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That's All, Folks! Or So I Thought...


marigold

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:o)Katherine:o)

Marigold, it is so good to hear from you! How exciting! :dance5:  Continued prayers as you venture on to this part of your discernment journey!

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Thank you, lovely people :)  @Luigi, I get around that by saying 'baby novice' to distinguish from more growed-up ones. Gross? Yes. Practical? Very!

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@vee you're a novice for around three years, depending on what the person needs. After that, you are tonsured (a teensy bit of hair is cut from 4 points on your head to form a cross) and you receive a black robe to wear in church on top of your habit. It's understood as a commitment to monastic life, though you don't make any vows. Then several years down the line, when you, your abbess and your confessor believe you are ready to make the leap with no turning back, you make vows, are tonsured again and receive the rest of the habit (usually mantle, outer head covering, and schema, a garment which looks kind of like a scapular and signifies death and resurrection in Christ).

Thats the readers digest version, anyway :hehe: 

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@vee you're a novice for around three years, depending on what the person needs. After that, you are tonsured (a teensy bit of hair is cut from 4 points on your head to form a cross) and you receive a black robe to wear in church on top of your habit. It's understood as a commitment to monastic life, though you don't make any vows. Then several years down the line, when you, your abbess and your confessor believe you are ready to make the leap with no turning back, you make vows, are tonsured again and receive the rest of the habit (usually mantle, outer head covering, and schema, a garment which looks kind of like a scapular and signifies death and resurrection in Christ).

Thats the readers digest version, anyway :hehe: 

Interesting, thanks for sharing.   Prayers as you continue on the journey.

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Is it possible for someone to never make vow ? 

It's possible, but not common at all. I believe that people have sometimes stayed novices their whole lives out of humility, but in such cases it might have been seen a little bit like a charismatic gift, or a 'vocation within a vocation'... And we are so worldly and spiritually poor these days in comparison anyway, that something like that is probably beyond most of us. We just want the long robes and the greetings in the marketplace... Sigh. :idontknow:

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It's possible, but not common at all. I believe that people have sometimes stayed novices their whole lives out of humility, but in such cases it might have been seen a little bit like a charismatic gift, or a 'vocation within a vocation'... And we are so worldly and spiritually poor these days in comparison anyway, that something like that is probably beyond most of us. We just want the long robes and the greetings in the marketplace...

Sigh. :idontknow:

 

I know nothing of Orthodox monasticism so this is new to me, please forgive my ignorance.  You are right about humility, it is all to easy to think of the stages as something to get through. We can learn much from this attitude.

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Interesting, thanks for sharing.   Prayers as you continue on the journey.

PS and yes, we do get chocolate! I don't know that we'd get through certain times without it ;)

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Very exciting news!

I was reading this description of Byzantine life vows and I'm wondering how different/similar it is from Orthodox life vows. http://www.christthebridegroom.org/

Liturgically, yes, it's the same service. The wedding rings are their own thing though. The emphasis is slightly different because liturgically and 'monastically' they are like the Orthodox, but they had to conform certain things to current Roman Catholic norms. For example, for us, a novice or dokimos is from the time you're accepted into the sisterhood until the time you are tonsured a rasophore (robe-bearer, which I mentioned briefly above). The Bridegroomers realised that they were required by the Catholic Church to have a 'canonical year' of novitiate, so they changed the emphasis so that the 'dokimos' period is more like an extended postulancy. Thus the tonsure to the raso becomes the point at which they do their canonical year, hence the mention in the post about Srs. Emilia and Iliana that they would be having limited contact with the outside world for the next year. It's kind of like Catholicised Orthodoxy, and I say that with the greatest fondness for this community.

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Dear marigold,

just quickly checking in to tell you that I am really happy to read your news! It is good to hear that you seem to have had a good start and that you are a dokimos now. All the best to you sorting out the practical things!

My prayers for this new start!

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Dear marigold,

just quickly checking in to tell you that I am really happy to read your news! It is good to hear that you seem to have had a good start and that you are a dokimos now. All the best to you sorting out the practical things!

My prayers for this new start!

Merci, ma soeur!

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Truth is stranger than fiction. I literally have to change my legal name in order to get my documents all matched up...

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