What is Discernment?

God calls each of us to use our gifts in some form because we each have a vocation.

Our challenge is to discern to what vocation God is calling us. The basic goal of discernment is to become aware of God’s presence in our lives so that we can make choices which are in harmony with God’s will, with His deepest desire for us. Working with a spiritual director or mentor can be a good way to learn discernment.

We suggest that you take time periodically or daily to ask yourself:

• When and where today was I inspired?
• When and where today was I challenged?
• When and where today was I surprised?
• When and where today was I moved emotionally?

It is God who is in our inspirations, challenges, surprises and emotional reactions. Over time the pattern of God’s presence in your life and God’s will for you will become clear.

Using the above questions, look for patterns that include things like:

• prayer, relationship with God
• friendship, doing things with others
• service, doing things for others
• making a difference, especially for the poor

Stages in Becoming a Daughter of Charity

Initial Discernment

Once a week you’ll visit a local community of Daughters of Charity for evening prayer, supper, and to become acquainted with the spirit and direction of the community. During this time, you will continue to seek to understand and discern God’s call in your life.

Pre-Postulancy

You’ll be invited to live with a local community of Daughters so you can participate more fully in their lives. As you continue to discern, sharing in the lives of the Daughters, you will receive spiritual direction, minister to persons who are poor and learn more about the founders of the Daughters of Charity and the charism that permeates all that their lives. If you believe that God is calling you to be a Daughter, you would make a formal application to become a Postulant. If you feel that God is calling you to be a Daughter of Charity, you would make a formal application to become a Postulant

Postulancy

During the Postulancy step, you’ll live in a community of Daughters of Charity and study more intensely our heritage, and charism. You continue to deepen your understanding of your call in light of the Gospel and the Constitutions of the Daughters of Charity.

Postulancy is the stage during which the candidate experiences living a spiritual, community, and apostolic life in common. She continues to discern her vocation and to deepen her human and Christian formation. In the light of the Gospel, she seeks to discover the Vincentian charism and to learn the requirements of her vocation as expressed in the Constitutions and Statues. During this stage, the postulant is assisted particularly by the Sister Servant and the local community, in coordination with the Sisters responsible for Postulancy. She is admitted to the Seminary when both she and the company are morally certain that she is called by God and is ready to take upon herself the life of a Daughter of Charity. (Constitution and Statutes of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent De Paul, C. 54) The duration of Postulancy is one year.

Admission takes place when you enter the seminary (novitiate) and become a member of the Daughters of Charity. You will be a seminary sister (novice) for two years in order to further interiorize your spiritual life and to initiate your life as a Daughter of Charity. After this intense formation, a sister is “sent on Mission” to serve persons who are poor and to live in community with other Daughters of Charity within the province.

When you are sent on Mission, you either begin your full-time service of the poor or continue your professional preparation for ministry. After five to seven years as a member of the Daughters of Charity, you have the privilege of pronouncing vows for the first time. A Daughter of Charity takes four vows: poverty, chastity, obedience, and service of the poor. The vows are renewed annually.