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FIRST STEP
1. DO YOU HAVE A SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR?
What you are about to undertake is something serious: you are not simply being asked to move from where you live, to alter your tastes, or your work on the surface level, but rather to radically change your life from deep down inside yourself.
It is truly important and pertinent to take the time to verify the call which you believe to have with the help of a spiritual director, a man of God who has time to sit and talk with you. This person may be a priest, a religious, a nun or a lay person. Choose someone, if you have not already done so. Reveal yourself from inside and allow yourself to have some guidance.
2. A FRANCISCAN TO ACCOMPANY YOU, IS IT POSSIBLE?
Certainly! You may ring the door-bell at a Franciscan community close to where you live to choose someone, or you may communicate directly with the friar nominated responsible for the service in accepting candidates to the Franciscan life in this Province. He will always be happy to receive and to help you in your research.
3. "I WOULD LIKE TO ENTER THE FRANCISCAN COMMUNITY RIGHT AWAY", YOU MAY SAY.
Lets see!
Remember some old sayings of Chinese or Vietnamese sages :
"In order to travel far, one must walk slowly''.
''Nothing is accomplished in doing things hastily".
Continue your life in the area where you are while preparing your heart to give everything to encounter the Christ and his brothers. Although the motives for entering the Franciscan religious life be a very human one, it is necessary that there appear more and more motives coming from faith: as a total gift of oneself, out of love for the Christ and for the poor. In other words, there has to be some manifestation of an authentic spiritual research.
It is also good that this spiritual research has begun to insert itself in very concrete attitudes.
For example, have you explored the possibility of daily prayers, to reach out to help people close by who may need you, serious studies, working to gain your livelihood, offering help to secular organizations or in a parish so that you may give of yourself to others? The religious life works well for those who like the life as brothers and one who gives of himself...
Still, the best way is to lead a responsible and committed Christian life. Human maturity is the basis for every vocation.
4. DISCERNMENT MEETINGS AND VOCATIONAL DAYS
"This is how the Lord gave to me, brother Francis, the grace to begin to make penance. During the time when I was still in sin, the sight of lepers was very disgusting to me. But the Lord Himself lead me to them; I took care of them with all my heart; and in return, what before had seemed so bitter, was transformed for me into sweetness for the mind and for the body. Then I waited for a while and said good-bye to the world".
(Testament of St Francis Vs. 1-3)
Going from the first sign of a call, to the time of a clear decision for life, it is necessary to take some months or more. During this period of time, the personal vocational meetings with the person responsible for vocations or in a group (with others who also, are interested in the Franciscan religious life) are important and necessary to help you see if your vocation is authentic and if you have the required qualities for this form of Franciscan and religious life.
In order to encourage and deepen the research in discerning, during this time, you will be also invited to experiment more closely, the inside of the Franciscan life through meetings with other Franciscan friars , visits to other Franciscan houses, participation in certain principal activities of one of our fraternities (through prayers, meals etc.)
When you feel more confident to make a step foward, the friar responsible for vocations will offer you the chance of making an official request to the Provincial Minister in the aim of your admission to the first step of initial formation in the Franciscan Order: The Postulancy.
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