    |
||||||
|
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
When a woman is accepted as a candidate for the The Dominican Sisters of San Rafael she enters into a time of formal training. Our constitutions provide three basic principles that flow through our understanding of growth and development as a Dominican sister. The woman's lived experience of God's grace in the context of community is at the heart of our formation program. "The program depends upon an atmosphere of prayer, study, community life, and apostolic activity through which a woman becomes increasingly responsible for developing her relationship with God, her sisters, and those she is called to serve. Her willingness to grow in love of God, self, and others will determine to a great extent the effectiveness of her own initial as well as ongoing formation. The initial formation program introduces a woman to a deeper understanding of God and to a new relationship with our congregation. All stages of initial formation help her to discern and to understand her vocation in the light of the specific nature of this congregation. Formation personnel aid each woman by providing her with a program, which can be varied according to individual needs. Each person accepts the primary responsibility for her own formation by freely cooperating with the grace of a vocation to religious life in our congregation. Evidence that God is calling a person must be clear to the congregation as well as to the individual. The congregation participates in that responsibility by helping her to understand her call to religious life. All the sisters in the congregation thus have a part in the process of a person's formation, whether in its initial or ongoing stages." (Principles of Formation: Constitutions) |
||||