Applicant
A young woman requests information about our life, visits, is interviewed by our vocation director and team.
Duration: a year or more.
Observer
If both we and the applicant sense Mississippi Abbey may be the
place God is calling her, she comes to live in our community to test
her vocation.
Duration: a month or more.
Postulant
After an observer has returned home, she may apply to enter our
community. If accepted, she gives up her job, distributes her material
possessions, and enters the novitiate, where she receives the guidance
of the novice director and participates in the instructions given to
the novices.
Clothing: plain secular dress.
Duration: 5-10 months.
Novice
When the postulant, novice director and abbess believe she is ready,
the postulant receives the Cistercian habit in the presence of the
community. The novitiate is a period of intense spiritual and
monastic formation under the guidance of the novice director.
Clothing: white habit, veil and scapular; a cloak in church.
Duration: 2 years.
Junior professed
With the consent of the conventual chapter of the monastery, the abbess may admit a novice to temporary vows.
Juniors pursue studies, receive pastoral guidance from the director of
juniors, and begin to take on major responsibilities in the community.
Clothing: white habit, white veil, black scapular; cloak in church.
Duration: 3-9 years.
Solemn professed
The chapter again votes to admit a sister to solemn vows. The vows
are the same as for temporary profession, but now they are made in
church in a public ceremony, and are for life. The sister legally
renounces all her property and ability to inherit, and becomes a member
of the conventual chapter.
Clothing: white habit; black scapular and veil; cowl in church.
Duration: until death.
