Aspirancy: 1-2 years

    If you feel called to start discerning the call to Carmel more seriously, you may request to fill a preliminary questionnaire. If the community discerns that you may have a genuine vocation to Carmel, we may decide to accept you as an Aspirant. This begins a series of contacts with the community and you will be given opportunities to experience the Carmelite life with the community.


    Postulancy: 1-2 years

    As a Postulant you begin the initial formation program for Religious Life. During this year you grow in knowledge of self and love of your vocation. Your intention to become a Carmelite is given time to mature.


    Novitiate: 2 years

    When you become a novice, you receive the Carmelite habit, with the white veil and your religious name, to symbolically acknowledge that you have put on a new life and become a religious. Over the next two years as a novice, you will continue under the direct care and supervision of the Novice Mistress. Along with the other Sisters in formation, you will receive daily instruction on our life and spirituality, and share in all the daily activities of the monastery with the Professed Nuns.



    Temporary Vows: 3-5 years

    With the approval of the community, after two years as a novice, you have the privilege of making public profession of temporary vows, for one year at a time. The call of Jesus is has become clear, “Come follow Me”. The vows unite you to Jesus as His bride.

    Poverty is to surrender all we have to Jesus and to possess nothing of our own so that all our riches are in Him. Chastity is to surrender our whole being, body and soul to Jesus our Bridegroom, in order to love Him with an undivided heart. Obedience that is to surrender our whole will to Jesus, seeking to do always that which pleases His Father, and become a living sacrifice of praise.


    Solemn Vows: Forever

    After the period of Temporary Vows, you will bind yourself to the service of God in Carmel by public Solemn Vows. At this time, you will receive the black veil and become a Chapter Nun, involved in all aspects of the community life of Carmel. “I will allure her into the desert, and there speak to her heart”, God said to Hosea the Prophet so many years ago. He continues to call today, to Carmel, to this life of love.

    The minimum period for formation is nine years