.

    Novitiate, the initiation stage into the life of the Congregation, is a time of relative withdrawal and solitude. The emphasis is placed on the development of a personal relationship with Jesus, the Good Shepherd, during the daily experience of religious life (active,contemplative) within a specific culture. Internal freedom helps the novice to enter into a more intimate relationship with the Lord, who calls her.

    The novice is guided towards a greater solitude in order to met Christ, whom she also meets in the people she serves. Through this contemplative/apostolic dimension which flows from a deep, personal and intimate relationship with God, the novice learns how to live her life of service for and in the community, and in doing this, she prepares herself for mission.
   
    The goal of the canonical year is to prepare the novice to become a woman of prayer, stressing her personal relationship with Jesus, the Good Shepherd, and living her experience of consecration through the practice of the evangelical counsels (vows of poverty, chastity, obedience) and through the vow of Zeal.

    Throughout the second year, special attention is paid to help the novice understand what is essential in our active and contemplative religious life. She is also helped to live her experience in the mission as a transforming experience for herself which takes her from contemplation to service and from service to contemplation.

    Another goal is to evaluate how she puts into practice in the community and in the apostolate what she has found and learned during the first year of novitiate.

  TIME OF SEARCHING
  VOCATION CONTACT
  ASPIRANCY
  PRE-NOVITIATE
  NOVITIATE
  JUNIORATE (Temporary Profession)
  ON-GOING FORMATION (Perpetually Professed)