VOCATION: A CALLING TO THIS WAY OF LIFE

People often ask those in the various forms of religious life, “How did you get your vocation?”  “Did you always want to be a religious?”  “How did you know?”  These aren’t easy questions to answer because each person is unique and so is their journey toward this beautiful vocation. 

Some have felt called since they were small.  Others crossed the street when they saw a religious walking toward them.  Some investigated communities of religious, searching for “the” one like shopping for a college.  Others had the reality enter their lives like a bolt of summer lightening.  There is no one way about how God works in the hearts of men and women, whatever their calling is in life. 

But it might be fair to say that something begins to make a person question life.  Something unsettles one enough to ask life a question, “Is there something more?” It isn’t because life is awful or even unhappy.  There is simply something, Someone, who has placed deep thoughts and considerations in a person’s heart.  One doesn’t know how they got there, they just are.  And what seemed to have satisfied you one day – doesn’t the next.  It is just a question.  It isn’t a demand.  The Lord doesn’t force us to take seriously the deep questions he has placed there.  But if one is willing to consider it, one will be following the Lord from the depth of their heart.  And in the long run, life will be fuller and happier because we are a creation of his love and he desires our fullness and since he made us, he knows the best way for us to “work”.  The answer may not lead a person into a monastery, convent or seminary.   God leads his children to all the different vocations in the human family.  But when we let the Lord guide us, when we consider his calling to us, we will experience that “something more” in our daily lives.  Because we will be living out of the Lord’s deep call to our heart – our life connected and flowing out of his loving plan.

A CALL TO OUR LADY QUEEN MONASTERY:

 We live, as St. Benedict writes, “Under a rule and an abbot”.  Our rule of life is the Rule of St. Benedict along with our constitutions, A Covenant of Love.  We take the Benedictine vows of Stability, Conversion of Life and Obedience.  Conversion of Life covers all that it means to life the monastic life which includes the traditional vows of poverty and chastity.  Benedictine monastic life is lived out in a community for one’s entire life.  Here in the community we try to live a life totally centered on Christ, serving him through our Sisters and those who come to the monastery.  Our day is structured on the Eucharist and the Hours of the Divine Office, the Prayer of the Church, as we gather to pray together for the needs of the world.  Along with the richness of Liturgical Prayer we each devote ourselves to two periods of quiet prayer and Lectio Divina  every day.  Our “work” is prayer.  And our tasks are many and varied: cooking, gardening, computer work, correspondence, laundry, sewing, research and all the other things that go into running a Christian home.  Benedictine community life is a sacred reality where we serve Christ as we strive to grow in our spiritual lives.  We pray, eat and relax together in this family Christ has called into one monastic community for his own glory and purpose. We welcome guests who visit and come on retreat as Christ.  St. Benedict teaches us to see that Christ is not only the center but the beginning and the end and our way to him is through with whom we live.

We are Benedictine nuns, technically moniales.  This means that we are contemplatives and live our lives in an enclosed monastery.  We have monastic or constitutional enclosure, not papal enclosure like the Poor Clares and others like them.

Our Lady Queen Monastery is a daughter house of St. Scholastica Priory in Petersham, MA.  We are members of the Subiaco Congregation and international congregation of Benedictines.  We have a beautiful monastery and retreat houses located in Tickfaw, Louisiana.  All our Liturgy is open to the public.

For a Benedictine monastic vocation at Our Lady Queen Monastery to flourish one needs to be able to benefit from solitude, prayer and personal growth and be able to live well with others.  Our life balances between both every day and both need to be valued and nurtured.  We are women who desire to live a life of holiness but are still on the way!

The way of life is simple but challenging.  Each Sister enriches the community with her own life experience and learns to be open to others. God uses the mix to keep each of us supple in his hands. St. Benedict tells us at the end of the Prologue of the Rule “We have, therefore, to establish a school of the Lord’s service, in drawing up its regulations, we hope to set down nothing harsh, nothing burdensome.  The good of all concerned, however, may prompt us to a little strictness in order to amend faults and to safeguard love.”  But all that is only so that “as we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God’s commandments our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love.  Never swerving from his instructions, then, but faithfully observing his teaching in the monastery until death, we shall through patience share in the sufferings of Christ that we may deserve also to share in his kingdom. Amen.”  RB:Prolouge 45-50

SOME REQUIREMENTS AND STEPS:

Candidates for admission to Our Lady Queen Monastery must be between 22 and 50 years old, mentally and emotionally mature, prepared to undertake a life of stability, obedience and conversion on life in an enclosed monastery.  The ability to live with others is essential.  The keystone of the Benedictine way is love: love of God and love of neighbor.  Life is an ongoing process of conversion.  No one is expected to come already formed in the Benedictine monastic way but rather to come with a willingness to be learn and model one’s new life according to St. Benedict’s rule as lived in the monastery.

1. VISIT - If after some initial visits a woman asks to begin the process of discernment, she may be invited by the community to live in the community, for a period of three to four weeks.  This is to give her a chance to see close at hand the monastic life as lived in Our Lady Queen Monastery.

2. POSTULANCY -  If after the stay in the community the candidate still feels the draw of a vocation, she can ask to be allowed to enter the community as a postulant.  The word, postulant, describes what this period of discernment is.  It is putting the question before oneself and the monastic community, if there is a fit.  This period is normally six months and can be extended for another six months.

3. NOVITIATE – This is a further step into the monastic life.  If a candidate perseveres in discerning her call it is at this stage that the monastic habit is given and usually a new name to mark a beginning of a new phase of their life.  This is a very intense time of formation and study.  During the one and a half to two years the novice lives under the direction of a formation director and devotes themselves to experiencing the Benedictine life as fully as possible to aid the discernment of her monastic vocation.

4. SIMPLE VOWS – The first stage of commitment is for a period of three years and can be extended if necessary. 

5. SOLEMN VOWS – With solemn vows, the nun becomes a full member of the community for life.

If you would like further information or like to

speak to one of the Sisters about a call to religious life,

please call contact us:

      Our Lady Queen Monastery

      Sr. Mary Elizabeth Kloss, OSB

      50352 Antioch Road

      Tickfaw, LA 70466

985-345-1202

OLQMTLA70@charter.net

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