Classes are winding down here in the postulancy. Last week we had our last communication class with Sr. Carmen, and on Tuesday we had our final Basic Catholic Doctrine class with Fr. Lockwood. Next week we'll finish our Scripture class with Fr. Soto, and then classes will be done for the semester! Also this week, we had Mr. and Mrs. Shaughnessy over for supper -- they are our St. Paul Man and Woman of the Year honorees for our 2008 Benefit Dinner. They are a beautiful couple and it was wonderful to hear their stories.
We wanted to introduce you to our formator, Sr. Carmen Christi. Sr. Carmen entered the Daughters of St. Paul in 1984 and has been the postulant formator since 2002. Before that, she was the national vocation director, and before that, she was assigned in our bookcenters in Los Angeles and San Diego, among other places.
The role of the formator is to guide the postulants in their discernment of God's call, and also to introduce the postulants to community life, the Pauline prayer life, and Pauline mission and apostolate. Sr. Carmen fulfills this role in many ways! She has taught us many classes over this year on Pauline spirituality, discernment, communication, and other topics. She also organizes and schedules our classes with our other teachers. She accompanies us in our experiences of the apostolate in the bookcenter, on book exhibits, on the radio, our Faith and Film Nights, and on many other adventures!
Sr. Carmen guides our weekly community meetings and helps us learn how to live in community with one another and with the sisters. She is also our spiritual director, so we each meet one-on-one with her every other week. In addition to these more formal roles, Sr. Carmen helps us with a host of other things. She is creative, a talented guitarist, and she loves our co-foundress Mother Thecla Merlo. If you're interested, her vocation story is online: http://www.daughtersofstpaul.com/daughters/vocations/meetsisters/meetsr_carmen.html.
Thank you, Sr. Carmen, for all that you do for us!
Muchas gracias, Hma. Carmen, por todos que tu haces por nosotras!
Grazie tante, Sr. Carmen, per tutti che tu fate per noi!
As Sr. Carmen always says, "Avanti!" Ever onward! God bless you all!
- Emily
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