Abstract

The problem. This dissertation is the result of an investigation into the experiential aspects of religious vocations. More specifically, the investigation was focused on vocations to the Priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church. The purpose of this study was to answer the question: What is the nature of religious vocation to the persons who have experienced it? ;Method. A description of the personal and shared experience of religious vocation was derived from the tape-recorded reflections of seventeen members of the religious Order known as the Missionaries of Charity Fathers. These reflections were reduced to their "natural meaning units" by means of the phenomenological method. The phenomenological method employed in this study is a combination of the work of Kruger and Giorgi , and is described at length in Chapter 3. ;Results. Fifteen major themes emerged in the responses of the seventeen participants. The incidence of responses to themes is contained in Table 1. The first three themes were consensual, the following eight were nomothetic, and the last four were idiographic themes. ;A consensus was reached on the conviction that the vocation to the Missionaries of Charity is a personal and continuing invitation from God, involving total submission to God's will, and consisting of a total absorption in the love of Jesus Christ. ;Nomothetic themes involved the acknowledgment of spiritual fathers and mothers, human and divine conceptualizations of family, struggle and doubt, the need to love and be loved in community. Some vocations were inspired in the context of an almost overwhelming mystical or emotional experience. ;Other nomothetic themes involved self-denial and renunciation, the empowerment to love other human beings as the result of personal immersion in God's love, and the absolute necessity for prayer. ;Idiographic themes reflect admiration for Pope John Paul II. Also indicated is the clarity with which the Missionaries of Charity view the world, and the admission that past methods of religious study did not demand a commitment that was comprehensive enough for these men