Reaching out to a community

[nunnabe]

I've already met several sisters from a community I would like to enter and meeting them just made the desire to join stronger. I've registered for a retreat they're offering in early July, but I would really like more information on their community. However, I've emailed and asked to visit to meet with them and they said they will not until I've been on retreat. 

Anyway, July is months away and I'm working on the virtue of patience, and all I would like to know is if there is any possibility of me becoming a postulant in August. I don't want to waste another year in college when I know where God is leading me. 

Does anyone have any experience with a situation like this? Should I reach out again and see what happens?

[JHFamily]

If you would like to be in this year's postulant class, you need to share that desire with them NOW.  The application process can be quite lengthy.

[Lou]

Entering can often be a journey of mutual discernment and it can take time to come to that decision, with the order and them with you. I know it's so hard to have to wait, but really visiting the community and allowing them get to know you is so important before reaching a decision on when (and where) to enter. 

I know all about wanting to throw in college and run into the arms of the Lord, but sometimes it's not the right thing to do. I understand your impatience! The order probably won't be able to tell you whether you can enter in August if you haven't visited them, they won't know if it's where you're to become yourself or where God wants you, until they've come to know you somewhat better.

I know 2 people who visited communities in July and then BANG! entered in August. It was really amazing and God guided that. God won't abandon you on your way, if he wills that you enter in August, he will make clear your way.

That said, letting the community know that you are serious and so far along in your journey is important. Let them know but know too of the mutual discernment involved and their decision as well. 

 

[beatitude]

Firstly, this isn't a question anyone on the Internet can answer for you. Only the sisters will know for certain.

However, Lou offers very solid advice. If the sisters have told you that they won't even allow you to visit until you've been on the retreat, I think the best thing you can do emotionally and spiritually is listen to what they're saying and realise why they're saying it. Discernment is a two-way process - it's not just you deciding you want to join the community, it's you and the sisters praying together to discover if this is God's will for you. If they have a retreat as a first step in that process, they probably have excellent reasons for it. They know what they're doing. Trust them.

[JHFamily]

However, they may not realize how far along you are in your discernment.  Sharing that may change the circumstances, and they may begin discernment on their side now rather than wait for July.  

[nunnabe]

Thank you all for your answers. I suppose I just have to keep up faith and patience and see what God wills for me. It might be tough, but so am I 

[TheresaThoma]

In this period of waiting ask God how He wants you to use this time and what He wants teach you. God always has a reason for asking you to wait. I have personally received some major graces simply by asking God what He wants to show me in a waiting period instead of focusing only on the fact that I am waiting for something else to happen.

The community I am seriously discerning with asked me to take a few months to a year to work on some stuff and when it was first brought up I was super impatient. I just wanted to enter right then. But these past few months have been so amazing and I know it is all because I was open to taking the additional time to discern. It hasn't been so much that my call has changed but that my understanding of it is richer and deeper. 

Pray, trust the Sisters and it will all work out in God's timing!

 

 

[Sister Leticia]

I would second what Lou, Beatitude and Theresa have written. Discernment is about discovering what God wants for you - which may be very different to what you want for you! That's why the prerequisite to any true discernment is the grace of openness. It's a grace worth asking for - storming heaven for, even - every day, especially as discerning with a community means leaving the final decision in their hands. 

I also wonder whether you refer to "wasting another year in college" because you're not enjoying college? This could be because you're yearning to enter religious life, and so you're not making the most of this experience, making friends, learning new things and so on. But maybe you've also been struggling with your choice of subject, and it's too late to change courses? So if the sisters do ask you to wait until August 2019, how will you live that year? Maybe you need to consider whether to remain in college, or - if it feels so awful - to leave and get a job, or find a volunteer service project. But whatever you do with that year, do it with as much good grace and love as possible. Don't regard it as a waste or an unwanted delay, but as God's gift to you, in which you can learn and grow - and hopefully, at the end of the year, you will be able to echo what Theresa has written about the graces and growth of her time of waiting.

[Indwelling Trinity]

On 5/2/2018 at 7:52 PM, nunnabe said:

I've already met several sisters from a community I would like to enter and meeting them just made the desire to join stronger. I've registered for a retreat they're offering in early July, but I would really like more information on their community. However, I've emailed and asked to visit to meet with them and they said they will not until I've been on retreat. 

Anyway, July is months away and I'm working on the virtue of patience, and all I would like to know is if there is any possibility of me becoming a postulant in August. I don't want to waste another year in college when I know where God is leading me. 

Does anyone have any experience with a situation like this? Should I reach out again and see what happens?

Accept what  they have told y you. If you still feel your calling is  to them after the Retreat then tell them of your hearts desire to  enter as a postulate  and then in t the spirit of obedience follow what they say. Should t they ask you to wait a little longer and you  find this very difficult then you might ask that if during the interim  time you could either spend some time  volunteering with them if they are an active community or if that is n not possible ask to maintain contact with them through writing, phone calls, or smoke signals!

I will be praying for you.. The picture above is that of a potential postulant,  keeping in touch through Morse code.  She has become so obsessed, I fear by the looks of her s She has forgotten the blessings of the here and now and needs some basic grooming . LOL. 

I wish you much happiness and peace.