Dear Jesuit woman,

The picture below represents a set of guidelines (clearly well-loved, or in fashion terminology, “distressed”) that were created in preparation for making the 30-Day Exercises in October 2017.  The insights in it were compiled from a variety of informal conversations with different Jesuit men about the experience of a novice in the first days of formal novitiate, leading up to the Long Retreat, which is a novice’s first real experiment.  The lower half of the page represents my adaptation of these novitiate principles to my own full life as a community health nurse with an active faith life, who lives with her mother in an intentional community of two.  (Good practice for both of us!)  May it benefit you, as it was of benefit to me!