Welcome, Sr. Lauren!
There was an extra special gift this year for Our Blessed Mother's birthday...a new postulant!
Lauren Potter entered the enclosure to begin her year of postulancy shortly before Vespers. Sr. Lauren is originally from South Africa, but was living and working in Australia when she began discerning a Dominican contemplative vocation.
Unfortunately, neither South Africa nor Australia currently have a monastery of Dominican Nuns! While there had been a Dominican monastery in Senekal, South Africa for 28 years, it relocated in 2013 to Zambia due to a lack of vocations. The Dominicans have been slowly increasing their presence in Australia, and while there are now both Friars and Sisters, a monastery of Nuns has not yet been possible.
Sr. Lauren has entered at an exciting time for contemplative nuns as we begin to implement the changes mandated by the new instruction Cor Orans. One of the areas of change is in the initial formation of nuns, and one of these changes is the length of postulancy. So instead of our usual 9 months, postulancy will now be a full 12 months.
Below is a slideshow from Sister's entrance.
