Vocation &Formation | suore-francescane

Vocations AND FORMATION

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Acceptance into our Life

Those who through the Lord's inspiration come to us desiring to accept this way of life are to be received kindly. At the appropriate time, they are to be presented to the ministers of the fraternity who hold responsibility to admit them (Rule and Life TOR 4)

With gratitude to the Lord,

Our religious family is humbly and forever grateful to the Lord for the gift of our vocation and for new vocations which prolong our charism in time. We are fully aware that formation must be the Institute’s primary duty in order to realize its proper personal vocation in the community of Sisters, to ensure the unity of the Institute and to promote its vitality. C.2

On the path towards perfection

Formation has “the primary purpose of immersing women religious in an experience of God and helping them to perfect it gradually in their own lives”. Formation in its various stages is an ongoing, unified process which must embrace the totality of the person in every aspect of her life: physical, spiritual, intellectual and moral (C.15.2).

The community life: the privileged place of formation

The privileged place of formation is the community, where each Sister is received as a gift of God and where each one must always feel herself to be, at one and the same time, a teacher to her fellow-Sisters and also their disciple.

As in one Family

In the community, as in one family, a person learns how to live. The acceptance of diversity, the richness of talents and the personal limitations of our fellow-Sisters, whom God places beside us, an attentive and patient dialogue with others and, primarily, the generous sharing of the gifts which each has received from God, constitutes the path leading to human and spiritual growth

Every person we encounter, one formator

In some manner, we ought also to consider as our teachers in formation every person we encounter in the places where we exercise our apostolate. Oftentimes, persons in their simplicity and suffering can teach us faith, through the manner with which they accept their suffering; hope, through the way they face life’s uncertainties; and charity, through the generosity they show towards the most needy among them.

Personal responsability

Over and above the indispensable help of God and our fellow-Sisters, formation depends in a particular manner on each individual Sister. Each has the primary responsibility of continually renewing her “yes” to the call which she has received and to accept all that is implied in this response, knowing that the call and God’s action, as his love, always comes to us in an absolutely new way, since no historic situation is ever the same

As in one Family

Aware that each vocation is prompted by the Holy Spirit for the upbuilding of the Kingdom of God, the Institute takes an active part in the Church’s pastoral programme for vocations.

Each vocation, for the growth of the Church and the Institute

God always uses human instruments in his call. The invitation of Jesus: “Come and see” remains the “golden rule for the pastoral programme for vocations”. Therefore, we ought to address the call primarily to the young women we meet in the course of our work, even if we are fully aware that God does the calling in every age and setting.

Postulancy

Postulancy, considered the first stage in formation, is advised by the Church. It lasts for one year and normally ought to take place in a fraternity which provides a spiritual and apostolic atmosphere suitable for the growth of a young woman’s proposed vocation and ensures the attainment of the goals of Postulancy.

They should opportunely be provided with an experience of sharing in the Institute’s work of service and apostolic activity, so that they can make a choice which is free and deliberate.

The Novitiate

The Novitiate, the second stage of formation, is “a time of total initiation into the way of life which the Son of God embraced and proposed to us in the Gospel”. The Novitiate is to last 24 months of which 12 consecutive months are to be considered canonical

Novices are to be led to cultivate the human and Christian virtues; that they be introduced through prayer and self-denial on a more committed journey towards perfection; that they be guided to contemplating the mystery of salvation and be prepared to give worship to God in the Sacred Liturgy; that they learn how to live a life consecrated to God and to others in Christ through the Evangelical Counsels; and that they be taught to love the Church and its sacred Pastors

In an atmosphere of solitude and silence, the Novices are to learn to allow themselves to be guided and formed by the action of the Spirit through fulfilling the required programme. Thus they enter in a vital relationship with Christ and, in Him, render themselves fully open to the salvific will of the Father. 2 Coming to an ever-fuller knowledge of the radiant figure of Christ, they are to work at staying close to Him, until they come to a firm decision to follow him radically in obedience, poverty and chastity.

Each day, the Novice entrusts herself to Mary, who “kept the words of her Son, pondering them in her heart”,* so that Mary might become her model and guide in receiving the Word, incarnating it in her life and, with Her, and like Her, offer it to humanity

You will have the opportunity to pray, work and recreate with our Sisters