the High Priest and sacrifice in the form of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist at every mass

The Church thus understands there to be a threefold structure: the common priesthood of all, the ministerial priesthood of the ordained, and the high priesthood of Christ.

This is what we see in the New Testament. The common priesthood is referred to in 1 Peter 2:9. The ministerial priesthood is referred to in Romans 15:16, where Paul speaks of how he is a minister of Christ “in the priestly service of the gospel of God.” The ministerial priesthood is also referred to in passages that speak of ordained Church leaders known as “elders” (Acts 14:23; 1 Tim. 5:17; Titus 1:5; James 5:14). Finally, the high priesthood of Christ is referred to in passages such as Hebrews 3:1, 4:14–15, 5:5, 6:20, and 9:11.

This was also the pattern in the Old Testament. Peter was quoting from the Septuagint version of Exodus 19:6, where God told the Israelites that, if they kept his covenant, they would be to him “a royal priesthood and a holy nation” (Greek, basileion hierateuma kai ethnos hagion). There was thus a common priesthood of the Israelites, but that did not stop God from also appointing a ministerial priesthood from the sons of Aaron (Exod. 28:1), with Aaron as the high priest (Ezra 7:5). Rather than undermining the idea of a ministerial priesthood, Peter’s citation of Exodus supports it by invoking for the Church the same priestly concepts that applied to Israel.