Tag Archives: Poor Clare Colettines

News, Women's Communities

Roswell Poor Clares Celebrate Diamond Anniversary of Foundation

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On November 13, 2023, the Poor Clares in Roswell, New Mexico, celebrated the 75th anniversary of their foundation with a solemn Mass of thanksgiving, over which His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke presided. The chapel was packed to overflowing with friends who came from all over the country for the occasion. Although not all who attended were able to stay afterward to greet the sisters briefly in the parlor, the line was long enough to keep the sisters busy greeting visitors for a full hour and a half!

Most touching was the presence of friends whose parents or grandparents had supported the monastery since its small beginnings in 1948. The journey of the foundresses by train from Chicago was delightfully recounted in the very popular and joy-filled book A Right to Be Merry by Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C., who was a very young sister at the time of the foundation. Since then, the “farmhouse-turned-monastery” has flourished and become a motherhouse to five daughterhouses, either founded from or restored by the Roswell community. Today the Roswell community has twenty-four members, with two aspirants scheduled to enter in the coming months.

As part of the jubilee celebrations, the Apostolic Penitentiary has granted a plenary indulgence, under the usual conditions, to those who make a visit to their monastery chapel before the conclusion of the jubilee year on November 13, 2024. The indulgence may also be gained by those unable to visit in person due to infirmity or inability to travel if they offer their sufferings to the Lord or carry out practices of compassion.

“We ourselves can make no suitable return to you for all your goodness to us, so we rejoice all the more that Holy Church herself can help us out in this way!” wrote Mother Mary Angela, P.C.C. “May this jubilee indulgence bring you (and all the deceased loved ones for whom you may wish to offer this indulgence) an eternal reward for all of your goodness to us.”

For more information about the Poor Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe, visit: poorclares-roswell.org

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Cloistered life, Women's Communities

One Heart With Which to Love God

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kokomoAs one living in the cold and snowy Midwest, getting up at midnight on a dark winter night is not something I relish. I have to be really motivated to leap out of a warm bed. Imagine doing that every day, every week, every year for eighty two years! That is what Sr. Mary Bernadette of the Poor Clare Colettines in Kokomo, Indiana, has been doing since 1932!!!

The oldest Poor Clare nun in the U.S., Sister Mary Bernadette celebrated her 100th birthday on June 29th. One man, who has known her his entire life, said, “Over the years, I’ve learned that Sister Bernadette is the kind of person who lends an ear to you, but then gets right to the point. You can talk to her about any subject, and she always knows what kind of medicine you need. She’s a spiritual doctor.”

Founding Sisters
Founding Sisters

Sister is an Extern Nun who greeted visitors, answered the phone and performed necessary errands. She joined the Poor Clares despite her father’s strong objections and found the Poor Clare life not that much different than life on the family farm for her family was poor anyway. She was one of the founding sisters who came to Kokomo from Chicago in 1959.

The Poor Clares in Kokomo are Colettines meaning that they embrace as their founders both St. Francis and St. Clare as well as St. Colette, their second mother. They rise at midnight for Matins (Midnight Office of Readings) and end the day with Compline (Night Prayer) at 9:00 pm. Of course, there is Lauds (Morning Prayer), Terce (Midmorning Prayer), Sext (Midday Prayer), None (Midafternoon Prayer and Scriptural Reading), and Vespers (Evening Prayer) in between. How comforting to know that they are praying when we are asleep or busy with our jobs or families.

Let us always regret that we have but one heart with which to love God, and that this heart is so poor and weak. but such as it is, God asks it of us! Let us give it to Him constantly and completely. Let Him have this poor heart for time and eternity – St. Colette

 

 

 

The Poor Clares sleep on straw mattresses atop of planks, do not eat meat, do not wear shoes