What is a postulant? What is it like to be in the postulancy?
Postulancy is the first step of formation to become a religious Sister (in our case, to become a Daughter of St. Paul). A postulant is a young woman who has discerned with the community, has been admitted, and has entered into this step of formation.
The goal of postulancy is to transition into religious life, to experience the life and mission of the community, to nurture a deep life of prayer, and to come to know God’s call in a fuller way. Postulancy is a time of deeper discernment—up to this point, a young woman has felt God calling her to consider religious life, then to consider this particular community, then to ask admission to this community.
Now, she is discerning “from the inside,” as it were. She is “trying on” the life for herself and, in daily dialogue with God and accompanied by the Sister who is the postulant formator, she is reflecting on her experience and continuing to discern if and how God is calling her here.
The daily life of a postulant consists of prayer, study, mission, and community.
Prayer
The postulants participate in the shared prayer of the community—Morning and Evening Prayer, weekly Hour of Adoration together, monthly day of retreat. The postulants also have personal prayer each day—a half-hour of meditation on the Gospel, and an Hour of Adoration. There are also times of spiritual reading and sharing on the Word of God.
Study
The postulants have regular classes that help to form them as Christians, religious, and Paulines. Topics covered in their classes are human formation, communication and community, the Catechism, some basic theology, Scripture, consecrated life and the vows, the history of the Daughters of St. Paul, Pauline prayer, and lots more! Each day the postulants have time set aside for study and reflection.
Mission
Throughout this period the postulants are asked to help in different aspects of the Pauline mission. These include our book and media center, parish evangelization, event preparation, social media, designing, writing, and more.
Community
Living in community is a huge part of being a postulant. The postulants take part in everything from community cleaning to community recreation! Learning not just how to live together, but how to truly share life together as Sisters, is what forms a postulant for future life as a Daughter of St. Paul.
Postulancy for the Daughters of St. Paul takes place in our St. Louis, MO community.
To learn more about the postulancy from the perspective of a postulant, read this article by written by Sister Allison Regina when she was a postulant.
