Do you get to choose your house (religious life question)?

[SLD]

Hi everyone,

I am discerning the consecrated life. One question I haven’t been able to find an answer to is: If you enter an order that has houses in multiple locations, do you get to choose which one you go to? For example if one house is in America and another is in Italy, can you choose which country you end up in?

Maybe it just depends on the order? I thought it worth a try to ask.

Thanks in advance.

[Sister Leticia]

Hello, SLD - and welcome!

And yes, it largely depends on the order, and on their spirit/mission, as well as on things like the community's needs, and, if thinking internationally, language, visas etc.

For example, if you join a missionary order (eg the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, or the Medical Mission Sisters), then you are joining an order whose spirit is availability to be sent anywhere in the world. Otherwise, if you join an order which isn't missionary, and has several communities within your country, then you'd quite likely spend your life in your own country. And again, how decisions are made about which house/s you live in will depend on each order. 

If you meet an order which mostly exists in one country, and has only a single community in your own, so that you have to go abroad for your formation, then you might - or might not - be missioned back to your own country after making vows. That small community might close down, or the order might feel your talents will be better used elsewhere.

Some orders will simply tell their members where to go, and what they will do when they're there. Others are more consultative, believing that obedience is a shared listening to God, and so members might be invited to discern the next step, and discuss it with the Provincial. This could happen, for example, if someone is coming to the end of her studies, or preparing to retire, and is therefore in a position to move to somewhere new. 

You haven't said whether you've been lurking and reading threads... if you have, you'll have seen that the answer to many questions boils down to - it depends on the order, best to contact them and ask.

Blessings on your discernment!

[SLD]

Sister Leticia, that was a very helpful answer, thank you so much!

I suspected that was the case. I do plan to ask that when I contact them.

Anyway thanks again!