Vida religiosa consagrada : as escolhas, os caminhos e o percurso - um estudo sobre o acompanhamento vocacional para a vida religiosa

Abstract

Vocational Guidance (VG) is a process that involves the professional choice and refers to a temporary helping relationship to help the person to make conscious choices, especially concerning his or her professional occupation. In the case of consecrated religious life (VRC) this choice triggers specific implications. The objectives of the research were: to describe and analyze the process of VOL applied to candidates for VRC and to propose a VOL itinerary that takes into account the subjective dimension of candidates aiming at a conscious choice for VRC. This is an exploratory, cross-sectional, quanti and qualitative research. Fifty-seven formators, adult men and women who work in the process of accompanying young people to religious life, participated in the study. The instruments used were a questionnaire about the activities developed by the formation directors and a focus group, both applied in a virtual modality. The data from the questionnaire were evaluated quantitatively, while the focus group was analyzed qualitatively by means of a posteriori categories. The quantitative results pointed out by the questionnaire indicated that the accompaniment of the person who seeks Religious Life begins by a closeness through conversations (fr 70.1%). The vocational accompaniment takes place throughout the entire time of formation (Br 68.4%), with spirituality and the following of Jesus forming the basis of the themes dealt with in the process (Br 35.9%). However, self-knowledge is dealt with by only 1.7% of the participating formators. In what concerns the analysis of the results of the Focus Group, the presence of concerns about selfknowledge and discernment was observed, but they are still little explored by the formation directors due to the absence of technical and scientific resources for the development of these capacities in the vocational accompaniment process. From these analyses, a social technical product is systematized in accordance with the objective of the research, which aims to offer a roadmap demonstrating the ways for the construction of a process of vocational accompaniment for the VRC.