For Families

A vocation to our community is a call to follow the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ after the example of St. Francis of Assisi and Mother Maria Theresia Bonzel, the foundress of our Congregation. Our religious life expresses itself in prayer—particularly Perpetual Adoration—in loyalty to the Church, in simplicity and humility. We vow to live in obedience, poverty, and chastity, and express our love for God and His Church in sisterly community and in serving others.

A postulant is a young woman who has newly entered the community. She does not yet receive the name “Sister” or the religious habit. The length of postulancy is two years. The purpose of the postulancy is to lead the young woman to an understanding of her religious vocation and to prepare her for the novitiate. She joins in all community prayers and begins to adjust to getting up during the night to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. During the day, she attends classes on human formation, self-knowledge, theology, and religious life, as well as helps with domestic chores. She is given specific times for free time/hobbies, recollection, and retreat throughout the year.

In the investiture ceremony, the postulant becomes a novice, which means she is a new Sister. She is given the habit and a white veil and receives a new religious name. It is at this point that she is called “Sister.”

For the first year, she is a canonical novice. It is Canon Law (the law of the Catholic Church) that a novice have one uninterrupted year in the novitiate. The canonical year is devoted primarily to the religious and spiritual formation of the novice.

The second year novice spends time away from the novitiate house in one of the convents of our province in order to be introduced to the apostolic works of the community. This gives her the opportunity to begin to learn how to combine her spiritual and apostolic life. Outside of this mission experience, the second year novice remains in the novitiate, dedicating her time to prayer, work, and study.

The novices are under the guidance of the Novice Directress. The directress introduces the young Sister to an understanding of the nature and meaning of religious life, and she guides the Sister to deepen and nourish her spiritual growth. The directress also directs and supports the novice toward a loving and free commitment to live the evangelical counsels. After the completion of the novitiate, a novice professes the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

When we leave our family to enter God’s service, we promise God that He and His Kingdom will be our first concern, just as a married woman has her husband and her children as her first concern. Of course, the gift of your loving presence in her life is always a great source of joy for her heart. In order to help with the transition, we invite family members to affirm the young Sister's decision through words of encouragement in letters and scheduled visits.

Assurances of prayer and loving support during this time can help your daughter overcome the difficulties that may arise as she embraces this new way of life. The devoted prayers of Christian parents and family members create a grace-filled foundation from which a woman in religious life can find strength for her vocation.

We encourage families to send letters. Email will not be available in the postulancy and novitiate. During Advent and Lent, which are penitential seasons in the Church, we usually do not write or visit our friends and families. The purpose is to focus more intensely on the great mystery of the season and enter deeply into the rich silence and recollection which unites us closer to Jesus. Postulants and novices ordinarily do not make or receive outside telephone calls. Following these four years of postulancy and novitiate, Sisters are given more freedom to determine their own communication according to the responsibilities of community. Each Sister is given two weeks of home visit every year, and families are invited to visit the convent twice a year.