New Year, Beginning a New PhaseA

Hello Friars, Friends and Family members on this Day of the Baptism of the Lord,

I have told people all along that I am taking "baby steps" in my discernment of God's will for my vocation with the Franciscan Friars, Third Order Regular. Today I look back over the past year of living here at St. Bridget's Friary in Minneapolis and realize that those baby steps have gotten me quite a ways already. Oh, I'm still in the process of discerning, but that discernment has grown and deepened since 2006 when I started making my first phone calls and internet searches about living out a religious calling.
After filling out a vocations questionnaire I was contacted by a few different groups, but one stood out. St. Francis has always been an especially important saint to me, and I was attracted by the dedication to work with the poor and to live in community, together with other friars, and in the local neighborhoods of the world. Fr. Pat and I got a hold of each other and set up a time for me to get to know the TOR Franciscan friars of the Immaculate Conception Province. In 2008 I came to Minneapolis three separate times to visit, getting to know the friars and the Twin Cities, and observing their involvement in North Minneapolis. More and more I was attracted to the life of prayer and service. After many interviews and prayer I decided to move here as an Aspirant in January 2009.
That was a scary step to take, moving away from my family and friends in Portland, Oregon and concentrating my discernment on one group, but I felt called to leave my comfort zone and step out in faith. Besides, it wasn't a commitment for the rest of my life, yet.
Living here through the spring and summer I got to know the friars much better, integrated myself into the rhythms of the house and the ministries of the church. I found a job working with people living with developmental disabilities and I started some volunteer work here in the Twin Cities. I got to spend time with Christopher and Matthew during their postulancy and to see what it was like to be in formation. I attended some of their classes and experienced the joy of community at prayer and at table. After they went to Pennsylvania for novitiate, Br. Jeffrey moved back and I have enjoyed learning more about his novitiate experience.
Before I knew it, it was August and the postulancy program was upon me. I took a trip back home to visit, both as a way to say "good-bye" again, and to test myself to see if I really wanted to let go of the life of independence, and embrace a life of inter-dependence with this community. I became a Postulant on August 25th, the Feast of St. Louis, after returning to Minneapolis with a new sense of commitment. I began classes with the friars and started at the community college, studying to improve my availability for ministries later on.
There have been ups and downs - mostly ups - in this process. Around the holidays I started to feel some pangs of homesickness, and was informed that many postulants return home for the holidays, but my work schedule would not allow it. I stuck it out and found the support and fellowship of community sustained me and fed me. I not only have a new sense of family, I have an enlarged family, which now includes the friars here.
This last week we traveled to Washington, DC on retreat where I met the men that I will be in novitiate with after postulancy ends in May. I discovered the richness of the order as I met friars from the Sacred Heart Province and saw friars in our motherhouse in Pennsylvania. The family just gets bigger. I am getting more and more excited about the community as I see it cooperate with others in ministry and service. That's what I wanted out of a community, fellowship and cooperation in meeting common goals.
This year of 2010 I embark on another stage of the process. I have decided to work less as an employee and that will free me up to be present with the activities of the friary, and to ministry. I am looking forward to another retreat in the spring to Pennsylvania to reconnect with my new-found brothers there, and to take more steps toward novitiate. Little by little I am moving along. For me, I needed to focus on the baby steps, because it is important to stay present with God through each phase of my discernment process. The idea that I would drop everything and live forever with a rule in a new community would have been unrealistic. There are challenges to grow along ever step of the way. Each day there is an opportunity to let go a little more of my self, and to find myself a little more in community.

May you find yourself ever more in God's plan of love and grace,
Corey Smoot, postulant, Franciscan Friars, TOR