Family Visits

[StAlphonsus]

I’m new to this forum, and have been discerning a vocation to religious life for about a year. One of the difficulties I have in considering religious life is that it seems the amount of communication with your family is greatly restricted. I know every commuity is different, but I was wondering if anyone is familiar with the general rules of family visits in active/contemplative orders? If a community is far away from your family, do you usually get less time to visit? And if a community is fairly close to your family, do you get to make shorter, more frequent visits? Thanks for any information.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

I’m new to this forum, and have been discerning a vocation to religious life for about a year. One of the difficulties I have in considering religious life is that it seems the amount of communication with your family is greatly restricted. I know every commuity is different, but I was wondering if anyone is familiar with the general rules of family visits in active/contemplative orders? If a community is far away from your family, do you usually get less time to visit? And if a community is fairly close to your family, do you get to make shorter, more frequent visits? Thanks for any information.

There really are no general rules for this. It all varies by religious community. In some cases it might vary down to the individual religious member.

 

[Guillaumus]

The Norbertines (praemonstratensians), and I believe the Dominicans too, are quite liberal on this matter.

 

[Trilor]

It really depends on the community. With ours, we can call family once a month for 30 minutes and we are allowed family visits every other year.

 

[Sister_Rose]

I think most established communties have things set us to make it as fair as possible for family visits between those whoes families are near and those who are far away.
For our community, we are allowed 2 weeks vacation per year. If our families live in North America we can use that time for a home visit. For those outside of that they may take a 1 month home visit every 3 years or 6 weeks every 5 years, if I remember right.
Those whose families are within driving distance often break their vacation/home visit up into a few shorter visits.
Family may also come for visits, although this doesn’t seem to happen as much.

Now that was for Professed Sisters. It is different for postulants, canonical novices and senior novices. Novices do not go for home visits. They have limited visits from family.

I think we are not atypical for apostolic religious sisters, but they are all a bit different.