Nuns Of The Visitation

[InPersonaChriste]

My brother in law wants to scare me away from religious life and while I am here in South America he came with me to meet some cloistered nuns in the Visitation convent. There was an exceptional language barrier but mostly we spoke English and some broken Spanish. I would like to hear a little bit more about this order and their constitutions in English. Oh and maybe a link to Saint Francis de Sales their holy fathers writings.

In Persona Christe

Yoda

[Lisa]

This is what I pulled up from searching. I don't personally know anything about this order, but these webpages provided some history and vocation info:

[url="http://www.vistyr.org/index.html"]http://www.vistyr.org/index.html[/url]

[url="http://brooklynvisitationmonastery.org/"]http://brooklynvisitationmonastery.org/[/url]

[url="http://www.visitationmonasterymobile.org/default.htm"]http://www.visitationmonasterymobile.org/default.htm
[/url]



Pretty cool video: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRSN9KyPWsg"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRSN9KyPWsg[/url]

[Piccoli Fiori JMJ]

+JMJ

Now there are two federations of the Visitation Order. The 1st Federation is contemplative and the 2nd Federation are contemplative, although supporting themselves through a school they run. There are actually some Visitation Nuns from the UK that were posting on here not that long ago. Perhaps they are still around and will be able to answer some more of your questions (although with it being Lent, they may not be online right now). They are a beautiful order though!

I think this video is great (oops! Lisa posted these in her post as well, sorry for the duplicate!):

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRSN9KyPWsg[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T46OjI8_3YM&feature=related[/media]

Edited April 12, 2011 by Piccoli Fiori JMJ

[Chiara Francesco]

TheVisitation order has 2 Federations - one is the active side where they teach and have academies/schools for girls and the others are cloistered and give retreats/live-ins for girls/women discerning religious - some only take 1 or 2 at a time and others like the Mobile Visitation hold bigger retreats for groups or several women discerners.

It's hard to capture the beauty of this order in a few posts.

St. Francis de Sales founded the Visitation Order with St. Jane de Chantal. Perhaps you can get bios on them or their writings at libraries or your parish or diocese libraries. Also another saint of the order, St. Margaret Mary. Also you can get these books pretty cheap at Amazon or bookfinder.com, etc.

Or to contact one of these monasteries for more information.

St. Francis de Sales' "Introduction to the Devout Life" online: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/desales/devout_life.htm

Toledo Visitation: http://www.toledovisitation.org/ - cloistered

Philly Visitation: http://www.visitationuns.org/ - cloistered

Rockville Visitation: http://www.sistersofthevisitation.org/ - cloistered

Waldron Visitation sisters in England: http://www.visitationmonastery.co.uk/index.html - [b]these sisters are members of PM - "visitationsister" so you can message them too - or they might post to this thread.[/b]

Video of the US and Canada Visitations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zme05GJVrq4&feature=player_embedded

In the US, any Visitation with the modified habit or no habit are the teaching orders.

[InPersonaChriste]

Thankyou for all the information. I met with the Mother Superior and Hermana Maria Francesa who spoke ingles. They were very beautiful and I am going to e-mail them. I did not accept their invitation to live in the cloister for a week as I came here for reasons unrelated to my vocation. I already feel so blessed to have met these beautiful nuns.

[Sarah147]

I visited the Visitation cloister in Massachusettes, if I can help any. I actually sat right where that first standing Sister is pictured on the first video posted. It was rather formal to me, but they are soooooo beautiful and contemplative. The convent was absolutely beautiful and the Sisters were so gentle and kind. They keep up most if not all of the traditions of the foundress from eons ago, so they are very traditional and solid in that way. It also feels very classic and formal in that way. They didn't dare change their habits, either.

Edited April 17, 2011 by JoyfulLife