HOW YOU CAN become a sister

Still More Frequently Asked Questions

What’s your formation program like?

There are three distinct stages: postulancy, novitiate and first (or temporary) vows. Each stage is designed to encourage personal growth – intellectual, spiritual, and
experiential – as a woman moves toward full membership in the congregation.

Can you give some particulars about each stage? How long does each take?

The postulancy is a kind of apprenticeship. Although there’s no Donald Trump-esque figure to make life “interesting,” there is a sister who’s particularly responsible for walking with you. With her and with the community, you’d be initiated into our way of common prayer and assisted in strengthening your own personal way of prayer. You’d also be working on discerning if the next step in the process, the novitiate, is right for you. During this time you’d continue to work at your profession as you begin the inner work of entering progressively into our ordinary life – participating in the Liturgy of the Hours and the Eucharist with us, working on some part of the community’s apostolic project, joining the community for its weekly meeting, taking your turn cooking, helping to plant the bulbs and get the leaves raked up in the fall, shoveling snow (except in New Mexico), cheering the Sox and booing the Yankees (or vice versa). Postulancy is a flexible stage. Most people seem to need about a year, but some take six months while others ask for more time – up to two years.

Novitiate is a two year stage. The first year, also known as the canonical year (because it is required by Canon or Church law), has a very different feel to it from the postulancy stage. It’s a time of solitude – the novice no longer works outside the community, but instead begins to delve into the life of prayer and study. Along with intense personal work on your own heart and spirit, you’d be getting to know the Bible, the Church, and the Congregation more deeply. The director of the novitiate, whom we call the Novice Mistress, would be a key resource for this stage of the journey, but the work of personal formation always remains your own responsibility. In other words, novitiate is not like a course to be passed, but rather a special, graced time for you to receive God’s plan for you as you develop an attitude of discipleship.

The second year is also known as the apostolic year. You take on various apostolic projects even as you continue the inner, spiritual work you began in the previous year. These projects are usually short term experiences, often set up to give you a chance to experience life and work with the poor. They are opportunities for you not only to give but also to receive from those who the world says have “nothing.”

After the two years of novitiate, you make temporary vows for three years. (For more on the meaning of the vows themselves, click here.) During this time, also known as the juniorate, you would most likely do formal theological studies for at least a year, and then take your place in the overall apostolic project of the province. In other words, you would start working outside the community again. Most people renew their vows after the three years for another two years. Then, if it seems right both to them and to the community, they request to make final vows.

Would I be free to leave any time during the process?

You would be free to leave at any time during the postulancy and the novitiate. If you had made temporary vows, you would need a dispensation from those vows, but that can be granted.

How many people are going through this process with you right now?

At present there are two postulants.

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How You Can Become A:

Sisters Anne Christopher and Anne Joseph