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During our trip to the Netherlands we had the great privilege of being received by the Holy Father. He is giving his blessing to our Mother Abbess. |
Who are the Poor Clares? They are those who have heard the cry of St. Clare: "Love Him with your whole heart!" Eagerly they follow her to that hidden place within where Christ reveals Himself in the measure that one loses herself. Founded by St. Clare in 1212, the Order of St. Clare is in reality an immense family of monasteries dotting every continent. |
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"Transform yourself wholly into the Divine Substance." To the three vows of religion --obedience, poverty and chastity-- the Poor Clare adds a fourth vow: to live enclosed. It is this radical choice to live for God alone that makes the Poor Clares one of the few Orders of enclosed contemplative life for women. Not only does it form the largest Order of enclosed nuns, but one of the oldest...and some would say the first since the Poor Clares were the first to embrace a vow of enclosure... and embrace it with great love. "Embrace the Poor Christ," was St. Clare's burning desire for each of her daughters. |
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Pope John Paul II describes our way of life in Vita Consecrata when he says: "The monastic life of women and the cloister deserve special attention because of the great esteem in which the Christian community holds this type of life, which is a sign of the exclusive union of the Church as Bride with her Lord, whom she loves above all things."
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