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Requirements and Stages of Formation
CANDIDACY:
THE FIRST STEP IN FORMATION
Rev.
3:20 "Look, I am standing at the door knocking."
This first stage begins with your decision to pursue
the dialog with one of the Vocation Coodinators on our Vocation Team.
Once you have reviewed the materials and have experienced the desire to know more about the
Order, your response and request for further interaction initiates the
candidacy stage.
Upon receiving your e-mail, letter or phone call,
the Vocation Coordinator will send further materials including a personal
resume form to be completed. This provides the Vocation Coordinator with
information about your background and your journey, and facilitates his
response to your questions.
Initial
Steps
This part of the journey involves two objectives,
two dimensions of the discernment process. The first has to do with your
call to religious life. the second is a call to a specific ministry.
Call
to Religious Life
With the help of a spiritual director, you are
encouraged to test your understanding of God's call to you by taking steps
that make this a more concrete reality. It is at this time that the cost
of such a choice to follow Christ and to enter religious life becomes
clearer and more challenging.
Call
to Specific Ministry
The second dimension is the form that this response
to God's call will take. There are a number of charisms expressed by
various religious institutes which embody those charisms in their
structures and rules. In initiating the candidacy stage of formation, you
begin to test the fit of your own gifts and of the apostolate of the
Camillian Order. A Vocation
Coordinator on our team accompanies you through this stage of the journey
and helps you determine whether the Camillian charism is the expression of
religious life that you are called to.
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Testing One's Vocation
Reading
and Reflection
Materials will be sent to you as a result of your
communication with the Vocation Coordinator to help you better understand
what the Camillian charism involves. You are invited to read these
materials and to reflect on these, based on your experience of caring for
those who are sick. As you do so, you get a sense of rightness, a sense
that this charism is (or is not) how God calls you to serve.
Visitations
Where possible, a member of the Vocation Team
will attempt to meet with you, should he travel through your geographical
area. This encounter provides the Vocation Coordinator with a better sense
of your environment and lifestyle.
For those who are serious about their candidacy in
the order, arrangements are made for them to visit the Camillians at the
formation house. Our main center of activity is in Milwaukee and it is
important that any candidate wanting to proceed further in the formation
program come and observe our community life and our ministry in Milwaukee.
This also permits the candidate to know community members. The Order
ceases to be an abstract reality and becomes persons, places, events and
ministries.
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Application
to Enter the Pre-Novitiate Program
Through the above process, confirmation of God's
call to religious life and the sense of a fit with the Camillian charism
are achieved sufficiently to provide the foundation for your decision to
consider the Pre-Novitiate. After conferring with the Vocation
Coordinator, you would be encouraged to apply for the Pre-Novitiate.
Certain conditions are required in order to proceed with the application.
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If you are a convert to the Roman Catholic faith, a period
of three years must have lapsed between the person's Confirmation or
Baptism into the Roman Church and the beginning of the Pre-Novitiate
Program.
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You must be single.
If previously married, the marriage must have been annulled or the spouse
deceased. You must not
have children or an ex-spouse depending on you financially.
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If you have some outstanding debts, these must be discussed
with the vocation director and your financial status will be reviewed at
the time of your visit for interviews.
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Your health must be stable and such that you can perform the
ministries assigned to you.
After these basic conditions are met, additional
evaluations and documents are added to complete the application. The
Vocation Coordinator will specify what is needed.
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A group of documents are required, including a physical
examination and various laboratory tests.
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You will undergo a psychological evaluation and interviews
with members of the Order and lay persons responsible for assessment of
candidates.
At this point, we encourage you not to feel overwhelmed by these
requirements because things are done gradually step by step.
Everything needs to be done peacefully but with conviction or
determination.
Once your file is complete, it is reviewed by the
Admissions and Formation Committee of the province and a recommendation is
sent to the Provincial to accept (or not accept) a candidate for
Pre-novitiate. The Provincial Superior makes the final decision concerning
the candidate's admission.
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Who
Can Be a Candidate for the Camillian Order?
The man who chooses to love and care for the sick is
admissible to the order. It is highly desirable that this man have some
experience of caring for the sick in one form or another, as a
professional or volunteer. The volunteer work could have been performed in
the parish or in hospitals or in one's family. The most significant
requirement is this love for and willingness to serve the sick.
Professional background in health care is certainly welcomed, but it is
not a requirement.
In terms of age, we have not set upper or lower
limits. It is generally unwise to admit men in the Pre-Novitiate before the age of
twenty-five. This gives individuals time to grow in maturity of their
decision and call. There is a need for some experience of life before
entering a religious community. There are no upper limits in age. The
decisions are made as a function of each individual's health, experience
and capacity to contribute to the province.
The
Entry into the Pre-Novitiate
The last step for a candidate accepted for the
Pre-Novitiate is the disposition of your material belongings. Since this is
not the end point of the discernment process, you are encouraged to
dispose of your belongings in such away that, if you choose not to pursue
entry into the Order, you can recuperate those things that are essential
to you. Specific instructions will be given to you by the Vocation
Coordinator as to what you can bring with you to the formation house.
Entry into religious life is a progressive process of letting go. This
gives some breathing room and security as you test further the call you
have been receiving from God.
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PRE-NOVITIATE:
A PERIOD OF TRANSITION
"And
at once they left their boats and followed Him"
Mk.
1:18
In this stage, the candidate is admitted
to the Pre-novitiate. It is a time when there is a more specific program
of formation.
What
is Formation?
Formation is a dynamic process in which a person is
slowly initiated into our community life and gradually begins to identify
with its goals and purposes. Formation is also a discernment process
leading to personal discovery and growth in the call to live an apostolic
religious lifestyle, characterized by Gospel values.
A
Time of Transition
The Pre-novitiate is marked by the passage from the
secular lifestyle to life in a religious community. Many men entering
religious community as a second career have lived alone for a number of
years. With the Pre-novitiate, they begin to live with others. There is a
need for adjustment of behaviors, attitudes, routines, a need for sharing
responsibilities and tasks. There is a learning of openness and
communication, a discovery of a new family. Men entering community have met,
during the visitations, those living in the Formation House. These people
become mentors and companions for the journey of Pre-novitiate.
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Part of the transition process is moving into and
resolving the grief that accompanies such a change. There was substantial
investment for most of their previous professional activities, in their
parish involvement, in their relationship with friends and neighbors, and,
notably with their family members. Upon entering religious life,
pre-novices leave behind professional and parish activities and
relationships connected to these activities. Distance will change
relationships with friends and even family. They experience grief with
these changes. It has to be faced and confronted directly. The community
members who accompany the pre-novices are prepared to journey with them
through this experience.
The
Objectives of the Pre-Novitiate
Self
Knowledge
In this new environment, pre-novices have come to know
themselves in a different way. The old standards of self-knowledge are
quickly overwhelmed. Through a variety of means, the Pre-novitiate program
will foster growth in self-knowledge and growth in self-revelation.
The
Dynamics of Community
Community life does not simply happen. Men
coming together to form community need to do so purposefully, with an
understanding of the dynamics of community building. The Pre-novitiate
will provide the context and guidelines for the exploration of and
integration into community. Self-knowledge can be applied to the formation
of community.
Prayer
During the Pre-novitiate program, pre-novices are initiated into
community prayer in its various forms and to Camillian types of prayer. A
basic understanding of these forms of prayer is provided so that the
experience of common and ministerial prayer becomes fulfilling.
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Camillian
Ministry
One purpose of the pre-novitiate is invitation to
Camillian ministry for those who have not engaged in it previously. For
those who have worked as health care professionals, this objective
involves a reflection on their experiences in order to broaden and deepen
its meaning. Pre-novices engage in pastoral work and other forms of care
for the sick, depending on their background and experience.
Financial
Accountability
Although not members of the order, pre-novices live
fully with the community. However, they remain responsible for their own
financial obligations. We can assist those who want to find work and
health care coverage during this time of discernment. The pre-novices are
expected to contribute to the house of formation for the expenses of their
room and board.
A
Self-Actualizing Process
We recognize that, in times past, religious life
appeared to consist of being told what to do, how to do it, and when to do
it; we now acknowledge the gifts that the pre-novice possesses, nourished
through their life processes, and their contribution to the Order. We each
have the primary responsibility for our own growth, development and
formation. Those who enter our community have developed a certain maturity
and an ability to care for themselves.
During this transition period, each one entering our
community is encouraged to draw on his personal integrative coping ability
in times of stress and uncertainty. Each man is invited to give to the
life of the community what he has to offer in terms of skill, knowledge
and abilities. It is the community's role to recognize and affirm the
gifts each one brings to it. Although there are difficult periods during
this stage, each must feel within himself a growing peace and sense of
belonging. Both are part of the discernment process.
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Freedom
and Responsibility
Each man's integrity is to be respected; being true to who he
is must be an essential part of the decision making involving his future.
Continuity between where he came from as a layman and where he is going as
a religious must be established during the pre-novitiate.
The formation toward self-responsibility can best
take place when the life of a community is characterized by honesty,
mutual trust, and by open ongoing communication. When these qualities of
community life are seriously hampered for whatever reason, or notably
absent, true religious formation becomes a practical impossibility.
It is necessary for the community, as a whole, to
act freely and responsibly. Then, it will grow together in the Christian
values of freedom and responsibility.
Fraternal
Unity of the Spirit
The early formative experience is usually the
most effective. Those entering the pre-novitiate are generally willing to
make sacrifices for their belief in religious life and are eager for
direction. Their feeling about community is generally established during
the first six months of association with it. They may feel affirmed,
supported, and accepted, in which case they will willingly identify with
the community, with its aims and goals. Or they may feel unaccepted and
distanced, a difficult position whereby they are expected to be dependent
on the community for psychological sustenance and yet are not drawn into
its real life. Community members must be supportive and ready to listen;
pre-novices, in turn, must be willing to share their difficulties and
experiences.
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