Freedom to Doubt
by Izabela Mościcka
When I decided to join a religious congregation, I heard about what an important and courageous decision it was. When the moment came to take my first vows, I heard words from all around me: "Officially, these are vows for one year, but in your heart, you can already make them for life". It was only many years later that I saw how untrue and harmful this statement was. After all, in the formation process, both the congregation in which I took my vows and I can decide that this was not the right place for me. Then what? What about the person who, in her heart, took her vows forever because that was the guidance she received from her superiors and formators?
Today, helping many sisters at different stages of formation, I go through the crisis of these situations with them - a crisis related to (what I call) the lack of freedom to doubt. When I experienced the lack of this freedom in a religious congregation myself, I began to understand and name it outside of it. This outside view gave me the space to see that I was not an isolated case and that the current structures in female religious congregations in Poland are largely overpowering. At this point to me, changes seem necessary. The most important ones are to take care of more people, especially young ones, who fall into the web of manipulation and do not have the tools to defend themselves against it and to restore the consecrated life to its life-giving character.
Let me use a few stories to illustrate how a spiritual narrative can effectively take away this freedom to doubt. One sister told me while coping with her doubts: "From the moment I entered the Order, I have been hearing about how important and extraordinary it is that God chose me. Yes, it was a beautiful experience. I felt like Cinderella, chosen by a wonderful prince. After all, I didn't deserve it. But then, where is room for my doubts? How do I ask myself if I want this? How do I negotiate with such extraordinary grace? I felt like I was rejecting a great gift."
This sister left the congregation ten years after her perpetual vows. She no longer had the strength to deceive herself. More and more men that wanted to enter a relationship with her began appearing in her life. She realised this had been all along, but she was stifling it in the name of a 'great choice'. On leaving, she heard from one of her superiors that she was betraying Jesus. During this time, she felt like a traitor whenever a new male-female relationship arose. It took two years for her to reconcile with God. It was a process in which she experienced that He was not rejecting her or writing her off just because she was no longer a nun.
Another sister called me three months after she had made her perpetual vows. She said she didn't know what to do now. "During nine years of the formation process, I knew how I was supposed to behave and what to do to be allowed to take my vows", she recounted. "I knew what I wasn't allowed to do if I didn't want to be expelled from the congregation. I got so into it that I forgot who I was. Now I feel I can finally be myself, but I don't know who I am anymore." These are her words.
As I listen to this and other stories, I wonder what went wrong. Why, in religious orders today, are we so afraid of questions, doubts, searching or discernment? Why do we treat the moment of departure as a failure of both the person and the congregation they are leaving?
When I was in the process of discernment myself, I wanted to look at myself, at a new intuition emerging in me. When I went to my superiors with these thoughts, they told me that the only way out for me was exclaustration, a temporary stay outside the congregation. My congregation at the time had nothing to offer me when I faced various doubts, and these doubts were not about my consecration. I simply wanted to give myself the space to listen and seek the Holy Spirit, and I was met with the idea that I was a problem worth getting rid of as soon as possible.
It was a difficult time for me, but also a beautiful time. A time in which I was embarking on a path of seeking, in which I was willing to allow myself to have doubts, questions and not always obvious answers. I called this process a path and embarked on it.
Fortunately, on this path, I met people and a community where I heard that searching is good. I saw the sensitivity with which one can handle a change of facility or other changes affecting a person. This sensitivity gave me hope and the strength to search, even if that search meant leaving the congregation I was in at the time, which I loved with all my heart.
I also remember the words a priest said during one of the ceremonies for a nun to take her vows. She was a sister who had moved to this order from another. Then this priest said: "You heard the call to Nazareth, and you went. Now St Dominic has called you, and you are going. If you hear another call - don't be afraid to go out".
But does the freedom to doubt always have to involve leaving, moving on, or changing in some way? Or is it quite the opposite? When we find space for questions and doubts in our communities, it will be the space for much-needed change. As we face our doubts, we may see that we have fallen into unhealthy ruts and that it is worth remedying. Maybe this kind of freedom to search will expand our hearts. Maybe it is the one that will result in a change that will allow those who are thinking of leaving to stay. Maybe it is the necessary "airing out" that will allow us to stop suffocating in our existing structures, which are not always healthy. Maybe it will allow us to see those unhealthy structures.
When the disciples asked Jesus where he lived, he answered: "Come and see" (John 1:39)". Christianity is a way, and a way implies constant movement and constant change. This change (change of place, the pace of the journey, etc.) breeds uncertainty. We never know what awaits us around the bend; we do not know how to prepare for it. Two ways seem the simplest. We can accept what we face with openness and look for what we can take in according to our needs. Or we can defend ourselves with fear and apprehension and let the unknown change our identity. Or is it worth responding to each change as it happens? It seems that this requires a great deal of maturity and unconventional behaviour. Maybe this is what we can prepare for in the process of formation, prayer, and maturing in faith.
Some time ago, I noticed a very interesting way of living that a friend of mine had. I named it "What invites me today?". He does this even with the smallest things. For example, when I ask him what he will eat, he opens the fridge and thinks about what invites him. It may sound funny, but I have started to try this way in more serious situations. When I am facing a choice, when I have to make a decision, I wonder what is inviting me today. Behind this is seeking my intuitions and my inspirations and listening to God in prayer. The difference is that I don't ask myself what I should do, what falls out, or what I must do, but what is inviting me. God has invited me into a relationship with Him from the first moment I met Him. This fact gives me tremendous freedom. In this freedom, I am not afraid to seek, question and have doubts. I believe it's only then that I am on my way. I walk with Him, each day asking anew: "What are you inviting me to today, God?".
Izabela Mościcka is a former religious sister and the founder of a help centre for religious sisters in Poland (Centrum Pomocy Siostrom Zakonnym)