stages of formation
Pre-candidate Period is a time when you get to know the congregation and the congregation gets to know you. This happens as you develop a relationship with your contact sister or the vocation minister. During this period you may begin the admission process.
Candidate Period is initiated during a ceremony of entrance. As a candidate, you live in a local community sharing their life of prayer, their common life and you have a ministry experience. Through a process of mutual discernment with the formation minister, you will work to discover if you are called to live religious life, and if you have the capacity to live as a Dominican. It is a time to deepen your spiritual life, to place yourself into the life of the congregation and to experience community life on the local level. Opportunities are provided to study the history of the congregation, the constitutions, the direction statements and to reflect on our core values.
Canonical Novitiate is usually the next step in the process. We participate in the Collaborative Dominican Novitiate in St. Louis, MO. The Collaborative Dominican Novitiate is sponsored and supported by 22 congregations of Dominican Sisters. The novitiate’s location in St. Louis provides opportunities to experience a bit of the Dominican Family with the Dominican Friars from the Central Province, as well as the faculty and staff at Aquinas Institute of Theology. As a member of the novitiate community, you will mindfully live the elements of Dominican life — prayer, study, common life and ministry. It will be a year of contemplative prayer, as well as intense study vows — the nature of religious life and the story of the Dominican Order. Its purpose is to prepare you to freely make vows as a religious in the Dominican Order.
Apostolic Novitiate usually follows the canonical year. It is a time to enter fully into ministry and to integrate the learning of the canonical year with your lived experience.
Temporary Profession is made after you have completed the novitiate. Having lived religious life for a significant period of time, you make public vows of poverty, chastity and obedience — usually for three years.
Final Profession is made from three to six years after your first profession. At this time, you will have manifested a capacity to live the Dominican life, and be willing to make a life commitment to this way of life.
