This following installment in our fictional Vocation Letter series touches on some difficulties parents may face in understanding and accepting their daughters vocation to the cloistered life. Most daily activities, though, remain the same: my daily Hour of Guard praying the Rosary, our novitiate classes, helping cook on the days the novitiate helps in the kitchen, enjoying recreation with the novitiate or with Mother and all the Sisters, being ready for whatever big or little project Sister Mary Magistra has planned for our work period or to do at recreation! Ice-cream? Happy Easter! I can hardly believe it! Advent is a time to intensify our desire, in union with Our Lady whose longing for the Savior drew down that Dew from Heaven. When writing a letter to a nun, use proper etiquette. Technically, nuns are cloistered (they never leave their convent or monastery) and religious sisters are active. Make your donation today! First, the anticipation of Advent increases in intensity right up through the singing of Matins before Midnight Mass. 4. Looking forward to sending you our Christmas newsletter soon! Together we can continue to help others find joy and meaning in life! Our life is now hidden with Christ in God. Certainly, it takes time to adjust, but Our Lord showers many graces on both the nun and her family for this generous sacrifice. A letter of application (also known as a cover letter, application letter, or job application letter) is a one-page letter sent with your resume to convince employers you're qualified for their role. That being said, you are right: there is so much about the twenty-first century that would be super hard to give up. Talk with friends whom you know that will be supportive of you while you explore religious life and this feeling of being called to become a nun. This is an important thing to discuss with the vocation director. Remember Peter and Andrews response to Our Lord in the Gospel? Even when employers dont require a job application letter, writing one will help you highlight your skills and achievements and get the hiring managers attention. The goal of our studies is to form us into Dominican nuns whose thirst for Truth leads us to God, and whose love of God increases our thirst for Him. Holy Week itself is like the summit of the mountain towards which we have been journeying. ), Sister Chantress bringing out all the Latin chant books for the season with their hauntingly beautiful Advent tones. Our fictional novice Sister Mary Rosaria reflects on the meaning of the cloistered life in this entry in our Vocation Letter series. The religious life is a beautiful vocation, one that is entirely dedicated to God and reminds us all of our final end, union with God for all eternity. Should you require a reference, I invite you to contact my former Youth Minister, who will attest that I was a welcome presence at all lock-ins, mission trips, and fellowships, even the fellowships where there was no pizza involved. I will have to tell you about that in my next letter! You've landed on the right page. Typically these vows last for sets of 1-3 years and can be renewed. It is such a blessing for me to have that foundation for living community life today. You may also consider talking with someone like a nun or a priest or a chaplain. Thats what Sister Mary Magistra told me: as cloistered nuns, we dont go anywhere; we stay at home all the time; and we dont do any external apostolate (I mean, we have plenty of work herethe laundry we will always have with us!but we dont have the occupation of an apostolate). We use cookies on this website to track our users interests and enhance their experience. Please pray for us as well. Prayerful greetings during this month of the Holy Rosary! The most important place to begin is to pray (or continue praying) about this call you sense. Do you have any favoritesmaybe history or literature? Actually, the message applies for all of us to live this moment knowing God is right there beside us hinting, cajoling and supporting each choice. Sister Mary Magistra is our fictional Novice Mistress/Vocations DirectressMagistra means lady teacher in Latin. This season captures so well the longing we should all feel for God. In writing this application I wish to invoke Our Blessed Mother, Mary Help of Christians, St. Joseph, St. Francis DeSales, St. John Bosco, and all of the Salesian saints, blesseds, and venerables to pray for me and to assist me in my discernment. Please pray for me, Grandma, that during these next two years of novitiate I may assiduously follow our Holy Father St. Dominic so that I may be ready for the day of my espousals to Jesus Christ! Most of the time, the answer is yes. I am so excited as I look forward to this next step in formation as a Dominican nun. The habit marks us as belonging to Jesus and Mary, although timing-wise Solemn Profession is a better parallel with the commitment of wedding vows. Christ is risenindeed He is risen! A spiritual director is someone who is trained to help you discern, think, and pray about how God is moving in your life. After a hiatus of two years, we continue following the story of our fictional novice, Sister Mary Rosaria, taking up her life where we left her after her Vestition. I hope you were able to get together to celebrate Thanksgiving yesterday. Since we dont receive social visits during Lent, youve never been able to get a glimpse of how we live out this season at the monastery. Of course, it takes some time to get used to wearing a flowing white garment every day, and to handle the white Dominican scapular that hangs down in front and back, a sign of Our Ladys loving care all around us. To put my home, educational, and religious story onto paper, knowing that this story had to be 100% honest and knowing that it would be read by nuns, was overwhelming. University of Maryland Global Campus. Some areas can be improved with proper counseling and growth, while others are impediments. Our devotion especially focuses on the Ave Maria (as you see at the head of our letters) because we devote ourselves to the Perpetual Rosary which overflows from the Hour of Guard to all the actions of the day. Try to accomplish the three objectives in a one-page letter. If you seek a nun's mailing address, you may successfully find it online, provided you know some information such as her name, parish or diocese. It may be a radical shift to a different way of life than you imagined for yourself, or it may be something you've kinda known all along. ), help a nun fix her computer or start a Facebook page, volunteer at a convent by helping with transportation needs or by organizing a craft experience or by shelving library books or by participating in some kind of social justice advocacy with them, attend an event at which there is likely to be a high population of nuns, visit religious communities' websites (VISION Vocation Network has a great, sign-up for an online or in-person discernment opportunity such as the, find websites of ministries run by or sponsored by nuns to get a feel for their ministries, attend a vocation retreat with other women that the vocation director is working with. Use a formal business letter format when writing your letter. ), envision your transition into the community (when, where, how), formally meet with other members of the vocation team and with the congregational leader (General Superior), Aspirancy / Pre-Candidacy (more to come on each of these). We invite you to join us for this Novena which begins August 30. He not only sold his own books to buy food for the poor during a famine, but also spend innumerable nights in prayer crying out before the Lord, What will become of sinners! Hearing all these intentions inspires me to give myself more fully to God with greater generosity and fidelity in our life, and to beg Him for mercy for all people to bring them to salvation. JMJT 4248 Get the Easter lilies ready! One main point is that our studies here in the novitiate are integrated into our life: whether we are studying the spiritual life, the Rule and Constitutions, monastic or Dominican history, or theological topics such as the liturgy or sacraments, everything we study bears directly on living out this vocation in our daily life. Happy feast of the Nativity of Our Lady! (This last is a very special feast day for the Novitiate!) Thank you all so much for your prayers! No flowers on the altar, no organ accompaniment at Mass; more fasting and more abstinence from meat; more prayers of reparation and devotions to the Passion of Our Lord (such as St. Catherine de Riccis Passion Verses, which are so beautiful). The vocation director of a particular religious community is the official person who helps you to get to know the community and to discern God's call in your life. It is a privilege to be asked to pray for a person's vocation . The year of postulancy is a year of seeking to become part of the communitypostulare is the Latin for to request. Receiving the habitVestitionis a sign of reception into the Dominican Order, but not of consecration, which occurs through profession. Lent, of course, has a different, more penitential tone of preparation and purification in union with the sufferings of Our Lord. But you can do better than just regurgitating your resumeinstead, highlight your most relevant skills, experiences, and abilities. Joyful greetings as we close this month of the Holy Rosary! In the evening, the Mass of the Lords Supper concludes with Father and the nuns processing into the chapter hall, where we have hung special curtains and prepared the Altar of Repose for the Blessed Sacrament.
Application letter basics (and a sample) for fresh graduates - JobStreet Real Life: learn about the Stages in Formation; see our Vocation Page, Vocation Retreats, or inquire about a Vocation to our community. Would you like to receive updates by email? Laura Catella has been a professional freelance writer since 2004. The fidelity and joy of the older Sisters, especially, is a sign to me of the deeper growth Our Lord has in store for me in this vocation, united with Him in the vows of poverty, chastity, and especially obedience.
Letter of Application [Example & Tips] - Resume Genius Anything more can appear unprofessional. I remember the first year I came, whenever during recreation one of the Sisters would be delighting in telling some story from past years, if she came too close to revealing some as-yet-secret future tradition, everyone else would jump in, SShhh! Body of the letter: Think of this section as being three distinct parts. May God bless you! She is a big help, making sure I know the rubrics to follow for the different ceremonies, helping me find my place in our Office books for the next hour of prayer, and keeping her eye out (just like an angel!) I made a resolution to give myself up more than ever to a serious and mortified life. Did she then fall into the second preparation pitfall, and try to live according to some preconceived notion of cloistered life? Unless otherwise stated, the letter will be ready within seven working days. Before you begin writing your job application letter, do some groundwork. I've known your company for years and have always been a fan of the articles you post on your blog and social media accounts. Each year we look forward to the lovely feast of Our Ladys Birthday on September 8. . We also have graces before and after meals here in the monastery, but they are much more elaborate. No wonder our Holy Father St. Dominic loved St. Paul so much and carried his epistles around with him everywhere (along with the Gospel of St. Matthew, and the writings of Cassian on the monastic life). That is one reason why the ORDER was so striking and apparent to me as well. ultimate goal is to obtain an interview. They worked! Having a template can help save you time if you are sending a lot of application letters.
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