02. Our Community

Begin exploring a life of deep commitments.

 

The Order of the Common Life is a global ecumenical religious order reimagining monastic vocations for whole Church: married and single, clergy and laity, in ordinary lives and local churches.

As of today, the Order consists of postulants and members across North America and Europe.

 
 
 

Learn about our leadership.

 
 

Find a common life with multiple expressions.

Our community consists of women and men leaning into our shared rhythms and commitments in different ways and different contexts.

 
 

Start your formation.

Whether you’re exploring a monastic vocation, planting an abbey or seeking contemplative community, our formation begins in the same place. It deepens as long as you experience an invitation to continue forward with us. And whenever you feel you’ve received enough, you can remain a part of our larger community.

 
 
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0.0 Pre-postulancy
0.0 Pre-postulancy

To be a postulant simply means to be one who “asks.” You start by asking what we’re about and whether you have an invitation to lean into a shared way of life with us.

Because postulancy cohorts typically launch each January, we ask inquirers year-round to begin by taking the following first steps.

0.1 Read Our Rule of Life
0.1 Read Our Rule of Life

Read about the rhythms and commitments in our rule of life online, and notice what resonates for you, what challenges you, and where there might invitations or resistance.

0.2 Sign up for Pre-postulancy
0.2 Sign up for Pre-postulancy

4+ weeks

Before being invited to join a postulancy cohort, we ask inquirers to spend time in a free self-paced course designed to practice the basic tools for fostering a deep spiritual life.

Read more ↓

In our pre-postulancy course, “A Contemplative Foundation,” you begin paying attention to your way of life and developing practices like noticing, prayer of examen, silence and the building blocks of discernment.

After you’ve spent time engaging with at least four weeks’ worth of our 12-lesson content, we’ll reach out around autumn each year to invite you to attend a postulancy interest meeting.

Features:

  • Weekly video content, invitations to “try on” particular practices, and reflection questions

  • 90-day preview of our membership platform for a window into our online community

Outcomes:

  • Awareness of your present rhythms, core values and patterns of (dis)engagement

  • Practices of daily examen, centering prayer and silence

  • An ability to recognize consolation and desolation in your daily life

  • An articulation of your “spiritual location” today

Begin now →

0.2 Meet With a Spiritual Director
0.2 Meet With a Spiritual Director

Ongoing

While you wait for a cohort to form, we strongly encourage you to connect with a spiritual director. Postulants meet with a spiritual director monthly, and it’s never too soon to start.

Read more ↓

The Order can connect you with a spiritual director, especially if you don’t already have one. Our spiritual directors have journeyed through postulancy and can help you discern what God might be inviting you to in this next season.

Find a spiritual director →

1.0 Postulancy
1.0 Postulancy

Postulancy is the first formal step in exploring our way of life. It begins with a Common Commitments cohort (running typically from January to June) and concludes by meeting with a formation guide.

Inquirers who have engaged with us through pre-postulancy may be invited to attend a postulancy interest meeting and apply in the late fall.

1.1 Postulancy Cohort
1.1 Postulancy Cohort

6 months

Postulancy cohorts gather intimate learning communities of eight to 12 people—online or in hybrid format—to explore and experience each of the “common commitments” in our rule of life.

Read more ↓

Cohorts meet biweekly for guided discussions after engaging weekly video content and reflective journaling assignments, all supported by one-on-one monthly spiritual direction meetings.

The designed outcome is for each person to develop a sense of how they might be invited to lean into these commitments within the context and constraints of their own life. This forms the first basis of what will become their particularized expression of our shared rule of life (their “customary”) if they choose to continue formation in the Order as a novice.

Features:

  • Weekly video teachings and reflection prompts

  • Biweekly cohort meetings

  • Monthly spiritual direction

Outcomes:

  • Greater familiarity with our rhythms and commitments

  • A deeply reflected experience of the invitations for your way of life

Explore postulancy cohorts →

1.2 Discernment of Formation
1.2 Discernment of Formation

1-3 months

After your cohort concludes around June, we create a structured opportunity over the summer for you to explore your invitations forward into the novitiate.

Read more ↓

In addition to learning more about the three phases of the novitiate experience and your options for beginning in the fall, you’ll meet one-on-one with a formation guide to help you process your postulancy experience and your discernment toward a decision.

Features:

  • A series of short video teachings and reflection prompts

  • Monthly spiritual direction

  • Meeting with a formation guide

Outcomes:

  • Understanding of your options for beginning the novitiate

  • A clarified sense of how God might be inviting you forward

2.0 Novitiate
2.0 Novitiate

The novitiate is a time of “trying on” our way of life while experiencing its three formational movements:

  • The Spiritual Exercises retreat of St. Ignatius

  • The novitiate course of study

  • Our Discernment of Vows course

New novices are also assigned to a monthly formation group and invited to quarterly chapter meetings.

Read more ↓

In formation groups, novices and vowed members cultivate community, practice spiritual friendship and continue to explore God’s invitations for them within our rule of life.

Chapter meetings bring all of our members together to share vision, stories and encouragement.

Explore our novitiate →

2.1 The Spiritual Exercises
2.1 The Spiritual Exercises

8 months

Most novices begin their novitiate in October with an individually directed daily retreat known as the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.

Read more ↓

Novices meet weekly with a specially trained spiritual director after spending an hour each day in prayer, Scripture and meditation as they walk alongside Jesus as a part of this 500-year-old pilgrimage in everyday life.

Because this is a deeply transformational and uniquely personal experience, we hold retreat directors to a high standard of preparation. The Order can provide most novices with a retreat director we’ve trained ourselves, unless a novice’s own director has completed comparable training.

Features:

  • Daily prayer, Scripture and meditation

  • Weekly spiritual direction

  • Monthly formation group

  • Quarterly chapter meetings

Outcomes:

  • A deepened experience of intimacy with Christ

  • A clarified sense of desire, mission or vocation

  • New rhythms and practices of prayer

Explore the Spiritual Exercises →

2.2 Novitiate Study
2.2 Novitiate Study

8-9 months

After or prior to the Spiritual Exercises, each novice walks with a learning community through the development of the monastic tradition we draw from.

Read more ↓

Beginning each September, a cohort of novices read and discuss an accessible introduction to the monastic tradition understood as a training in the love of God, after which novices engage with a course of short videos unpacking the development of monastic theology up to the present, and conclude with short capstone readings that envision the goal the monastic life for us today. Over this eight- to nine-month course of study, novices in the novitiate study meet each month for discussion and personal reflection.

Features:

  • Monthly cohort meetings

  • Monthly video teachings or readings

  • Monthly spiritual direction

  • Monthly formation group

  • Quarterly chapter meetings

Outcomes:

  • A practice of study as a form of devotion

  • An experience of formation and discernment through study

  • A sense of how God is inviting you to lean in more deeply to one or more commitments

2.3 Discernment of Vows
2.3 Discernment of Vows

5 months

Finally, novices conclude with a course designed to help discern an articulation of their vocation; if our community, rule of life and vows can help hold that vocation; and how they might live this out.

Read more ↓

The Discernment of Vows culminates in two meetings. First, the novice gathers a discerning community for a “clearness committee” to help clarify and confirm a desire to take vows. Second, the novice meets one last time with their formation guide to discuss and submit their decision.

The novice may make vows for one initial year, opt to remain a novice without vows, or conclude their time in the Order.

Features:

  • Weekly video and journaling assignments

  • Meeting with a formation guide

  • Monthly spiritual formation

  • Monthly formation group

  • Quarterly chapter meetings

Outcomes:

  • A finalized personal expression of our rule of life (a “customary”)

  • A decision about whether to make one year of vows with the Order

3.0 Vows
3.0 Vows

In the final, ongoing stage of formation, members may choose to take vows of conversatio morum (the continual conversion of life), obedience to the Holy Spirit and stability within our commitments.

Vowed members continue to meet with their formation group and attend chapter meetings.

Read more ↓

Our vows in the Order are commitments to God, rather than to any person or institution, but we commit to hold them alongside one another.

Vowed and non-vowed members are equal parts of our community. Our goal is to help each person discern the particular invitations in their own life, respond to them and be formed by them.

3.1 Initial Vows
3.1 Initial Vows

1+ year

Initial vows are made for one to five years. During this time, vowed members remain engaged in local church and Order life while living under our shared rule and their personal customary.

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Near the conclusion of their first year, vowed members review their experience of vowed life, gather their discerning community for another “clearness committee” to confirm their sense of invitation, and meet with their formation guide to confirm and submit their decision whether to renew their vows.

Features:

  • Monthly spiritual direction

  • Monthly formation group

  • Quarterly chapter meetings

Outcomes:

  • A deepening experience of God's love at work in you

  • An ability to articulate and explain this experience

  • An annually revised customary of our rule of life, as needed

3.2 Renewed Vows
3.2 Renewed Vows

1+ year

Vows may be renewed for one to four years at a time for as long as a member is invited. After five years, they may apply to make lifelong vows.

Read more ↓

Additional renewal of vows follows the same process as renewing initial vows. However, before making lifelong vows, a member meets first with their formation guide before holding a “clearness committee” with their discerning community and confirming their decision.

Features:

  • Monthly spiritual direction

  • Monthly formation group

  • Quarterly chapter meetings

Outcomes:

  • A deepening experience of God's love at work in you

  • An ability to articulate and explain this experience

  • An annually revised customary of our rule of life, as needed

3.3 Final Vows
3.3 Final Vows

Lifelong

While lifelong vows are the final formal stage of formation, this level of commitment isn’t expected of everyone, and formation under our rule of life is never truly complete.

Read more ↓

Vowed life—even under “final vows”—is perpetually dynamic, always seeking deeper formation, always growing in our commitments and our clarity of God’s invitations for us, always learning to love as God loves.

This is the meaning of our vows of conversatio morum, obedience to the Holy Spirit and stability.

Features:

  • Monthly spiritual direction

  • Monthly formation group

  • Quarterly chapter meetings

Outcomes:

  • A deepening experience of God's love at work in you

  • An ability to articulate and explain this experience

  • An annually revised customary of our rule of life, as needed

 
 

Start at the beginning.

We invite you to spend time in our free self-paced formation curriculum (“A Contemplative Foundation”) developed to introduce you to our community network and lay important groundwork for postulancy.