Academic literature on the topic 'Vocation (in religious orders, congregations'

One purpose of canonization, particularly for founders of religious orders, is to present a paradigm for emulation. The legacy of Charles de Foucauld (1858—1916), a Catholic hermit who lived and died in French Algeria as a witness for Christianity to Islam, has been in some dispute. There are nineteen different congregations and associations in the Foucauldian spiritual family, only one of which came to fruition during his lifetime. His beatification in 2005 has sparked a debate about the nature of his vocation, and consequently about which of his characteristics should be emulated. This raises the question of whether he was a monk or a missionary. Careful consideration of his life is an essential prerequisite for answering these questions.

When convents were re-established in mid-nineteenrh-cenrury England, after a break of over two hundred years, they mirrored the developments in religious life pioneered on the Continent during the Catholic reformation and in response to the French Revolution. By 1850 new forms of active and apostolic vocation co-existed with the traditional enclosed and contemplative vocation. Yet even the most traditional convent was novel in early nineteenth-century England, and it is only with benefit of hindsight that we assume the willing response of Irish and English women to the call of a religious vocation. The reestablished Church might promote the virtue of vocation, particularly to the new apostolic congregations which were so useful to hard-pressed priests. But it was not inevitable that the religious life would take root in a culture deeply suspicious of conventual ‘secretiveness’ and, moreover, at a time when the ideology of hearth and home had such vitality. In the event, the active congregations multiplied rapidly and attracted women of all classes. As a result, by the end of the century the Roman Catholic Church in England had found employment for thousands of women as full-time, professional church workers. More than one-third and perhaps as many as half of these women were from working-class families, and it is with the working-class members that this paper is concerned.

The Second Vatican Council influenced on the apostolate of most of the religious orders and congregations devoted to education. The need to adequate themselves to the new educational statements that were promoted through the Council Documents will bring about significant changes in their pedagogical premises. The aim of this article is to show how this process was managed by two well-known religious congregations in the Basque Country: De La Salle Brothers and the Vedruna Sisters. To analyse this case, we have used primary sources from the archives of both congregations where the process of accommodation to Vatican II is brought to light. In conclusion, it can be highlighted that an internal renovation happened according to the religious premises, and some pedagogical renewal aspects took place concerning the importance of the Basque language and culture, teacher training, and the option for the poor.

Ambiguities and uncertainties about defining bivocational ministry are an opportunity for theological reflection and religious education. This article begins by acknowledging a context of anxiety about congregational vitality in North American mainline denominations and utilizes Boyung Lee’s communal approach to religious education to facilitate imagining new ways of being church for white-majority congregations, which seem to have difficulty coming to terms with bivocational ministry. The central sections of this article proceed descriptively, exploring the breadth of definitions of bivocational ministry and related terms, organized around several loci: vocation and ministry; jobs and finances; and commitment. Constructively, this article conceives of intentional bivocational ministry as the congregation’s curriculum, a practice of the entire faith community. This article concludes with a call for religious educators to assist in this endeavor.

“The religious question” regarding the role of the Catholic Church in Spanish society shaped the often contentious relationship between the Church and state. This relationship entered a new chapter with the coming of the Second Republic and the passage of the 1931 constitution. Among the legislation aimed at implementing the articles of the constitution was the 1933 Law of Confessions and Congregations that outlawed schools run by religious orders. Despite this law, most religious schools remained open. Using three schools of the Sisters of the Company of Mary in the cities of Tudela, Valladolid, and Tarragona, this article shows how orders adapted under the new government. One of the Church's primary tactics was to establish front organizations directed by the laity that permitted the religious orders to circumvent the law in order to maintain their schools.

The Enlightenment ideology and the French Revolution had a very negative impact on the activities of religious congregations in respect of nursing care of the sick in hospitals in the 18th century. Emperor Napoleon I attempted to improve the existing situation by restoring the right for nursing care to nuns. In the first half of the 19th century, in Germany catholic religious orders had the obligation to provide nursing care and in the 30’s of the 19th century the Evangelical Church also joined charity work in hospitals by employing laywomen, i.e. deaconesses.

Actuality of theme. At the end of the XX century, the religious life of Ukraine has undergone significant transformations. With the collapse of the totalitarian regime and the gaining of independence by Ukraine, religious communities were in a new socio-political and socio-cultural environment for themselves. There was a significant increase in the role of religious institutions in the development of civil society.

The bankruptcy in 1756 of the major French creditors of Antoine Lavalette, superior of the Jesuit missions of Martinique, resulted in the ‘Lavalette affair’ of 1756–62. During that period, Lavalette borrowed feverishly in an attempt to save his commercial enterprises in the Caribbean, his religious superiors sought to deal with his betrayal of his religious vocation and his mounting debts, and the Jesuits’ enemies gained court orders for the seizure of Jesuit property and the dispersal of the Jesuits. The Society of Jesus was then suppressed in most French territory by royal edict in 1764.

At a time when European missionaries were active in the New World to capture the souls of the ‘heathen’ for Catholicism, their confrères were conducting missions throughout Europe itself. For more than two centuries these missions – variously known as internal, parish or popular – were a crucial aspect of religious life, with numerous religious orders and congregations seeking to weave a fabric of evangelisation and catechetical instruction in areas of Europe that were nominally Catholic but were in many ways cut off from orthodox Tridentine Catholicism. This was particularly so in isolated areas on the European periphery. Southern Italy is a case in point. The persistent absence of an efficient parish structure and the dominance of a rather worldly collegiate clergy in the Kingdom of Naples left a large gap in organised religious life in the years following the end of the Council of Trent (1563), a gap that the missions attempted to fill. The mobilisation of preachers, confessors and instructors was vast, concentrated and unceasing. Such is the significance of the missions that they have been identified as the ‘most characteristic and important’ phenomenon of Italian religious history in the seventeenth century. One way to examine their scale and impact would be to map the areas missionised by the various congregations. But this serial approach would tell us very little, other than the fact that all of the towns and villages were visited, most of them repeatedly, over the centuries. Moreover, the varying quality of the surviving records would permit only partial results.

Les trois diocèses lorrains Metz, Toul et Verdun, ont vu durant l’époque moderne, une très forte implantation d’ordres religieux. Cette force monastique de la Lorraine, héritée du Moyen-Age et de la protection de la famille ducale, concerne toutes les grandes familles religieuses européennes et a permis l’émergence de réformes (comme celle des bénédictins de Saint-Vanne par exemple) ou encore la création de congrégations qui ont perduré bien au-delà de la Révolution. Il nous a semblé intéressant d’étudier cette permanence monastique lorraine sous l’angle du novice et du noviciat afin de chercher à comprendre s’il existe une spécificité propre à ces territoires. Grâce à une richesse archivistique impressionnante, une base de données de plus de 13 000 novices, tant hommes que femmes, a été établie pour l’ensemble des ordres religieux où sont prononcés des voeux de religion et implantés dans les diocèses lorrains. Ces données ont permis d’ouvrir la réflexion sur la naissance de la vocation, sur les procédures d’admission au sein des réguliers, les rythmes de recrutement et plus globalement, la formation des novices.Ainsi, notre étude se développe sur cinq thèmes suivant à la fois la chronologie du noviciat et ses grandes thématiques. La première porte sur l’apparition de la vocation et les contextes qui permettent ou non son épanouissement. Les impacts familiaux sont très opposés. La famille est, à la fois facteur d’encouragement pouvant aller jusqu’à la vocation forcée dans des contextes précis, et facteur d’opposition, poussant les candidats à chercher des parades pour suivre leur projet de vie. Outre la famille, d’autres acteurs interviennent comme des religieux, des livres ou des événements marquants. Le second thème développe la question de la postulation avec le choix de l’ordre religieux, la sélection des candidats et les premiers enseignements, postulation qui aboutit à la cérémonie de la prise d’habit avec sa symbolique. Le troisième thème est axé sur l’influence de l’argent avec deux problématiques. La première porte sur le coût du noviciat (pension, achats des vêtements, des accessoires nécessaires à l’engagement…) et la seconde sur le profil socio-économique des candidats lorrains avec les différences rencontrées d’un ordre à l’ordre, d’un sexe à l’autre. La quatrième réflexion interroge la géographie des noviciats et les profils du recrutement selon les ordres religieux et les siècles. Enfin, le dernier thème est entièrement consacré à la formation des novices avec leur place au sein de l’institution monastique, les apprentissages selon les sexes et les ordres, les maîtres et maîtresses des novices et les problèmes rencontrés par les novices jusqu’à la cérémonie de la profession qui transforme le novice en religieux.Cette recherche a permis d’établir, entre autres conclusions, que le novice est un personnage continuellement confronté à des choix (entrer ou non en religion, choix de l’ordre, partir ou rester…) marqué par des influences contradictoires de la famille, de l’ordre… C’est un personnage complexe et riche car il permet de comprendre les mécanismes qui régissent le choix volontaire ou non d’une vie consacrée à Dieu. Cette thèse a permis de cerner un profil de recrutement marqué par un XVIe siècle chaotique suivi d’une remontée spectaculaire qui est brutalement interrompue par la guerre de Trente Ans entre 1630 et 1650, avant une lente remontée jusqu’au premier tiers du XVIIIe siècle, suivi d’une stabilisation avant une relative décrue après 1770. Nous avons aussi dégagé une tendance à un recrutement centré sur la Lorraine, révélant un attachement très fort à une nation, pour la plupart des ordres. Les novices en Lorraine sont donc avant tout des lorrains confrontés, dès leur jeunesse, à une présence monastique dense, avec des religieux très impliqués dans l’éducation et dans des réseaux familiaux favorisant le renouvellement des recrues
During the modern era, the three Lorraine dioceses Metz, Toul and Verdun saw a very strong establishment of religious orders. This monastic force of Lorraine, inherited from the Middle Ages and the protection of the ducal family, concerns all the major European religious families and has enabled the emergence of reforms (such as that of the Benedictines of Saint-Vanne for example) or the creation of congregations that lasted well beyond the Revolution. We thought it was interesting to study this Monastic permanence of Lorraine from the perspective of novice and novitiate in order to try to understand if there is a specificity specific to these territories. Thanks to an impressive archival wealth, a database of more than 13,000 novices, both men and women, has been established for all religious orders where vows of religion are pronounced and established in the Lorraine dioceses. These data have opened the way to reflect on the birth of vocation, on the procedures for admission within the regulars, the recruitment rates and, more generally, the training of novices. So, our study develops on five themes following both the chronology of the novitiate and its major themes. The first is about the appearance of vocation and the contexts that allow it to flourish or not. Family impacts are very opposite. It is both an incentive factor that can go as far as forced vocation in specific contexts, and a factor of opposition, prompting candidates to seek parades to follow their life plan. In addition to the family, other actors are involved such as religious, books or significant events. The second theme develops the question of postulation with the choice of the religious order, the selection of candidates and the first teachings, a postulation that culminates in the ceremony of taking clothes with its symbolism. The third theme focuses on the influence of money with two issues. The first relates to the cost of the novitiate (pension, purchases of clothes, accessories necessary for engagement...) and the second on the socio-economic profile of the Lorraine candidates with the differences encountered from one order to order, from one sex to another. The fourth reflection questions the geography of the novitiate and the profiles of recruitment according to religious orders and centuries. Finally, the last is entirely devoted to the training of novices with their place within the monastic institution, learning according to gender and orders, the masters and mistresses of novices and the problems faced by novices until the ceremony of the profession that transforms the novice into a religious.This research has established, among other conclusions, that the novice is a character continually confronted with choices (enter or not in religion, choice of order, leave or stay ...) marked by contradictory influences of the family, of the order ... He is a complex and rich character because he allows us to understand the mechanisms that govern the voluntary or voluntary choice of a life devoted to God. This thesis helped to identify a recruitment profile marked by a chaotic 16th century followed by a spectacular upturn that was abruptly interrupted by the Thirty Years' Warbetween 1630 and 1650, before a slow ascent to the first third of the 18th century. century, followed by stabilization before a relative decline after 1770. We have also identified a trend towards Lorraine-centred recruitment, revealing a strong attachment to a nation, for most orders.Novices in Lorraine are therefore above all Lorraines faced, from their youth, with a dense monastic presence, with religious very involved in education and in family networks promoting the renewal of recruits

Au XIXe siècle, les sœurs hospitalières sont au cœur du système de soin parisien. L’identité et les activités sociales de ces femmes qui partagent un engagement religieux et un apostolat soignant auprès des pauvres de la capitale sont analysées dans cette thèse. La vocation, fruit d’un choix entre les jeunes femmes et l’institution, est une voie d’émancipation dans l’espace public et le monde du travail, mais qui leur permet aussi de s’affirmer comme individu en sapant l’autorité paternelle et en légitimant l’expression d’un désir. Chevilles ouvrières du système de santé publique et figures de la charité privée, les sœurs en accompagnent la croissance. Le soin aux pauvres et leur dévouement justifient la reconnaissance de leur utilité sociale devant l’urgence d’une société confrontée à une pauvreté massive et aux effets contrastés du processus de déchristianisation. Paradoxalement, la laïcisation conforterait leur présence dans le dispositif charitable et soignant de la capitale. Les sœurs se forment à certaines exigences médicales et cherchent à maintenir un « écart chrétien » dans le monde. Le soin des sœurs participe ainsi à la médicalisation de la société mais reste une stratégie de reconquête religieuse. Leur apostolat révèlerait que la demande sociale de santé et de religion reposerait sur un souci de soi et un besoin plus vaste d’attention. Mais ce « souci de soi » est aussi, pour les sœurs, une voie fonctionnelle et harmonieuse de réconcilier les volets religieux et profane de leur mission. Dès lors, les sœurs peuvent s’adapter à la modernité en articulant les préoccupations du siècle avec une exigence spirituelle
In the nineteenth century, sisters of charity were at the core of the Parisian health system. This thesis analyses the identity and the social activities of these women who shared a religious commitment and a caring apostolate towards the poor of Paris. Vocation, which resulted from a choice by young women and the religious institution, was a way for these women to find a place in public space and in the workplace. It enabled them to assert themselves as individuals, undermining paternal authority and legitimating the expression of a desire. Cornerstones of the public health system and figures of charity, the nuns accompanied the growth of both. Their care of the poor and their devotion justified their claim to be recognised as socially useful in a context where French society was confronted by the new problem of widespread poverty and by the countervailing effects of dechristianization. Paradoxically, republican secularization would confirm their presence in the capital’s caring and charitable system. The sisters undertook training to new medical standards at the same times as they tried to maintain a ‘Christian singularity’ in the world. The care that the sisters provided played a role in the medicalization of society but nonetheless remained part of a strategy of religious reconquest. Their apostolate would reveal that society’s health and religious needs rested on a ‘care of the self’ and a need for attention. This ’care of the self’ was also a way for the nuns to reconcile the lay and religious aspects of their mission. Thus, sisters of charity could adapt themselves to modernity by articulating worldly preoccupations with a spiritual imperative

This ethnographic case study explored the vocation discernment process for Latina women who have entered a religious order. The researcher spent three months participating in and observing the daily lives of religious sisters and conducted interviews. The eight religious sisters interviewed for the study were predominately of Mexican and Central America descent. Similar to Lester’s (2005) findings, sisters describe persistent feelings of inquietud before entering the religious life, and sought fulfillment through religious means. Participants often feel joy and admiration when they met a religious sister for the first time. Participants recount a religious or sensory experience which provided clarity to her decision. The participants indicate a sense of urgency to enter the religious life as soon as possible. The results are compared with other studies on religious life and vocation discernment through a sociological and psychosocial perspective.
Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Text in Afrikaans
In this dissertation, different aspects of aChurch leadership" are examined from a Pentecostal perspective. The framework is composed of literature compiled over the past twenty years. Especially the relationship between Church Leadership and the working of the Holy Spirit comes under the searchlight. The Theological theory underlying the Church Leadership exponents as well that of the Pentecostal movement are developed and critically evaluated. The Pentecostal ideal is that church leadership will function as leadership within a church context under the guidance and "working of the Holy Spirit The Pentecostal movement emphasises that the working of the Holy Spirit is the criticalfactor determining the effectiveness of the church. In the literature en Church leadership, the main focus is placed on the key role of church leadership with specific reference to the functional aspects and skills that church leaders need to be effective. The implication of both the aforementioned points are discussed and compared as well as the possible implications for both are indicated. Systematic theological issues concerning the role of persons in specific offices in different church traditions are avoided. It is stated that in the literature on Church Leadership more emphasis should be placed in the Working of the Holy Spirit as the critical factor in church leadership. It is clear that there is not enough emphasis on the working of the Holy Spirit if taken into account the importance thereof for the church as a whole. An approach to church leadership as "spiritual leadership" could assist in future research on this matter. In chapter one the framework of this study is explained. Chapter two reflects on the development of the Pentecostal perspective and chapter three on the Church leadership perspective. The different topics, similarities, critical reflections, evaluations and recommendations are presented in the last chapter.
In hierdie proefskrif word daar vanuit 'n Pinksterperspektief 'n ondersoek gedoen na kerkleierskap. Die raamwerk is literatuur wat in die afgelope twintig jaar oor hierdie onderwerp na vore gekom het. Veral die verband wat aangebied word tussen kerkleierskap en die werking van die Heilige Gees, kom onder die soeklig. Die teologiese teoriee onderliggend aan die standpunte van die kerkleierskap-eksponente sowel as die van die Pinksterbeweging word ontwikkel en krities beoordeel. Die Pinksterideaal is dat kerkleierskap gekenmerk sal word as leierskap wat funksioneer onder die Ieiding en werking van die Heilige Gees. Die Pinksterbeweging beklemtoon dat die werking van die Heilige Gees die deurslaggewende faktor is vir die effektiewe werking en ontwikkeling van die kerk. In die literatuur oor kerkleierskap word daarenteen hoofsaaklik klem geplaas op die sleutelrol van kerkleierskap met spesifieke verwysing na die funksionele aspekte en vaardighede wat kerkleiers benodig met die oog op die uitbouing van die kerk. Die implikasies van beide beklemtoninge word ontwikkel en met mekaar vergelyk en moontlike implikasies vir beide word aangetoon. Sistematies-teologiese vraagstukke rakende die rot van persona in bepaalde ampte in verskillende kerklike tradisies word vermy. Dit word beredeneer dat daar in die literatuur oar die onderhawige onderwerp meer klem geplaas behoort te word op die werking van die Heilige Gees as die deurslaggewende faktor vir suksesvolle kerkleierskap. Dit is duidelik dat daar nie genoegsaam gefokus word op die werking van die Heilige Gees nie ten spyte van die belangrikheid daarvan vir die kerklike praktyk in geheel. Die moontlikheid om kerkleierskap eerder te omskryf en te benader as "geestelike leierskap” bied moontlikhede ten opsigte van toekomstige navorsing op die gebied. In hoofstuk een worrd die raamwerk waarbinne die studie ontwikkel uiteengesit. Hoofstuk twee bied die basis waarbinne die Pinksterstandpunt ontwikkel het terwyl hoofstuk drie die onderwerp vanuit 'n kerkleierskapsperspektief benader. Klemverskille, ooreenkomste, kritiese besprekings, evaluering en aanbevelings word in die laaste hoofstuk aangebied.
Practical Theology
D.Th. (Practical Theology)

The chapter examines efforts the Trinitarians of Provence made to reverse a long decline and to adapt their medieval order to reflect the new spiritual climate of the Catholic Reformation. The reform was made by ordinary members despite opposition from their superior general in Paris, who envisioned reform only as a return to the order’s original rule. Founded to ransom Christian slaves in the Mediterranean, the order had fallen away from its rule and experienced declining vocations and impoverishment in the Wars of Religion. The chapter argues that the Provençal monks took their model of religious life from the reformed congregations of Capuchins and Recollects and not from a desire to return to some imagined primitive purity. They wanted to govern their houses in a more collaborative way, to better educate their priests, and to create a more spiritualized community with the interiorized personal piety that characterized the Catholic Reformation.

The conclusion argues that France’s Catholic Reformation benefitted from reform efforts initiated in Italy and Spain but was most profoundly shaped by France’s experience of religious war. The movement’s origins lay in the perceived need both to fight the spread of Protestant ideas and to raise standards of clerical behavior. Summarizing the diverse ways in which religious communities responded to the challenges of heresy and civil war, the conclusion further argues that the old religious orders, which had suffered greatly in the conflicts, found themselves at a serious disadvantage when wealthy elites shifted their patronage at the wars’ end to the new reformed congregations, whose penitential fervor and rigorous asceticism had captured their imagination. The new congregations grew at a rapid pace, while the old orders struggled to overcome wartime debts and destruction, fought to determine what reforms to enact, and pressured recalcitrant members to accept their programs for change.

This chapter studies musical life in convents and monasteries during the colonial period. Among other aspects, it shows how music represented for the nuns both a tool for entering the convent and an authentic vocation. It explores the musical links between monastic institutions, and between them and the cathedral, explaining how these frequent contacts facilitated the circulation of musicians and sacred music throughout the city. It also studies the prevailing instruments, repertoires, and musical genres, including music performed by drummers and trumpeters during the main fiestas. Finally, it also analyzes some pieces preserved in the cathedral, but linkable to religious orders, such as three lessons for the Dead by the Franciscan Cristóbal de Ajuria, some villancicos composed for the profession of nuns, and a villancico entitled “Qué hará Perote pasmado,” possibly composed for a monastery in the early 19th century. All of this contributes to situating monastic music in Santiago’s soundscape.