The Call : Formation

“I have called you by name: you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1

As we are created in God’s image and likeness, there is a deep longing in the human heart that can be satisfied only by its Creator. A Sister of the Visitation is one who has heard this inner call and has expressed her desire to be united with God by her total commitment to the life of constant prayer within a community. It is God who calls us out of His infinite love. We respond to Him with our joyful “Yes!” by living daily our ordinary, simple, and hidden way of life.

Our Blessed Mother makes a “secret visitation” to the hearts of those souls called to this life. The period of formation of the sisters is confided to the directress of novices. Working with the Superior, she helps the souls entrusted to her to discern the will of God. She prepares them for the various stages along their journey to this complete gift of self. The length of time spent before the reception of the habit is about 1 to 2 years, then about 2 years as a novice before pronouncing first vows, and then after 5 years of temporary profession (if all discern that it is the will of God) the Sister is permitted to pronounce perpetual vows and is definitively incorporated into the community. The Church in her wisdom leads the soul by degrees to give her time to prove her perseverance and to learn to rely more on the grace of God than on her own efforts.