God has already called you to become something great whether you join a religious Order or not. This first step towards spiritual growth is to will it. The following pieces of advice are what I wished I would have received years ago: Regardless of who you are, Third Orders are an immense blessing to the Church and they are deserving of your contemplation. I’m also sure that there are others who know that these Orders exist, but they lack information on how to join these communities.

My hunch is that there are many people out there like me who do not know that becoming part of a religious order as a lay person is a possibility. I always knew that religious orders like the Franciscans, Benedictines and Dominicans were alive and well, filled with pious priests, brothers and nuns, but it wasn’t until later in life that I realized that some of these communities actually let the laity in to partake in their same charism. The spiritual formation that I craved for for years was quenched when I discovered that “lay religious” existed in the Catholic Church. On June 9th, I was welcomed into the Third Order of St.