If you scroll through the 2008 PDF to page 80 you'll find this article: "Give us this day our daily blog."
Among Catholic bloggers, those interested in talking about Catholic religious life and vocations to religious life have put together a large number of interesting and creative blogs. Below are just a handful of blogs in this area that Catholic vocation ministers have recommended.The SisterBloggers ring is featured, as is bloggy friend Julie of A Nun's Life fame, as well as this humble corner of the blogosphere. I'd forgotten that my very own vocation director told me she'd recommended my blog to the folks at Vision when she met them at a conference last year.
My how things change! Just over 3 years ago I was handed a copy of Vision Magazine by my pastor after we'd had "the talk." Now I'm featured in one of the articles. Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor? Seriously though, Vision is a great tool for those who are thinking that maybe someday they might consider those thoughts that keep coming back about the possibility of a religious vocation.
Those folks at Vision tend to have great articles about religious life, vocations and discernment. It can be a tad overwhelming, being chock full of glossy advertisements for religious communities as well. Awhile back I recommended an exercise that I used to sort through the various ads for religious communities.
Finding Communities to Explore:I might add that in my case, this worked. The personal charism that I developed led me to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace. I visited their website, contacted the vocation director, and the rest as they say is history!
1. Order the Vision magazine if you don't already have one.
2. Get a highlighter and read through the descriptions of communities in the back. Pay no attention to what you know about them or where they are etc... Just pay attention to how they describe themselves. If something tugs at your heart, highlight away.
3. Then go back through. Write down on a piece of paper the key words from all the blurbs you highlighted. Put together, this will be your personal "charism."
4. Then spend some time in prayer and reflection.
5. Send for info from the communities you highlighted that continue to speak to you.
6. You and the Holy Spirit can take it from there.
Speaking of my groovy sisters, I've added a link in the Vocation Resources in the sidebar to our latest CSJP Vocation Newsletter!
2 comments:
I think it's wonderful that Vision has recognized the blogosphere as a place saturated with God's grace and a real place for promoting and nurturing vocations to the religious life.
Congratulations, our Sister trailblazers (or is that actually blogblazers :)
Peace!
I (and "I" is me, the managing editor of VISION) just want to thank Sr. Susan for her mention of the VISION Annual Religious Vocation Guide magazine and the VISION Vocation Network website. We do indeed have a new blog index that lists just a few of the numerous blogs related to religious life. The 2009 editions of the magazine and website are coming in August, and we will also be offering online an interactive digital edition of the magazine which will be a lot more handy than the PDFs.
In addition to all the other vocation discernment resources we have on the site, we also offer a Vocation Match feature, which takes discerners through a series of questions and matches their preferences with Catholic religious communities--think of it as eHarmony for discerners. It's been very popular and has been mentioned in TIME magazine and on the CBS Evening News.
Thanks to all for helping to move Catholic religious life into cyberspace.
--Joel
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