Amid the various arisings within and among the brothers at St. Michael Friary, let me pause here to note that this evening begins the hundredth day of postulancy.
One hundred days on the journey into religious life! For me, and surely my brother postulants would agree, it feels like we have come so far already. But it also feels like we have a long, long way to go. And, canonically speaking, we have not yet even officially entered the order. The residential postulancy program is a part of initial formation, but this year does not "count" toward the actual length of religious life. Technically, the clock starts running on the day a brother enters the novitiate and receives his habit in a rite called investiture.
But this is a trifle. The friars address the postulants as "brother." The postulants strive daily to live according to the rule and life of Francis of Assisi. We seek to become fully initiated into religious life by thinking, speaking, and acting as if we already professed our vows.
God, for whom a thousand years are like a day, speed us, the postulants of the Capuchin Province of St. Mary, through this year of formation, and bring us through our joys and sorrows into the novitiate and forward into the fullness of religious life.
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