Get to know

Interested women come into contact with sisters of our community in different ways. In recent years, it has mostly been through our website or through reports in the press and social media. A good possibility on the way of getting to know each other is the offer "temporary convent". Initially, one can live in a convent for a few days or a week, celebrate prayer times and the Eucharist, work in an area, experience times of silence and leisure time together. In the Convent of San Damiano in Olpe there is this possibility.

The first closer phase of the journey with us is the postulancy. It lasts at least one year and includes living and getting to know the daily life in prayer and activity.

The second step is admission to the novitiate. A novice lives "in formation" in the formation convent of San Damiano. She learns the theoretical-theological contents of religious life, deepens her personal prayer practice and that of the community, is accompanied by a novitiate director and collaborates at times in the apostolates of the community. The goal of the novitiate is to grow into religious life and to personally reflect on and examine whether she is suited to this life.

At the end of this period, the novice can take religious vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience for three years. She is then a full member of the community in the juniorate. After the first three years, she renews these vows and can then promise this bond with the Perpetual Vows for the entirety of her life. The visible symbol of this bond is a professed ring.

As an outward sign of our togetherness and our religious way of life as women religious, we wear a brown habit and a black veil.