I’m glad Sponsa Christi has written about this.
From In The Shadow of His Wings:
Sometimes people have the idea of cloistered life as being a selfish life…one “escapes” from the world to live on a spiritual “high” close to God. But if a woman enters the monastery to “escape” her troubles she will only find that they have followed her right into the cloister.
Yup. The troubles would only follow you there. Makes perfect sense, huh? Yet, people still tell me all the time that they think people “run away” to monasteries, or worse, that monasteries are “prisons.” That response came to me most recently when I pointed out that the Catholic Church has no jails. How misinformed are they who would think of a monastery in such a way? You are not reading about monasteries, obviously, from the words of the people who live there. Else, you wouldn’t believe such myths.
I am most certainly not cut out for the monastery. Like any good Catholic mom, I hope that my children are, but that is up to God. You were either made for the monastery or you were not made for the monastery. If you don’t get that important point first, you will only complicate the subject needlessly.
