Signs of a Vocation
The following are considered signs of an authentic vocation:
- A life of intimacy with the Lord, shown by clear conversions;
- An openness to truth as it comes through words and events
- A spiritual freedom, acquired gradually through mortification of defects and passions arising from temperament, personal history, family background, etc. A forgetfulness of self so as to enter into the concerns of others, Community demands, and the life of the Church.
“A good vocation is simply a firm and constant will to serve God in the way and in the places where Almighty God has called her.”
The principal end for which this Congregation was instituted to preserve the spirit of charity in receiving the infirm, and those of weak constitution, especially those who would be of a generous spirit, and aspire to holiness, with a firm determination to follow after true spiritual virtues; otherwise their retreat would be without fruit to themselves, and of great prejudice to the Monastery. As for widows, they are to be well examined, and care is to be taken that they are not tender about their children, nor too much attached to their own judgment; nor to what they have left in the world.