We realize you may have lots of questions about religious life. You’re not alone. To get you started, take a look at our most frequently asked questions. If you have others, use the form below to send them directly to our vocation director, Lori Benge.
How do I know if God is calling me?
God is calling you! But to which vocation, single, married or religious life is the challenge. A person must pray often, listen and ask questions. Every single day! Finding out God’s will is not an easy thing to do. It is a slow process called discernment. Ultimately you have to cultivate a relationship with God and grow deeper in that relationship.
What is a vocation?
A vocation is a calling. Many people use the word vocation (from the Latin vocare, meaning “to call”) in reference to the call to be a priest, sister, or brother. However, the Catholic understanding of vocation is much broader: every baptized person has a vocation—a call—to love and serve God. How you choose to live out that vocation is what each person must discern. Some feel called to live as single or married lay people; others choose consecrated life and join a secular institute or religious community (as sisters, priests, or brothers); still others choose ordination as deacons or diocesan priests.
(Source: National Religious Vocation Conference)
What is discernment?
Discernment is a process of learning to make your will that of God’s will. Discernment can be described as a journey, determining God’s call for one’s life. There are many ways and tools to help with discernment. Discernment is a deliberate practice. The most important way to discern is to enter into conversation with God about the little things in your life. Also learning to listen – God may not speak to you as God speaks to others. Don’t expect to necessarily be able to hear immediately. It takes time. Talk with someone like a vocation or spiritual director who will ask questions and listen and pray with you. They can help recognize your gifts and talents and search with you to find where you are the happiest. Every discernment journey is unique.
What does a call from God sound like?
God calls people in many different ways. You don’t have to wait for a lightning bolt or a supernatural vision. Most often the call from God is found deep within your own heart. It might manifest itself in different ways such as a desire to help others or to know God more deeply. No two callings are the same, just like no two sisters are the same. If you think you are being called, follow your heart. If you do not, you will be left wondering for the rest of your life.
What is a sister or nun?
A sister or nun is a woman who belongs to a religious order or community. Many people use the words sister and nun interchangeably, but technically nuns are those who live a cloistered (or enclosed) monastic life whereas sisters serve in an active ministry. After a period of preparation (called formation), sisters and nuns take lifelong vows. Usually, they take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; that is, they promise to live simply, to live celibately, and to follow the will of God through their community.
(Source: National Religious Vocation Conference)
Are young people still choosing to become priests, sisters, and brothers?
Yes, and there’s an uptick in newer entrants. For the second year in a row, more than 500 women and men have entered religious life in the United States. Following an unusual surge in the mid-20th century, the number of men and women religious today more closely reflects a number consistent with the beginning of the last century. According to the 2009 NRVC/CARA study, 71 percent of those who have entered religious life and are currently in initial formation are under 40.
(Source: National Religious Vocation Conference)
Are young adults pressured to join a religious order if they request information?
Trained vocation ministers adhere to a code of ethics that specifically encourages them to allow inquirers a sense of true freedom to choose or not choose religious life or priesthood without any pressure or expectation from others. In fact, extreme pressure to enter religious life is a canonical impediment to admission to vows. Online websites, discussion boards, and email exchanges allow inquirers to seek information anonymously until they feel prepared to make more personal contact.
Most vocation directors acknowledge that their role is to accompany those in discernment, not to recruit them. Also, vocation directors have a duty to their communities and the church to properly assess and offer honest feedback about a candidate’s fitness for religious life.
(Source: National Religious Vocation Conference)
What is a vocation director?
A vocation director is designated by a religious institute to promote vowed membership, to help others discern their vocation, and to oversee the application process of new members entering the community as a postulant. The director assists those who are considering the possibility of religious life by providing support, discernment counseling, and information. The vocation director for a religious congregation answers to the elected superiors of his or her congregation. The National Religious Vocation Conference is a professional organization for vocation directors of religious communities.
Vocation directors who work on behalf of a diocese answer to the bishop. They have their professional organization, the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors.
(Source: National Religious Vocation Conference)
What is the process to enter religious life?
Typically someone interested in religious life goes through a discernment process where he or she prayerfully considers the call to religious life, explores vocation options, contacts religious communities, and eventually begins a more formal process of discernment with a particular religious institute.
Once a candidate chooses to apply to a community and is accepted, he or she typically begins a formation process starting with postulancy or candidacy, in which the person is introduced to the communal life, ministries, and mission of the community. After postulancy is the novitiate, where a person is formally admitted to a religious institute. The novitiate is an extended time of prayer, study, and spirituality, which usually lasts for at least one year. After the novitiate, the novice is admitted to temporary vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. This period of temporary commitment allows for further discernment before he or she makes a perpetual profession of vows within a given religious institute.
(Source: National Religious Vocation Conference)
What are the vows of religious life?
The main vows for apostolic women and men in religious life are chastity, poverty, and obedience. Individual institutes may require additional vows. Monastics profess vows of stability, obedience, and fidelity/conversation to the monastic way of life, which includes chastity and living simply. By stability, a monastic binds him or herself to a specific monastery.
(Source: National Religious Vocation Conference)
What is a day in the life of a sister like?
Catholic sisters have a variety of ministries, prayer, lifestyles, and community schedules. Each local community (individuals the sister lives with) has its distinctive personality and flavor. No two local communities are the same! Sisters have schedules and routines just as any other working woman would have but they all work in the context of community, the sisters with whom they live. A sister’s local community will work together to take into consideration everyone’s schedules to balance prayer, ministry, and community sharing.
What kinds of ministry do sisters do?
The choice of ministry for the woman religious arises from the founding purpose of the community, a prayerful discernment of her own gifts, and an assessment within her community of the signs of the times. A woman religious and her community together look at the needs of the church and society to determine where best to place their energies.
The way a particular sister spends her day depends on the kind of community to which she belongs. Contemplative nuns often do work to sustain their community in food and shelter such as gardening, baking, and handiwork. Apostolic communities such as the Adorers are involved in a myriad of ministries, usually with an emphasis on service such as education, social work or parish pastoral work.
How are religious orders different from one another?
Each religious order or congregation has a charism — a gift given for the service of the church — that helps them focus on the mission set forth by their founder. Many congregations are like-minded or have similar ministries, but each is distinct in one respect or another.
How would I know which religious community is best for me?
Religious communities share so much in common with each other, and yet, each one has its own unique spirit or charism. All communities are called to manifest the Gospel to our church and world, but the Holy Spirit has led each one to grow in its own unique way in reflecting Jesus’ Good News.
Hand in hand with your outer journey exploring various religious communities will be your inner journey of identifying your own unique spirit. When you find the community you feel especially drawn to, you will have found something of yourself. At a certain point, you will know that your discernment journey has led to a sense of joy and peace. You will recognize a “sense of home and belonging” and desire to carry on the mission of one particular community.
Will I have to give up friends and family to join?
No, in fact, friends and family are a very important support for the sisters. Individual families and the community become very connected as one larger family.
Glossary of Religious Terms
We know that religious life often uses a different language. There are lots of words and phrases that may be new to you. Don’t worry, we’re here to help with a glossary of our frequently used terms. If you can’t find the word you’re looking for, send Lori an email.
Apostolic
In the context of consecrated religious life, apostolic religious communities, such as the Adorers, are engaged for the most part in active ministries. While prayer and community life are important to them, their members serve in a variety of ways: teaching, parish ministry, health care, social work, care for the elderly, work with young people, service to the poor, and many others.
Assembly
Assembly is a yearly gathering of Adorers from all over the country to make decisions about policy and leadership, further the ASC mission, and discuss the direction of the community. It is also an important and enjoyable time for sisters, sojourners, associates, and co-workers to connect with each other.
Associates
Associates are lay persons who participate in the spiritual life and share the charism and mission of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ. Their membership spans the U.S. and also the world. Associates participate in monthly meetings in their local geographic area and are invited to other ASC community gatherings.
Baptism
Since the time of early Christianity, Baptism has been the rite of initiation into the Christian community of the Church. In Baptism, the “one Spirit” makes us members of the Body of Christ and of “one another.”
Our Baptismal Call is how as baptized Christians we live our life and share our gifts by following God’s will.
Candidate
A candidate is a woman who has officially been accepted to discern a vocation with the Adorers. This stage allows discerning women to live within the community to better understand themselves and religious life.
Centers
The Adorers of the Blood of Christ United States Region was formed when three provinces joined together in 2000. What we call “centers” are the former motherhouses of each province and still serve as the center of life and prayer in the local Adorer communities. Our three centers are located in Ruma, Illinois; Wichita, Kansas; and Columbia, Pennsylvania.
Mission Center
The Mission Center is located in St. Louis, Missouri, and serves as the U.S. Regional offices for community leadership, vocation ministry, communication, human resources, finance, maintenance and other areas of our operation.
Charism
A charism is a religious community’s particular spirit, way of life, and focus, which grows out of its history, traditions, and founder. From the Greek word charisma, “gift.”
Cloistered
Contemplative religious communities are often cloistered or partially cloistered— that is, they live separated from the rest of the world to be more focused on prayer, including prayer for the needs of the world. As cloistered religious, they rarely leave their monasteries, and all or most of their work is done within the monastery itself, depending on the degree to which they are cloistered.
Consecrated Life
A life set apart specially to serve God fully. Characterized by making public vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Often used interchangeably with “religious life.”
Contemplative
Members of contemplative religious communities focus on prayer, especially the Mass, praying daily together the Liturgy of the Hours, and individual prayer such as lectio divina, the prayerful reading of scripture. They tend to live in greater solitude than apostolic communities so that they can better direct their prayer and work toward contemplation, though some communities that consider themselves contemplative are also engaged in some active apostolic ministries.
Covenant
A covenant is a sacred and binding agreement made in love between persons or between persons and God.
Discernment
Discernment is a process of prayerful reflection and praying about how to respond to God’s call. It can apply to an individual or a community who wishes to understand God’s call at a given time or in a particular circumstance of life. It involves listening to God in all the ways God communicates with us: in prayer, in the scriptures, through the Church and the world, in personal experience, and in other people.
Eucharist
The Eucharist is another name for Holy Communion. The term comes from the Greek by way of Latin, and it means “thanksgiving.” It is used in three ways: first, it refers to the Real Presence of Christ; second, it refers to Christ’s continuing action as High Priest (He “gave thanks” at the Last Supper, which began the consecration of the bread and wine); and third, it refers to the Sacrament of Holy Communion itself.
Formation
Formation is the beginning of the process of education and spiritual development that takes place over a lifetime.
Lay person
A lay person is a non-ordained member of the Church.
Ministry
Ministry is the use of a person’s gifts and talents, time and energy in the service of others or a cause. It may involve the exercise of roles designated by the Church to fulfill its mission in different works of service, such as in worship, teaching, leadership, the sacraments and stewardship. More broadly, ministry is an individual’s service to others.
Mission
Mission means being sent. The mission of the Church is to proclaim and witness to the Kingdom of God, as Jesus did. The mission of religious communities refers to the purpose for which they exist within the Church especially as this finds expression in living the charism of the community and its founder.
Missionary communities focus their lives on spreading the Gospel to other countries or areas of their own country in need of evangelization. These communities serve in many different places in a variety of ministries such as preaching, teaching, service, and other forms of witness among the people with whom they live.
Monastic
Monastic communities fall somewhere between apostolic and cloistered. Monastic men and women place a high value on prayer and living in community, but many are also engaged in active ministries. Monasticism centers on community life, work, common and individual prayer.
Novice
A novice is a man or woman in the initial stage of entering a religious community. The novice is typically involved in discernment, preparation, and formation activities, including study of the order’s charism, history, constitution, and way of life. This period usually lasts from 12 to 24 months and is called the novitiate. At its end, the novice can go on to take temporary vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Nun
Although people use the terms nun and sister interchangeably, technically a nun belongs to a contemplative order, lives in a monastery, and devotes the majority of her time to prayer for the good of the world.
Obedience
All baptized persons are called to listen to God so as to know God’s call and God’s will in their lives. Men and women who vow or promise obedience commit themselves to listening to God’s call as it is heard through their leaders and communities, and to responding faithfully to this call.
Postulant
A postulant is a man or woman requesting and still discerning membership in a religious community before becoming a novice. The period of postulancy usually lasts six months to two years. The Adorers use the term “Candidate” to describe someone who goes through a Candidacy process.
Poverty
All baptized persons are called to a reverent appreciation of the resources available to them. Women and men who vow poverty commit themselves to living simply, to sharing all things in common and not exercising ownership over things, for the good of their religious community and its mission in the Church.
Precious Blood Spirituality
The spirituality of the Blood of Christ calls us to be a reconciling and hope-filled presence in the world today. It calls us to be wholly consecrated to the adoring and redeeming love of Jesus Christ, who shed his blood to free us from sin and reconcile us in love. Therefore we are called to be a reconciling presence to others through love and charity; “charity toward God and toward our dear neighbor.” (St. Maria De Mattias)
Profession
Profession is the religious rite in which a person formally enters a religious community by taking vows. Profession follows a formation program of discernment, education, and spiritual development.
Religious Life
Religious or consecrated life refers to the vocation of men and women who choose to dedicate themselves to God through profession in a religious community. Religious life usually involves these women or men joining a religious community and sharing in a common life of prayer and service, according to the spirit and charism of their founder and mission in the Church.
Sacraments
The Catholic Church recognize seven religious rites or sacraments: Baptism, the Eucharist, Confirmation, Penance (now often called the sacrament of reconciliation), Matrimony, Holy Orders and Anointing of the Sick. The sacraments are signs instituted and given to the Church by Christ. In the sacraments, we meet Christ, and he gives us sanctifying grace, a free gift of God.
Sister
A sister is a woman who belongs to an apostolic religious community, that is, a community that is involved in active ministry, such as education, justice, healthcare, parish work, advocacy, and social service.
Sojourners
Sojourners are a regional community of lay persons who commit to a Gospel lifestyle and take promises of simplicity, unconditional love, and covenant. As an expression of the primary commitment, they are called to live out and deepen the ASC charism and Precious Blood spirituality as the Sojourners Community within the larger ASC Community.
Spiritual Direction
Spiritual direction is a process of periodic meetings with a spiritual director who offers advice and encouragement for deepening and strengthening directees’ relationship with God and discerning where God may be leading them.
Temporary Professed
Temporary professed is a step in the formation process following novice. Women have temporarily taken vows in order to live fully as a sister in preparation for final vows.
Vocation
In baptism, each person is called by God to follow Jesus in a life of holiness and service. This call may be lived out in different vocations such as single life, marriage, or as a sister, brother or priest.
Vocation Director
A vocation director is designated by a religious institute to promote vowed membership, to help others discern their vocation, and to oversee the application process of new members entering the community as a candidate. They assist those who are considering the possibility of religious life by providing support, discernment counseling, and information. The Adorers’ Vocation Director is Lori Benge. She is a great resource for all questions you have and is always available for a no-pressure conversation.
Vows
A vow is a free and deliberate commitment and an act of devotion made by a person to God. As members of religious communities, sisters, brothers and priests take vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. Many communities add a fourth or fifth vow related to their charism.
Start the Conversation
Discernment can feel daunting, but you’re never alone. We are here to walk this journey with you. No question is too small and we’d love to hear from you! Call or email anytime, or use the form below to get in touch.
Lori Benge
Vocations Director
bengel@adorers.org
314.203.1678