Discernment Retreats- What to Expect

This past week we welcomed four women discerning their monastic vocations.

Arriving from different parts of our city, state as well as the New England area each woman brought a prayer-filled and expectant heart to the contemplative experience of the Brooklyn Visitation.

A vocational discernment retreat always includes prayer as a priority, and the retreatant is invited to sit in the choir stalls with the Sisters, learning the unique chant tones of the American Visitation.

Her pew for Holy Mass is hers alone for the entire retreat and her place of meditation, if so desired. The spacious grounds outdoors also feed the soul with “Brooklyn beauty” and many a retreatant will spend several hours listening to God in contemplative quiet there, punctuated on occasion by car horns and the gleeful sounds of our young pupils at recess after lunch.

The discernment is a shared journey and several conferences with the Formation Directress will be part of the days at Visitation.

Light work, such as in the refectory or sacristy gives the general sense of monastic labor and an opportunity to work alongside a novice or Professed Sister. A classroom visit is also a possibility if the retreatant has the desire to see how the Sisters lead the children in their faith lives and instruct them in religion.

As opportunity warrants, the vocational discerner may also be welcomed to a novitiate class with the Sisters in formation.

Vocational retreatants are also invited to recreation and can participate in the board games or watch the Sisters do handcrafts- of course if they bring some along retreatants can do that as well.

At the end of the discernment retreat the Superior may offer a conference and then all of us continue in prayer as we ask for grace and light to know God’s Will for the retreatant’s future path, and possible return!