2022 Newsletter
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Poor Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe
809 E. 19th Street
Roswell, New Mexico 88201Peace and blessings
Looking toward August 2022+Our dear Friends,
“The King! The King!” is unquestionably the cry of the spirit at the moment when, at the end of every Eucharistic procession, we scatter the petals of our flowers before the Face of our monstranced Lord. It is a moment always held to the heart, so symbolic of our vocation as brides of Christ who have chosen to “scatter our youth like petals before His Face”. Sometimes we will retrace the processional route privately later in the day, reliving the intimacy of God walking with us in the garden, and find the paths still redolent with incense, the lawns somehow greener for His passing, and the words of Mother Mary Francis’ much-loved poem, “Directions for a Eucharistic Procession,” echoing through the halls of our hearts.
With such a love for Eucharistic processions already, we were more than delighted to learn that our United States bishops are inaugurating a three-year initiative, the “National Eucharistic Revival”, by focusing first of all on diocesan Eucharistic processions. Beginning on this year’s feast of Corpus Christi (June 19) and culminating in the National Eucharistic Congress scheduled for 2024, the goal of the whole program is to renew Catholic life in our country by awakening faith in “The King! The King!” fully present in the Most Blessed Sacrament. They might be pleased to know that here in the monastery, we got a full year’s head start! As our chaplain carried our Eucharistic Lord through our grounds after our 2021 solemn Mass of Corpus Christi, there was already a “Eucharistic Revival” at work on that glorious and surprisingly cool (for Roswell) June morning. Father’s reverence and love for the Lord whom he held high focused us anew on the God who so “delights to be with the children of men” (Prov. 8:31). Faith-filled priests are an indispensable part of God’s plan for remaining among us under the humble form of bread. Throughout all the years of our foundation, their prayerful and reverent Masses at our altar have constantly drawn our attention ever more fully to the One who is the “source and summit” of our Christian faith, and we are deeply grateful.
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Our Franciscan Friars in particular have always made it a priority to take care of our sacramental needs, and our AUGUST novena to our Mother St. Clare was filled with prayers for their interprovincial meeting, taking place during those grace-laden days. Since the meeting was conducted online because of the pandemic, it occurred to Father Provincial Jack Clark Robinson, O.F.M., that this might be their opportunity to invite our Mother Abbess to join, via Zoom, in their celebration of the solemnity of our seraphic Mother. She participated through a voice recording coupled with a slideshow of paintings of St. Clare, offering the friars our own invitation to join us in our centuries-long spiritual procession led by our Eucharistic-minded Mother St. Clare. Drawing from the Song of Songs in her brief reflection, she spoke of the love of our Eucharistic Jesus as the driving force throughout our seraphic Mother’s entire life: “It was love that led her from her family home… It was love that sustained her in San Damiano… It was love that rallied her failing body to rise up and defend her monastery from attack, taking refuge in the Sacrament of Love, her only defense.”
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The love of Jesus is indeed the underlying melody of all the “heart’s lost chords and all its wordless canticles,” which became audible in SEPTEMBER with Poor Clare sewing machines humming in joyous harmony with the new song in Postulant Brianna’s heart, for whom many new garments were to be fashioned in time for her clothing day. For a short while after OCTOBER 9, the day when Aspirant Emily joyously entered her own postulancy, we had two radiant postulants leading not only the ranks of our spiritual Eucharistic procession, but also our daily processions to and from choir and refectory. But the matching veils at the head of the line were not to be seen for long, since Brianna was to exchange hers for the white veil of noviceship on the feast of St. Luke. Father Daniel Cardó, pastor of her former parish in Denver, celebrated the Eucharist for us on that blessed day, bringing to our altar his own deep love for the Sacrifice of the Mass and especially for the richness of the Roman Canon. Brianna’s family and friends were also able to join us, and one friend happily surprised us by producing at the end of their visit a short video she had put together from moments captured skillfully on her cell phone! Now the happy moment when Brianna’s family and friends saw her for the first time clothed in our holy habit and bearing her new name, Sister Maria Antonia of the Holy Wounds of Jesus, is one we rejoice to be able to share with all of you, as the beautiful and moving little video has recently been posted on our website.
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NOVEMBER 4 dawned crisp, clear and – cold! – for the day of our annual Eucharistic gathering (consisting of Mass, a Eucharistic procession, and an ever-joyful parlor visit afterward) with the friars of Our Lady of Guadalupe Province. We eagerly took up Mother Francis’ poetic directive, “Bring each the hymnal of the heart,”– albeit with gloved and mittened hands. The warmth of love sustained us, though, as it had been a great delight to learn that our newly-appointed Father Provincial Ron Walters, O.F.M., had very much wanted to reinstate this annual tradition after the hiatus caused by the COVID lockdown of 2020. The gathering with our friars always highlights the unity created by love of the Blessed Sacrament, and that same love impelled us to spend the whole night of November 30-DECEMBER 1 in unbroken adoration, for the intention of the Supreme Court’s deliberations in the case which could potentially overturn Roe v. Wade. While the exposition candles burned for twenty-four hours on our altar in choir, each sister carried to adoration her own “candle lit from hope” as we joined millions of other Catholics all across our nation in this united prayer effort. Our community consecration to St. Joseph just one week later fanned the flame of hope as we placed our lives into the care of the strong and faithful spouse of the Mother of God. With our processional route wending its way through the Year of St. Joseph, we discovered much joy in the presence of this noble and trustworthy companion walking at our side as we offered his litany each day, read all we could about him, and came to know him as a personal friend.
One of the intentions we had confidently entrusted to St. Joseph’s intercession was our need for a permanent chaplain, and our prayers were answered in early JANUARY with the arrival of Father Larry Bernard, O.F.M., straight from his mission in Jemez Pueblo, where the friars have served the native peoples for nearly 120 years. Well-loved by our community already for several decades as the deeply spiritual and extremely devoted Franciscan that he is, he has fallen right into step with us in our Eucharistic procession, bringing the Body of Christ to us each day at Holy Mass since then – with that characteristic joy which would make St. Francis proud to call him his son.
While Father Larry’s procession from Jemez Pueblo to Roswell meant a significant decrease in altitude for him, our own processional route was simultaneously leading us to “nimbler climbing of the beckoning heights.” Right before Christmas, our grandmotherhouse in Cleveland, Ohio (which, providentially for the theme of this newsletter, is known as the “Monastery of the Blessed Sacrament”!) stood in sudden need of sisterly assistance, and reached out to us for help. Christmas is a hard time to have to part even temporarily with loved sisters, but it was still harder to think of what the alternative might mean for them. Thus we extended our processional route to their historic monastery, sending a sister to help for a little over a month. She returned from her mission just in time to receive, along with the rest of us, brand new mission fields right here at home, as we held our triennial “Graces of Working chapter” at the end of January. The official changeover date of FEBRUARY 7 found us all still in the midst of a happy monastic flurry as sisters moved into new cells, learned the basics of new work charges, and simultaneously tried to pass on all the accumulated wisdom that is part-and-parcel of every monastic duty, handed down “from age to age”. “Spirit comes unshod” in truth when new ways of practicing interior poverty are revealed to us – giving up loved charges, housecleaning and “making way” in workplaces, and leaving familiar dormitory surroundings to launch out into the deeps of new and unexplored territories of community giving. Usually a Eucharistic procession in the monastery traverses familiar ground, but the procession that takes place within the heart is one where Jesus is pleased sometimes to lead us forward into “the great frontier”!
Our prayer-borders were definitely expanded with the February 24 invasion of Ukraine, and we entered MARCH focused on all the extra Lenten sacrifices we could offer for the urgent intention of world peace. But even all the sufferings of a war-ravaged world, which we take so much to heart, can never dampen our joy in Him who has already won the ultimate victory, and whose Presence in our midst is our source of unflagging happiness. Hence our monastic version of “Mardi Gras celebrations” went on as usual -- or rather, not as usual, since never before has Mother Abbess proposed a “Hat Contest”! Each sister was free to imagine, design, create, and then model a hat (or possibly two), and all the behind-closed-doors preparations culminated in a most memorable show conducted on our version of a Parisian runway (at all other times of the year known as the novitiate common room). There were elegant turbans, practical knitted creations, feather-topped wonders, and all sorts of other testimonials to our sisters’ heretofore unexpressed creative ingenuity. The best part was that our remarkably fair judges, Mother and Mother Vicaress, bestowed the prizes – of which everyone received at least one! “Most Imaginative,” “Most Gorgeous”, and “Most Incredible”, though, were well-deserved by one and all.
Leaving Mardi Gras behind in favor of the more sober joys of Ash Wednesday, our processional route “turned firmly down the narrow lane of faith” as we joined our voices to those of the entire Church: “Let us amend for the better in those things in which we have sinned through ignorance; lest suddenly overtaken by the day of death, we seek time for repentance, and are not able to find it.” The Russia-Ukraine conflict stood as a constant memento mori for all of us, and each Lenten day found us seeking out little ways to sacrifice and pray for the intention of world peace. A rosary procession on the vigil of the Annunciation for that intention led us beautifully into the solemnity, on which we joined our Holy Father and millions of people all over the world for the consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Our Lady of Fatima’s statue was enthroned in the public chapel for the day, surrounded by flowers and adorned even more beautifully by the heartfelt prayers of all our friends who joined us. It was deeply moving to hear all their voices praying in unison with our own: “To your Immaculate Heart we solemnly entrust and consecrate ourselves, the Church and all humanity, especially Russia and Ukraine…. Grant that war may end, and peace spread throughout the world.” -
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Holy Week followed soon after, and during the Easter Vigil, certain phrases of the Exsultet took on a new dimension for us: “On this, your night of grace, O holy Father, accept this candle…a fire into many flames divided, yet never dimmed by sharing of its light, for it is fed by melting wax, drawn out by mother bees to build a torch so precious.” For Easter Monday, APRIL 18, was to mark the arrival of our own colony of “mother bees”! Already the “Bee Haven” annex to our monastery has yielded a good quantity of clear golden honey which, as Scripture tells us, symbolizes the sweetness provided by Our Lord himself in the Blessed Sacrament. The industrious little bees helped us realize how much nature can provide for our needs, and MAY found us extending our husbandry to include the care and feeding of – six chickens! Our Franciscan joy in creation has been well served already by our amazement at all the ways God’s creatures serve our temporal needs, and “little earthly peerings” into both coop and beehive never fail to increase our vision of the wonder of His works.
More wonders await us along our processional route with the JUNE 26 diamond jubilee celebration of our Sister Mary Anthony of the Precious Blood quickly approaching on the horizon. It will be our first major celebration within the official timeframe of the National Eucharistic Revival, and our joy in the fidelity of both our Eucharistic Lord and his bride will carry over into our AUGUST novena for the solemnity of our Mother St. Clare, whose “whole life was a Eucharist” (Pope St. John Paul II). We invite each of you, our dear Friends, to join us in our never-ending Eucharistic procession, for which you now have all the directions needed for the journey. The Real Presence of Jesus will illumine our path as we traverse together this world of shadows, allowing hope to “cast out dark of what appears, and summon spirit’s cry: The King! The King!”Gratefully and devotedly, in our Mother St. Clare,
Your Poor Clare Sisters
