Religious Vocations.

First of all, I'm very sorry I couldn't update my blog for the last two months because I'm too busy with school, exams and stuffs related to it. Now, the exams are over thank heavens and I think I will frequently update my blog now. So, let us get straight to the topic shall we?

As a Catholic, each one of us have a unique vocation from the Lord himself for us to fulfill his Divine will. Either you want to marry your future spouse, consecrating your whole life to God in the consecrated life(religious life), being ordained in the priesthood or choosing to live in celibacy and single forever, all of it is good in the eyes of our Lord IF it fulfills his Divine will.

Wait.. How do we know that we are fulfilling his Divine will? Well, the easiest way that we can determine whether we are fulfilling His will is when we feel that we are happy, contented and we are filled with joy. You will glorify the Lord all the time when you say yes to His Divine plan for you. It is easy right? If you're happy that you will get married with your future spouse, then it is God's plan for you to get married and it is your vocation to be united with your partner and built a devout Catholic family.

But, if you feel that something is wrong deep down in your heart you're not quite happy with your way of life currently, you might want to consider a religious vocation. Have you ever saw, heard or experienced these kind of situations in your life before?

Situation 1: In your parish, you saw a community of priests/friars/nuns/sisters wearing their Roman cassocks/collars/religious habits and you realized that you are attracted to their outfits and the way they talk and act to parishioners. You feel that they are indeed holy servants of God; you want to be like them and you imagined yourself becoming just like one of them.

Situation 2: You have finished your studies in college/university/school and you are wondering what should you do next. Get a job? Date a girl/boy? You are clueless and all of a sudden there is a feeling in your heart that you should serve the Lord in his holy Church. You are concerned about the small numbers of priests, religious in your archdiocese, diocese, parish etc.You tried to brush off your thoughts out of your mind, yet you can't help but thinking of it non-stop in your daily life like you are suffering from OCD.

Situation 3: You are single, you have a successful career/job, you go to Mass every week/day but you feel some emptiness in your heart. You fill restlessness in your spiritual life and you know that God is somehow calling you. You tried to fill it up with worldly pleasures such as having fun with your friends, shopping, vacation with your friends but nothing works for you to fill the vast emptiness of your heart. You have thoughts that you should flee away from your current way of life, from the modern society, from worldly pleasures and you want to live a cloistered life.

Situation 4: You visited some monasteries or seminaries during discernment for vocation retreats. There is maybe a particular monastery/seminary either priesthood community or religious life community that you feel attached to. You feel a great sense of peace in your heart and you feel that the particular monastery/seminary that you have visited is your true home; you want to stay there forever!

Do the situations sounds familiar to you? That my friend, are only a few of thousands signs that you are meant to be serving the Lord for the rest of your life! Do not be afraid with your current struggles and way of life, say YES to God and he will fulfill you with his mercy, love and he will reveal to you the joys of heaven! Make efforts to discover which order or congregation that suits your spiritual life and answer YES to Him. Don't expect him to do all His plan for you and you just sit on your butt doing nothing okayyyy? lol, I'm paraphrasing Sr. Mary Jordan formerly known as a Catholic vlogger, sheiscatholic.

Anyways, I'm going to leave you with bunch of pictures of holy men and women for you to consider a religious vocation. Consider it, work on it and pray for it!

Credits to Carmelite Monks , Populus Summorum Pontificum , Imagine Sisters , The Order of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts of Jesus and Mary and Fr. Sam Kachuba .

Deus Misereatur,

-DiscerningCath-

Last Sunday Mass in my home parish. *CathRant*

Last Sunday, I went to the 9 a.m. English Mass in the Ordinary Form. My family and I went early in the morning and entered the Church. As usual before Mass begins, I knelt  and started my prayer intention for the Mass. My intentions are for my older brother who is currently in the ICU, unity among my family members, Tridentine Mass in my local dioceses, for the Holy Souls in Purgatory, the repentance of sinners and peace for the world. 

     I also prayed that there will be no liturgical abuses in this Mass and no distracting, annoying commotion during the Mass. After I finished my prayer intentions, I sat back in my pews and wait for the Mass to start. There are two different choir groups for the English mass in my parish. The actual English choir group is a great choir, they sing Latin hymns, Latin hymns in English, they sing for the Holy Hour , they use the organ as an instrument and I always call them the Schola Cantorum of my parish. I'm pretty sure that they knew the rubrics of the Mass more than the priests!(joking) The other one is an English charismatic group which I don't prefer them to be the choir for any mass in my parish. They are noisy, distracting and instead of using the organ for Mass, they'll bring other types of instruments that are not considered as sacred instruments. 

     Back to the story(and ranting), I saw the choir members(charismatic group) started entering the Church and sitting on the choir pews. I was thinking to myself, "Oh my goodness, these people again? They were the choirs last week at Mass and it was horrible! They'll sing during Mass again?" And those type of thinking bombarded my mind prior to Mass and I started to feel upset. Not long after that, they brought in a keyboard, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, tambourine and a cajon(little box that acts like a hand drum). The moment I saw those instruments were brought into the Church, I totally freaked out! Hello? I don't expect people to do concerts during the Holy Mass!

     With a heavy heart, I calmed myself down and prepared for the Mass to begin. When the Mass begins, they sang the entrance hymn, which I consider not a hymn, it was more like a catchy-concert song which was so noisy.. The percussion and guitars were too loud! And all the songs they sang were modernized, including the psalm! All I can say is there were liturgical abuses everywhere!

     I know I do not have the rights to judge them, but I don't see the reason why I shouldn't do anything to stop their wrongdoings. The whole congregation would not know the actual rubrics, theology and tradition of the Catholic Church's Holy Sacrifice of the Mass if we, the lay people do not stand up for the TRUTH.

     We need the Ordinary Form of the Mass to be celebrated like this:

-Ordinary Form of the Mass in 'ad orientem', Korea.

     Masses celebrated not according to the rubrics like this should be condemned by the Church:

-The Mass is not the time for us to perform aerobics for the people!

-Lay people holding the bread for consecration? For what? Immodest clothes and no veil? 

-Stop holding each other hands during the Our Father. It's only a gesture for the priests to do!

     We need the Tridentine Mass too:

-This is what we call the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!

-Credits to ThePinoyCatholic, Fr. Z, and other Catholic blogs for the images.-

Deus Misereatur,

-DiscerningCath-

Basic informations about me and my Catholic blog.

          Greetings to you brethren(brothers and sisters) who had encountered with my very first post in this blog. I would like to introduce myself. I am a Malaysian teen, to be specific I live in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah which is in East Malaysia. I'm a 16 years old male, studying in a Catholic mission school and a pure science student. I think I should keep my life anonymous in this blog, but I think I have failed to do that because I revealed my name in my blogger profile.

          I received the Sacrament of Baptism when I was at the age of 3 in the year 2000, First Holy Communion at the age of 11 on 25th of May, 2008 and Confirmation at the age of 16 on 12th of May, 2013. I have the desire to be a religious or maybe a priest, that's why I describe myself as a -DiscerningCath-. I'm not sure whether my vocation is for married life, I never thought of it before. Maybe because I grown up seeing nuns, friars and mostly priests!

Anyways, the reasons why I created this blog are,

1. To share my Catholic faith to people regardless of their age, religion and races.

    

    After receiving Confirmation, we were told to evangelize the Catholic faith to others, some will be called to join the Church communities, some would rather stay home than going to the Church(please pray for those people!) and some don't even know how important their roles as youths in the Church! I have joined a Church community before receiving Confirmation, but I have this feeling in my heart that I need to do more than that! So I decided to create this blog!

2. To share my interest towards Catholic traditions, teachings, saints, history etc.

    

    Even though I am a teenager, I am not that type of person that listen to heavy, rock, rap music etc. I don't know why but I am interested with Latin Hymns, Sacred Musics & chants. This doesn't mean that I don't listen to modern musics okay..? I love learning Catholic catechisms, Eastern & Western Catholic church traditions, holy saints, history of the Church and all the stuffs related to it. But I hate History class in school. Period.

3. To promote Traditional Latin Mass, communion on the tongue while kneeling, veiling in the Church, reverence, silence during Mass etc.

    I don't refer myself as a 'Traditional Catholic'. I'm a Roman Catholic and that will never ever gonna change in my whole life. I would attend Mass in the Ordinary Form and I'm not against it. But I hate guitars, drums, bands during Mass, clapping of hands, talking during homily, no great silence and many more. I'm grateful that my parish didn't have too much abuses, but when it happened in front of my very own eyes, my mood for the whole day would be miserable and a day of my life will be messed up. 

4. To promote holy vocations among the youths and adult Catholics.

    We need priests, nuns, friars, missionaries in the world! Maybe you think that you have seen enough of them but the Catholic Church need more people like them! The numbers are decreasing day by day since the Second Vatican Council!(I'm not criticizing the council.) 

-----------------------

          I have more reasons but it's already past midnight and I'm getting sleepy..hmmm Anyways, I'll keep you guys updated with my next posts! Bye for now! 

P.S. : FUN FACT: I can't find a proper and interesting URL for my blog earlier, so I spent more than 2 hours searching for a suitable Latin phrase for my URL blog on the internet. I ended up posting this post past midnight. So perfectionist of me..hahaha :)

Deus Misereatur,

-DiscerningCath-