I have been a novice for 63 years, and my novitiate is still continuing happily, full of new discoveries and wonders. But maybe, I should first explain what is a novitiate.

The novitiate in the religious life, is a period of time of formation when the person discerns her vocation while discovering the new life she has entered. She studies and experiences the different aspects of the religious life, makes acquaintance with the founders of the Order, its history, traditions and spirituality. At the same time, she lives the community life with her sisters and she is helped to come to know herself and to hear the call of God to conversion, in order to be able to live the ideal proposed by the founder/foundress.

 According to the Law of the Church, the novitiate for us lasts for 2 years, after which the sister is admitted to make her Profession of vows, that is her commitment to this religious life, first for some years, and finally forever by the Solemn Profession.

But in my case, though I made my Profession like other sisters, I remained a “novice”. I find that I never finished studying and discovering the many wonders of the Poor Clare life: the deep happiness of knowing and loving the Lord more and more, the freedom to become poor and simple, the joys – and struggles of fraternal life, the beauty of silence and contemplation of creation… and even more, I never finish to convert, to change, to move on,  to go forward (or to restart the journey if I had gone backward!).

Mother St Clare compares our life as a pilgrimage and she tells us: “go forward, quickly, joyfully, securely and prudently on the path of happiness…as pilgrims and strangers in this world…” a pilgrimage is never finished as long as we have not reached the Shrine where we are going: the Heavenly Jerusalem!