February 2018 - Thoughts from your Regional Formation Director

Thoughts from your Regional Formation Director

February 2018

Greetings to you my sisters and brothers in Christ and Saint Francis of Assisi.

All peace and good be with you as we say farewell to January and move into February and the Lenten season.

As promised, we will start discussing how the fraternity council and formation team use the Interview Form, Letters of Reference and Sacramental documents, and how to organize formation files.  As mentioned in previous letters, all documents must be saved and properly stored.

I will start with what should be saved and filed as part of the fraternity’s permanent records:

• Any letters received concerning the Candidate
  1. A letter from the Pastor (mandatory)
  2. A letter from the spiritual director if different than the pastor (optional)
  3. A letter from a third person “not Clergy or family” who knows them and their Catholic faith expression well (optional)
  4. And lastly, a letter from the spouse, if he/she is not in the process with them (optional)
  5. The Candidates’ own letters requesting Inquiry, Candidacy and Profession
• Initial Formation records
  1. Attendance records
  2. All sacramental records
     1. Baptism
     2. First Holy Communion
     3. Confirmation
     4.  Marriages – All Marriages and Annulments
     5. Holy Orders
     6. If the individual was a member of another third order or religious order, a letter releasing them from their prior professions or vows is required
     7. If any of these records cannot be produced, the individual must not be professed until they can be found or resolved thru their local pastor and Bishop
     8. These documents should be produced before the individual starts Candidacy. Sometime during Orientation or Inquiry.
     9. Interview forms
• Profession Record normally a journal, although I also record this information in the Initial formation attendance records, that includes
  • Date
  • Place
  • Minister Receiving the candidate
  • Ecclesial witness
  • I also include the Formation Directors name (Optional)
• Other Documents such as transfers, correspondence concerning correction, withdrawal or dismissal from the order

So, what do you do with all this paper?  Great question, you have to keep it.  My fraternity invested in a fire proof safe.  About the size of a large micro wave.  We keep our original Member Register in there along with our ecclesial formation documents and so on.  As formation director for my local fraternity I keep all other records in a file.  But, I also digitize them (scan) and save to a computer file.  That file is also saved to a disk that two members of the fraternity keep.  The secretary and one other council member hold copies.  This helps preserve records in case of a fire or other disaster at my house.

I also have what I call a temporary file.  In this file I keep all the homework and special assignments the individual turn in over the course of the three years of initial formation.  We do return that file to the candidate after profession.

Next month we will talk about what the Council does with all this paper, including the homework!

Pax et Bonum

Peace and all Good

Ted Bienkowski, OFS

SKD Region Formation Director