The institute is dedicated to preparing its members for mission through a process of formation. The formation process accompanies us towards a total gift of ourselves to God at the service of the mission of the Church.
It implies a progressive assumption of the real spirit of our founders Importance of formation and the early “Piccola adunanza” (small gathering): “Here, there is nothing else to think about except to please God and to make our hearts as living temples of the Holy Spirit” _ Fr. Joseph Anthony Marcheselli -
The formation process begins with vocational accompaniment, continues in the stages of initial formation (postulancy, novitiate and juniorate), and continues in on-going formation.
The postulancy stage takes two years and its focus is on offering the candidate the possibility of seeing our daily reality, our life as Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Assisi; that is, our identity, our manner of fraternal life and our mission.
St. Francis Province has two postulant houses one in Nairobi, Kenya and the other in Mpongwe Zambia.
After postulancy one is admitted into the institute and thus begins the Novitiate stage. This stage of formation aims to enable the young woman to know and experience the following of Christ, chaste, poor and obedient, according to the spirit, the form of life and the mission of the Institute. The novice comes to know her vocation more and the institute verifies her intentions. The novitiate has a duration of two years.
At the expiration of the two years the novice requests to make temporal profession and if the institute sees her fit she is allowed to profess and enters a stage called the juniorate.
The Juniorate is a period of temporary profession during which the junior sister continues her formation so that she may live more fully her life of consecration in the Institute and more suitably carry out its mission. Acquiring a more profound human and spiritual maturity and sense of belonging to the Institute, she prepares herself to choose definitively religious life with full knowledge, freedom and responsibility, rejoicing in the gift received.
After three five years she may request to make perpetual profession and become a permanent member of the institute. However, this does not mark the end of formation. Formation is ongoing.
