4. Two vocations at the same time

[CBC]

Dolores Hart had a vocation to be an actress and then discovered she also had a vocation to be a nun. Have you ever felt in the same (not necesasarily religious) situation?

[Jill]

"Vocation" isn't the same as "career" or profession. One can have a vocation to marriage, committed celibacy and/or a particular lay or religious community--and hold many different jobs within that commitment.

[Manuel]

Jill wrote: ""Vocation" isn't the same as "career" or profession. One can have a vocation to marriage, committed celibacy and/or a particular lay or religious community--and hold many different jobs within that..."

Right. A career is not the same as a vocation.

To those vocations you have mentioned I'd add a few more. You can have a vocation to teach (which is not the same as being a teacher). Or a vocation to communicate.

In the case of Dolores Hart, I believe, from what I have read of this book (I've not finished yet) that she really had a vocation to be an actress, apart from any thoughts about her career (which she also had, of course). And then, when she discovered she had a religious vocation, she renounced her first vocation, because they were incompatible.

But you can have two vocations at the same time and they may not be incompatible: for instance, you may have a vocation to marriage and to teach.

[Fonch]

She made movies with Elvis Presley 😁.

[Manuel]

I have found this quote, that confirms what I said about Mother Hart having two vocations at the same time:

“Don’t cut it off,” he told me, “assume it. You are going to have to maintain absolutely in this Community that you are what you are—an actress.”
—That was something a Jesuit taught a Benedictine.

[Manuel]

Going again on the two vocations at the same time, I don't think anyone will deny that Don Bosco (the founder of the Salesians) had two vocations at the same time: a religious vocation, and a teaching vocation. Many other saints are in the same situation.

[Manuel]

I don't think it can be denied that Dolores Hart had two vocations at the same time. In the middle-last part of the book it's clear, when the two authors tell how she created a theater inside a cloistered monastery!

[Steven R.]

Manuel wrote: "I don't think it can be denied that Dolores Hart had two vocations at the same time. In the middle-last part of the book it's clear, when the two authors tell how she created a theater inside a clo..."

I agree.