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Initial Formation
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The call and the action of God, like His love, is always new.
– Potissmum Institutioni, 29 –“The call and the action of God, like His love, is always new. The one who is called is therefore invited unceasingly to give an attentive, new and responsive reply” (Potissimum Institutioni, 29). In recognition of this truth, specific stages of formation exist within the St. Mary Sisters in order to “immerse religious in the experience of God and to help them perfect it gradually in their lives” (The Contemplative Dimension of Religious Life, 17). The process of formation in its successive stages aims overall at leading each Sister to an authentic transformation of her whole being in Christ.
The principal-agent of religious formation is the Holy Spirit. He acts secretly within the heart of each Sister, forming and configuring her more perfectly to Christ to the extent that she opens herself continually and surrenders to His creative and life-giving action. The life-long process of religious formation with its distinctive “character of wholeness” is a “path of gradual identification with the attitude of Christ towards the Father” (Vita Consecrata, 65) occurring within the dynamic of community life.
A Sister grows “to full stature in Christ” (Ephesians 4:13) through the stages of postulancy, novitiate, temporary profession, and perpetual profession.
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Before Entering
In preparation for entrance and through conversation with the Vocation Mistress, the candidate deepens her prayer life through making Holy Hours, attending daily Mass, and praying the rosary, as well as incorporating parts of the Liturgy of the Hours into her day.
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Postulancy
Genuine participation in the common life
and rhythm of prayer...The postulancy is devoted to initiating candidates into the life and spirit of the St. Mary Sisters as they make the transition from the secular world.
The postulancy, which ordinarily lasts between six months and a year, is made at the House of Formation in Bismarck, North Dakota.
Genuine participation in the common life and the rhythm of prayer that sanctifies the whole day is of itself formative and each postulant is invited actively and generously to seek and respond to God through these experiences. Her open heart will be fashioned and her vocation clarified principally by the Eucharistic Lord, Whom she encounters daily at Mass, in adoration, and private visits to the Blessed Sacrament. The postulants participate fully in the liturgical and sacramental life of the St. Mary Sisters.
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Novitiate
A grace-filled time of conversion . . .
Formal entrance into the novitiate begins with the reception of the habit after the completion of postulancy. The postulant receives, along with the black and white habit, a new religious name, reflective of the new path to holiness that she freely embraces in the religious state.
The novitiate period is comprised of two years: the canonical year, inclusive of twelve months spent in the House of Formation, and the apostolic year in which the novices spend extended periods of time working in the teaching apostolate of the St. Mary Sisters.
The novitiate is a grace-filled time of conversion and immersion into the Institute. The Novice enters into a time of deeper prayer and reflection on her call, strengthening her love-relationship with the Lord. Essential to her ongoing discernment and formation is the Novice’s study of the evangelical counsels, the spiritual life and the patrimony of the Institute, and a more intense experience of the Community’s way of life.
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Canonical Year
A year focused on the contemplative aspect of our life as contemplative-apostolic women religious, the Novice’s studies are centered more intently on the spirituality of the vowed life and the patrimony handed down to the Institute from Saint Dominic de Guzman. It is through the contemplative life that the Sister is able to pour herself out in the apostolic works of the Community.
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Apostolic Year
This second year is focused primarily on the individual Novice’s need for training as a teacher and as a consecrated religious, where she is given opportunities for hands-on experiences in the classroom and other occasions to teach the Truth.
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