Becoming a Religious Sister

Patience Quayson

Description

This study focuses on women who choose a religious way of life and the psychological maturity that is required in their choices.

Patience Quayson explores what compels someone to answer the call to live a religious life in this book.

She undertook this study to fully understand the extent of the psychological imbalance or immaturity of individuals answering the call to the religious life. She highlights the psychological traits that can help young adults thrive when they decide to serve the Lord.

While such service can be incredibly rewarding, she does not gloss over the not-so-positive aspects of living in a convent that are so little talked about, which can bring sorrow to others. Poor interpersonal relationships between the leaders and the sisters, ineffective decision-making processes, and the arbitrary sending home of younger members are all addressed.

Anyone who decides to make serving the Lord their life’s work must possess a certain level of maturity. The author explores what someone must ask themselves before embarking on a religious life, including looking at their past and making an honest assessment about their potential for growth.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Living
• Mentoring
• Philosophie et théologie
• Uterus
• Womb
• Leadership

Informations

• Publié par: WestBow Press
• Date de parution: 26 avril 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781664285712
• Langue: English

Extrait

Becoming a Religious Sister
 
Erik Erikson and Donald Winnicott in Dialogue
 
 
 
PATIENCE QUAYSON
 
 
 
 
Copyright © 2023 Patience Quayson.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.
 
WestBow Press
A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan
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Bloomington, IN 47403
www.westbowpress.com
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Scripture quotations are from Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6642-8572-9 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-8573-6 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-8571-2 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022922194
 
WestBow Press rev. date: 06/09/2023
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abstract
Chapter 1 Background of the Study
Chapter 2 Related Literature Review
Chapter 3 Research Methodology
Chapter 4 Data Presentation and Analysis
Chapter 5 Summary of the Work and Discussion
Chapter 6 Overview of the study?
Works Cited
Appendix
About the Author
List of Tables
Table 1. Grew up with father or not
Table 2. Behaviors and responses of those who grew up without fathers
Table 3. Experiences with fathers
Table 4. Behaviors and responses of those who grew up with fathers
Acknowledgments
My journey as a religious woman in a multicultural and international religious congregation and as a psychoanalyst has been one of hope and courage. It has been a long journey, but my heart is full of gratitude to God for his gift of life and good health through all these years of study and learning to know and deeply appreciate my depth.
I want to thank in a special way the admissions team in Graduate Theological Foundation, who accepted me into their program and encouraged me in diverse ways to reach this point in my life.
My thanks go to the sisters, or nuns, who went to the trouble of participating in the research by providing their valuable responses to the questionnaire. This project would not have been possible without your wonderful support of the different religious communities I contacted. My special thanks go to my clients, who gave me the permission to work with them, learn and appreciate them, and use their stories as they became who they were meant to be. I am very grateful.
My immense gratitude goes to my mentor, Rev. Dr. Gordon Edwards, for his support and encouragement to undertake this program. I want to thank you, Dr. Edwards, for your devotion, patience, dedication, and scrutiny to enhance my presentation.
I am equally grateful to Drs. Charles Ignatius and Charles Udokang for reviewing my work and offering constructive criticisms. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to call you at odd times to ask questions.
I would like to express my thanks to my sisters, especially Sisters Faustina Quayson, Faustina Ganaa, Cecelia Bosomtwi, and Lucy Dei, for their encouragement. Sister Faustina, thank you for the arrangement of the tables in the work, and Sister Lucy, thank you for helping me with the data-reduction process.
I also wish to thank Dr. Fredrickson for her support and encouragement. I appreciate my parents, now deceased, who made sure that I went to school at a time when girls’ education was not valued much in my culture and who encouraged and supported me throughout the journey of my religious life. Thank you.
Abstract
William James’s book The Variety of Religious Experience speaks to the fact that, in every human being, there is an inner desire for something much deeper. He writes, “We hunger and thirst … after righteousness,” “We find the Lord in a sweet savor,” and “We taste and see that he is good” (2009, 17). This is the same desire that speaks to the hearts of those who choose to enter a religious life or life of ministry. James quotes St. Francis de Sales in his description of the “horizon of quietude,”—specifically, “In this state the soul is like a child at the breast, whose mother cares for him whilst he is still in her arms, makes her milk distill into his mouth without him even moving his lips” (2009, 17). This quotation reminds me of Winnicott’s idea of good-enough mothering, which means that the ordinary, normal preoccupations of the mother help shape the growing child’s sense of identity (Winnicott 1986). The divine in each human, which may mean different things to different people, brings an “awe-ness” in the presence of God, which Otto Rudolf talks about in his book The Idea of the Holy (2010, 12–15). The awe-ness feeling can also be compared to Winnicott’s idea of capacity to believe—that is, the concept of “believing in” must be present in the child’s growing-up process so that, when the child grows up, there is a place to believe in God (1990, 93). Winnicott adds that, when a child does not develop this capacity to believe, she finds it difficult to accept moral education in adult life (93). (Because we are discussing this in terms of nuns or religions sisters, we use the female pronouns she and her .) The capacity to believe will provide a pathway and easy access for the person choosing to enter a religious life or become a nun or religious sister. This capacity to believe explored by Winnicott is akin to the basic trust Erikson portrayed in the first of his eight stages of development with their appropriate basic strength (Erikson, 1950, 1963). According to Erikson, if the child realizes that the mother is consistent in her caregiving, the child begins to learn basic trust (1994). However, the child learns basic mistrust if she finds no correspondence between her needs and the environment. This lack has repercussions in adulthood. It is the beginning of a journey toward psychological imbalance or disturbance.
This study was undertaken to fully understand the extent of the psychological imbalance or immaturity of the individuals answering the call to the religious life. Researchers have focused solely on religious life and not on the chaotic behaviors that prevail in these religious communities.
The survey method employed in this study was simple random sampling. This method was determined to be appropriate because it enabled the subjects of the study to be themselves and not be manipulated in the process. In other words, this research is not experimental. Sampling was conducted to access a representative segment of the general population from which information on the entire population could be inferred. In all, 200 respondents of sisters from 5 different religious groups were surveyed using a questionnaire and a group process to fill in the information. The first part of the questionnaire contained 16 items and was designed to explore respondents’ experiences with their fathers while growing up. The second part of the questionnaire listed 59 behaviors in 6 columns, and respondents were to tick off behavior that they had observed in their congregations, in finally professed sisters, in temporally professed sisters, novices, postulants, and themselves.
The study’s finding was that the listed behaviors are all prevalent in the various religious communities and in both people who grew up with their fathers in the home and those who did not. They all have major anxiety issues, trust issues, untrusting issues, and an inability to handle crises, to mention just a few. Based on the findings, it is recommended that all sisters, including superiors and leaders, explore their childhood upbringing to identify how the lack of nurturing and emotional support from parents or primary/significant caregivers has impacted their lives. A recommendation was issued that basic psychological courses be taught to current sisters as well as those wishing to join the various congregations so they can self-evaluate and see whether or not they fit this type of life. In this way, the chaotic ways of relating to one another will be limited, and people will find contentment in the lives they have chosen.
Chapter 1 Background of the Study
T he background of the study focused on digging deeper into the driving forces behind people’s choosing a way of life that is dedicated to a lifetime of ministry. This means that, while choosing a spiritual path, certain psychological components play a vital role in the maturation process of young adults who are ready to choose this way of life—this vocation, call to a religious life, or call to the priesthood.
Walton explains that administration is an activity concerned with directing the activities of people working within an organization in their reciprocal relation to the end that the organizational purpose may be attained (1969). While a busi