The Sabbatical Year

“A year given to the Lord produces lifelong and eternal fruits”

What is it?

The Sabbatical Year is a program to be made anew through the Word of God, Liturgy and Fraternal Life. A Year of healing, conversion, formation, sanctification, vocational discernment and mission. A period to put your whole life and time in order. It is a physiotherapy for the soul, where you learn to have the ears of a disciple to focus on God's voice and receive strength to follow His call.

What do we propose?

For nine months, come and live with us in one of our houses, experiencing daily the graces of prayer, formation and fraternal life. Allow yourself to be cared for by God, and hear directly from Him what His plan of love is for your life.

PRAYER AND WORK

  • Daily Eucharist, celebrated and adored

  • Liturgy of the Hours

  • Lectio Divina

  • Rosary

  • Personal and Community Prayer

  • Fraternal Life

  • School of Nazareth

FORMATION

  • Bible study (old and new testament)

  • Anthropological formation

  • Doctrine (Catechism and Documents of the Church)

  • Regular Spiritual Accompaniment

VOCATION AND MISSION

  • Vocational Discernment

  • Formation on the new evangelization and mission work

  • Missionary experience

  • Pilgrimages

Pillars of the Sabbatical Year

FAQs

  • Personal decision, followed by FAITH and OBEDIENCE. Obedience to stand firm on your decision, and Faith to stand firm on God's call on your life.

    You must be 18 years old and have completed high school.

  • First of all to you, who have been guided by God to come here, no matter what stage of life you are in now.

    The Sabbatical Year program is recommended for those who need to be formed in missionary, human and spiritual life.

  • As it says in the passage from Amos 8:11 “The time is surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.” we have a need to be formed. Many times and in many ways, the world in which we live in different realities, family, study, work and relationships can deform us. The Sabbatical Year is a profound time set aside for God, and with God, to experience a reconstruction of our dignity as children of God.

  • The Sabbatical Year lasts nine months, the time of pregnancy. During this time you will be generated again, by the Word of God. You will experience the process of conversion, healing, and discernment.

  • In one of the houses of the Seeds of the Word Community. During the whole nine months, you will live with us and will be inserted in our prayer and fraternal life, and will participate with us in the missions carried out by the community.

    We have the Sabbatical Year Program in Canada, Brazil, Portugal and Mozambique and Philippines

  • No. The Sabbatical Year is a full-time program. The nine months are dedicated EXCLUSIVELY to listen to the Lord, and for that it is necessary to temporarily leave all your activities.

  • There is a monthly fee charged for the Sabbatical Year to cover the costs of your accommodation in the house.

    In order to live the grace of the Sabbatical Year and to make it possible for anyone to enter this program, regardless of their financial reality, we rely on Divine Providence, exercised through our brothers and sisters in faith. We recommend that each person who wishes to take a sabbatical year, search for people (Missionary Godparents) who are interested in contributing monthly to the Community in view of the Sabbatical Year.

Check out our info booklet about the Sabbatical Year

Donate for the Sabbatical Year Program

Sister Maria Inês de Deus, Carmelite

“During the 9 months that I lived in the Seeds of the Word, I learned a lot about Trust, Abandonment, Perseverance, Joy... And this I live today in my vocation as a Carmelite. I carry with me this practice of meditating each morning on the Word of God, and I seek to contemplate this Word throughout my day, in a constant search to transform my life into prayer!”

Benjamin Evans

“I came to the Sabbatical year hoping to have some questions answered, hunger filled, and for me to know the heart of God for me. He then showed me His heart for me by going deeper into my own heart, touching and healing wounds of the past, showing me the good, the truth, and the beauty of my searching for Him even in the darkest places, and so many other graces.”

Contact us.