How To Discern With A Community Under Visitation?

[chrysostom]

To be clear, I'm not discerning with a community under extraordinary visitation.  Nor do I wish for any sort of debate or comment on the advisability of the visitations.  But as there is a new visitation for the FSI as well as the FFI I'm guessing there are discerners who find themselves in a situation where they don't know what is going to happen with an order/community that they wish to join.  I'm honestly wondering:  what do you do in such a situation?  I'm guessing that the best answer is just "wait and pray".  But if there are wise heads around here who have some more helpful comments, I think this could be an edifying thread.

[AugustineA]

Actually, this is a great question, particularly for the more experienced. FFI is one of the handful of communities I am interested in. While I'm loathe to act as if I have some sort of list, I would say they have primacy of place in my heart alongside various dominican communities.. 

[Hemma]

As my former community (not FFI/FSI) is under extraordinary visitation by now too, I'd like to point out that there's a difference between "justified" and "unjustified" visitations. The current visitation of my former community was the roman answer to some really strong accusations by mainly two former members (who I happen to know very well). I've given an own report to the visitator and I've spoken several times about the accusations with a (trustworthy) leader of the community. Many of the accusations are already proven false by the visitator, the rest will be ok too.

Actually there would be no reason for not entering the community. This might be the case with other communities, too.

Edited May 22, 2014 by Senensis

[veritasluxmea]

I was discerning strongly with one community a year ago and was even making plans to go on a two-week discernment with them. But they they were having some problems, and the male branch associated with them was having even bigger problems. I really, really loved the community's spirituality and apostolate, and yes, the habits :) The main thing that gave me pause was the issues the male branch had. Male and female branches are tied spiritually and support each other. If one is struggling, that's not healthy for the other. Even if a community is theologically sound, which they were, there are other things which cause problems. Leadership, how they handle formation, how they transition from formation to the apostolate, a lot of things go into making a healthy community, and unfortunately this community was really struggling with that. Eventually, I brought it up with my spiritual director and I decided to stop discerning with the community. It was my first community and it was hard... but I made the right decision for me.