I'm facilitating a panel on women religious this coming week and I'm trying to come up with some questions for the Q & A part in case no one else has any....only, I can't remember the questions I had for religious when I was first discerning. Do any of you remember things you wanted to know??

Thanks for your help!

How does living in community differ for sisters after initial formation? What sizes are local communities? Do local communties follow a schedule together?

This was a critical question for me when first contacting active communities as I want to live a family style religious life.

1. Do you wear a relgious habit/veil? Is it uniform, or is that decision left up to the individual sister?
2. If it is an active community and/or if there are more than one foundation attached to the community, what is community life/horarium like in those communities, and how is it decided who goes where? (The second part of this question was something that concerned me, back in the early 90s, when I was discerning with some international communities.)
3. Especially for the more active communities but it has relevance for every community: What do you do each month/year to rejuvenate? Some communities have a hermit day or silent day of prayer, and a weeklong retreat. I was wondering what that meant to each place I discerned with, individually.
4. Of course, there's the basics: what is the cut off age (as I'm now in my mid 30s, this can be an issue), what is the formation/application process?
5. What are the regulations for letter writing (ie: to and from friends, family), visiting and/or receiving visits? This used to be a big issue with me, but not so much now.
6. Now, especially after my experience with the PCPA, I'd have to include, wanting to know more about the diet of the sisters.
7. Are those in the novitiate kept separate from the professed? (Some communities do that, with only limited interaction with the professed, and while I see the merit in doing so, it can often skew one's perspective regarding the community as a whole.)
8. Do you have anyone in formation now?
9. Is your community a fully recognized religious congregation (necessary only if they aren't well established, or still quite small.)? And would you consider your community to be fully obedient to Rome and the Magesterium of the Church?
10. If it's an active community, what are the various apostolates? Do you see yourselves branching out to do anything different in the near future? (That was a question I had for S.V. because when I discerned, they were so new, they had no apostolate yet, to speak of. LOL) If it's a contemplative community, what work do you do to support yourselves?

These are only a few that have either been a question of mine in the past, or of someone I know who's discerned, or perhaps even a question I might have now. Some of these questions, if answered one way or the other, would sway me to look elsewhere, but some are asked for only curiosity's sake. You know?

Anyway, hope that helps. God bless.

Thanks for y'all's help!

If people are in the very beginning stages:
what are the symbols in your habit (why do you wear a particular color, style, etc)
-what (if any outside of prayer) are your apostalates?
-Daily schedule
-how they came to discern (other than the Holy Spirit) and how and why they chose their particular order (for a lot of young women, they are interested, but they have a long way to go before they have a little more understanding of a vocation and what it means to be called)
-what are some ways they recommend deepening the vocation (works to read, retreats to go on, having a confessor, how to learn prayer)
-about their charism and what makes them different from other orders

Hope this helps. Good luck in your panel!
in Jesus and Mary,
Lauren