Salesian Vocation

A ‘vocation’ to a particular way of life often starts as a vague but persistent feeling of wanting to do something worthwhile with one’s life. Often it is possible to combine more than one calling, for example, a member of the Salesian Family can choose to teach and later choose to change career, he or she is also free to marry or remain single. A vocation to life as a Salesian Sister is different and involves a deliberate commitment to life-long celibacy, and a willingness to live as a community member and work as part of the team in the common mission. This is serious stuff and requires a real call from God, much prayer, self-knowledge and time to reflect deeply before making any decisions. This is a process we call discernment.

This initial period is the one that many people associate with the word ‘formation’ and it is very important, as all beginnings are. Someone feeling that she might be called by God to be a Salesian Sister would make contact and then for about twelve months would be accompanied by a Sister who would meet with her regularly to help her to discern whether or not this is really her vocation. The period of initial discernment is a long one, and lasts for about ten years. If after the first year she still feels that this way of life is for her, she can ask to be admitted to community for a further year to experience community as a lived reality and not just as an ideal. Then she might ask to be admitted as a postulant for a further year, and then as a novices for two more years. At the end of this time she can ask to be admitted to make her religious profession. For six years she will live with ‘temporary vows’ a term used when there is a fixed time limit on her commitment. This is to make sure that she has ample time to experience what it means to live the vows and to live in community, so that she will have a deeper understanding of the commitment she will make when she makes her final profession for the rest of her life.

During this period of initial formation a woman might well find that although she is not being called to be a Salesian Sister, she has developed a strong sense of membership of the Salesian Family and finds her calling in working with and for young people in other ways, often side by side with vowed members.