Poor Clares

[EmilyAnn]

[quote name='emmaberry' timestamp='1345358753' post='2470046']
whoops! I am so sorry that I forgot to answer this.

I am fine with the screen, and prefer it over the swirly grill. I think the kind of grill the nuns have make it distracting to try to focus on the person on the other side of it. The screen is not very thick and just opaque enough so that you recognize that it is there, so I suppose it is like Eindhoven's. The only scary thing about the screen is no physical contact-you could wedge a hug-like motion through the grill, but the screen does not allow for any kind of touch. Very sad for some people I suppose, but my family are not big huggers, except me and my little sister. However, I think this "Oh we don't hug much anyway" vibe will be long forgotten when my family and I see each other only 3 times a year! I think we will be bemoaning the loss of physical contact at that point.
[/quote]

I can imagine having a swirly grille would be difficult to talk to people through. Our parlour grilles are just straight, which is fairly easy to talk to people through. I can't imagine having a screen, I think for me that would be very difficult.

I'm starting to think I'm going to have an unusually few number of visits - I'll only be allowed 2 visits a year.

[NonNovi]

Apparently I know some canons regular who visited the Poor Clares in Eindhoven:

[img]https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/306746_10151094111594610_1297638069_n.jpg[/img]

And I just found out they're on facebook too! [url="https://www.facebook.com/poor.clares"]https://www.facebook.com/poor.clares[/url]

[emmaberry]

[quote name='NonNovi' timestamp='1345387610' post='2470135']
Apparently I know some canons regular who visited the Poor Clares in Eindhoven:

[img]https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/306746_10151094111594610_1297638069_n.jpg[/img]

And I just found out they're on facebook too! [url="https://www.facebook.com/poor.clares"]https://www.facebook.com/poor.clares[/url]
[/quote]
Thank you for the photo and the link! I appreciate it.

[quote name='EmilyAnn' timestamp='1345386265' post='2470132']
I can imagine having a swirly grille would be difficult to talk to people through. Our parlour grilles are just straight, which is fairly easy to talk to people through. I can't imagine having a screen, I think for me that would be very difficult.

I'm starting to think I'm going to have an unusually few number of visits - I'll only be allowed 2 visits a year.
[/quote]
That is a low amount, at least from the contemplatives I have looked at in the US. Perhaps England is different concerning visits. I have to say though, I SO admire the Elysburg and Valparaiso (sp?) Carmels, because they only allow visits twice a year. That is hardcore, and I don't know if I would be able to do that. I think it really keeps the contemplative separated from the outside world, which is essential to her vocation. As hard as that must be for you and your loved ones, it can only benefit your contemplative vocation.

Edited August 19, 2012 by emmaberry

[emmaberry]

Sorry for the double post, but I thought this might be the best place to post this:

[center][b][font="Times New Roman"][size="4"][color="#0F0B52"]I CALLED AND
YOU ANSWERED ME (Psalm 120)[/color][/size][/font]
[font="Times New Roman"][color="#0F0B52"]… but do we answer when He calls …[/color][/font][/b][/center]
[center][font=Times New Roman][color=#0f0b52][b][b][font=Times New Roman][size=4][color=#0F0B52]by Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C.[/color][/size][/font][/b][/b][/color][/font][/center]

[indent=1][size=4][b][font=Times New Roman][color=#0F0B52][b]Jesus was walking along the shore and saw two fishermen in a boat (Matthew 4:18-20). He looked at them. They looked back at Him. He said: “Follow Me.” They did. This is, in sheerest Greek classicist form, the outline of every religious vocation. There is an invitation from God to follow Him in this particular and all-demanding way. But the call itself is not demanding. One is quite free to respond or not respond. There is no pressuring from God to respond. Oddly enough, perhaps, there is frequently a great deal of pressuring from others against responding.[/b][/color][/font][/b][/size][/indent]

[indent=1][size=4][b][font=Times New Roman][color=#0F0B52][b]Looking carefully at this biblical exposition of vocation in three short lines, studying it even, we discover a number of basic elements present for the simple reason that they need always to be present. There is totality. There is immediacy. There is faith. Particularly, there is love. They were fishermen, Peter and Andrew, as were James and John, the equally brief account of whose vocations follows shortly upon the other in Matthew 4: 21-22. The sea, the boat, the fishing nets, their families: these were the familiarities with which they were comfortable. These were the things they knew how to do and very likely planned always to do. So, the sudden unequivocal summons: “Follow Me!” was a disruption of their whole little world.[/b][/color][/font][/b][/size][/indent]

[indent=1][size=4][font=Times New Roman][color=#0F0B52][b]Peter and Andrew were throwing their net out into the sea. They knew how to toss it and where to cast it. “For they were fishermen,” the Gospel tells us, thus briskly assuring us that they were settled in their business, adroit at their business, apparently content in their business. “Come after Me,” invites Jesus. Now the practical folk who advocate a very lengthy discernment process could hardly approve of this. And in any account was this a propitious moment for putting forth a lifetime vocational proposal? It would seem to qualify as the least propitious, with the net in its very process of being tossed, the predictable catch so shortly to be hauled in. But that is often enough just the way that Jesus calls.[/b][/color][/font][/size][/indent]

[indent=1][size=4][font=Times New Roman][color=#0F0B52][b]One of our present young nuns described her call to me. She had been en route to the college coffee-bar between classes in drama, her major. Life was going famously and happily along. She was about to toss her net and haul in a degree in dramatic art. But then her own heart suddenly transmitted Jesus’ call with all the force as of a spoken word: “But it isn’t enough.” She found this understandably unsettling. For, of course, this was enough. College and a bright future-on-stage, friends and dates and fun and even fame perhaps. When she first came to see me, she was wearing the bright red stockings and very short bright green skirt which were favored college fashions that year. Her long black hair bounced on her shoulders as she animatedly told me of this “impossible thing,” of something being uttered to and in her heart: “But it isn’t enough.”[/b][/color][/font][/size][/indent]

[indent=1][size=4][font=Times New Roman][color=#0F0B52][b]“I will make you fishers of men,” Jesus said to Peter and Andrew. Now that was surely the limit and beyond. These were practical fishermen, sailors hardly much given to mystical flights of poetic fancy. A fisherman catches fish. You don’t catch folks. Only, they were to learn how that very thing was exactly what was happening to them in order that they might later be the means of its happening to others. Peter and Andrew could have agreed that the young Rabbi was talking nonsense. They could have been annoyed, too; they had fish to catch and haul in. They might just have tolerantly shaken their heads at this strangest of summons. Or, at the patiently discerning best of it, they could have demanded a full explanation which they would spend the next year pondering. Actually, however, it was an astonishingly brief discernment process. “Immediately, leaving their nets, they followed Him.” Surely a rash response. At best a high tide moment of emotion which would quickly hit low tide and with hardly a splash. Certainly it would disconcert many a “vocation director.” Follow You where? Will this really fulfil me? Will it develop my personality? Have I had sufficient opportunity to investigate all other possibilities in life? What will my friends say? How will my relatives react?[/b][/color][/font][/size][/indent]

[indent=1][size=4][font=Times New Roman][color=#0F0B52][b]Peter and Andrew’s discernment was as deep as truth: the truth of acknowledging a call, however strange-seeming, no matter how apparently preposterous. It was strong as love, their instant discernment. There sounded a call in their hearts that their ears could not understand (fishers of men?), nor their minds grasp and transliterate into a reasoned analysis. But the heart, if allowed to exercise it, has a mind of its own. And so, immediately, they got up and followed Him, leaving present occupations and future possibilities, the one unfinished, the other unexplored, and followed Him to where they presently knew not and to a fulfilment of which they could not have dreamed: to be martyrs, like Jesus, of and on the cross. They left their “nets” of all that was familiar and doubtless dear to them, just for a strange call they knew to be authentic, however unreasonable and even preposterous by worldly gauging. Thus, too, did Bonnie of the red stockings and kelly-green skirt drop the nets of all her glossy plans for the sake of the same unreasonable, preposterous but undeniably authentic call: “But it isn’t enough.” Not a good steady income, not a fishing boat that might one day be exchanged for a yacht, nor fame nor fun nor worldly success... no, these were no longer enough when there sounded what a poet has described as that “strange, imperious call which each one hears, once, with authentic summons in his soul.” Peter and Andrew answered the summons. So did Bonnie. And all the apostles and disciples after them. And all the Bonnies before and after her.[/b][/color][/font][/size][/indent]

[indent=1][size=4][font=Times New Roman][color=#0F0B52][b]Oh, yes, we shall say. But Jesus was standing right there on the shore. They saw Him, heard His voice. Certainly no one could not follow a humanly visible Christ, respond to the human voice of Jesus. “If only I knew for sure.” (How many times I have heard that.) “Then, of course, I would give up everything and follow Him.” But, then, we remember the rich young man... (Mk. 10:17-23).[/b][/color][/font][/size][/indent]

[indent=1][size=4][font=Times New Roman][color=#0F0B52][b]One needs to discern, of course. Yet we may have beleaguered that sturdy straight-from-the-Latin word near past recognition. “[i]Discernere[/i],”- “to know one thing from another.” Yes, but prior to investigating the varied elements and diverse properties of the multiple modalities of that call to a religious vocation is the basic acknowledgement of the call in the heart which there is just no denying, however loudly we may turn up the stereos of distraction. When Peter and Andrew heard the call, they could have chosen to go on fishing instead of following. They could not, however, have pretended that Jesus had not spoken, that He had not looked at them. Nor could Bonnie have denied that voice within her heart. It is the properties of a religious vocation which we explore, about which we seek advice, concerning which we ask questions. The call itself is non-negotiable. It is, so to speak, a meeting of eyes, - Christ’s and one’s own.[/b][/color][/font][/size][/indent]

[indent=1][size=4][font=Times New Roman][color=#0F0B52][b]Yet, a clear decision to reply to a call to religious life does by no means indicate an end of struggle, and this not only from without but often enough from within. The difference lies in that radical primary response supplying its own rock-bottom and spirit-high strength against the gathering debates, often enough high-pitched and of amazing volume, from without and the aching fears within. Reading well along past chapter four of Matthew’s Gospel, one observes how Peter’s initial and unequivocal response to his vocation did not bring him full and immediate understanding of what it was to demand nor how it was to unfold or, really, what it actually entailed. All these were to be discerned, as for the others in Jesus’ first community, by living out the initial response. So much there is to be learned, lived, suffered. But to learn, live and suffer the unfolding of religious vocation after one has indeed dropped one’s nets and said: “Yes!” to Jesus’ “Come!” is a wonderful lifetime process.[/b][/color][/font][/size][/indent]

[indent=1][size=4][font=Times New Roman][color=#0F0B52][b]Our times militate against stability. We have trial “marriages.” There are pressures for “short term” priesthood. Thinking in terms of job commitment rather than lifetime consecration is the popular mode. How can I know how I will feel five years from now? Maybe I will change my mind. My parents are divorced. The Sisters who taught me in school have left religious life. Priests are defecting all around me. Nothing is permanent. And yet, when all is said and done (or moaned) about the instability of our times, the mutableness of human nature, the shifting sands of the present, the splendid fact remains that love of its very nature seeks to say: “Forever!”[/b][/color][/font][/size][/indent]

[indent=1][size=4][font=Times New Roman][color=#0F0B52][b]The nets once dropped at the sound in the heart of Jesus’ “Come!”, we become equipped to say: “Forever!” Perhaps it is because we are sometimes very slow and extremely cautious about dropping our nets, that we deny ourselves the fullness of joy which is to say to Jesus in season and out of season in religious life: “Forever!”[/b][/color][/font][/size][/indent]
[center][img]http://www.poorclaresroswell.com/MMF-Sheaf-and-Heart.gif[/img][/center]

[center][b][font=Times New Roman][color=#0F0B52]© The Community of Poor Clares of New Mexico, Inc.[/color][/font][/b][/center]

Edited August 19, 2012 by emmaberry

[EmilyAnn]

[quote name='emmaberry' timestamp='1345406525' post='2470220']
That is a low amount, at least from the contemplatives I have looked at in the US. Perhaps England is different concerning visits. I have to say though, I SO admire the Elysburg and Valparaiso (sp?) Carmels, because they only allow visits twice a year. That is hardcore, and I don't know if I would be able to do that. I think it really keeps the contemplative separated from the outside world, which is essential to her vocation. As hard as that must be for you and your loved ones, it can only benefit your contemplative vocation.
[/quote]

I think some other communities here have more frequent visits. I remember a while back there was a topic about visits and because I only knew about St. Cecilia's I was amazed at how many visits some communities get. I think my mother will find only having two visits difficult though, at least at first.

[Sr Mary Catharine OP]

[quote name='EmilyAnn' timestamp='1345410357' post='2470247']
I think some other communities here have more frequent visits. I remember a while back there was a topic about visits and because I only knew about St. Cecilia's I was amazed at how many visits some communities get. I think my mother will find only having two visits difficult though, at least at first.
[/quote]

EmilyAnn, I know this sounds hard to believe but very quickly you will see that 1) time goes so fast in the monastery that you will find 2 visits a year just fine. 2) You will prefer that this is how it is because visits really are an "intrusion" on monastic life.

Think of families where the children live far apart. In reality they often only come home for Christmas or in the summer, etc.!
GOd bless you! I think it is great you are entering there.

[emmaberry]

I thought I asked this question on VS, but I might be wrong, what with the search feature down.

At the Roswell Poor Clares, I saw that the nuns had a 'headband' thing that seemed attached to their veil, which was pinned onto the guimp/wimple/tocque/whatever. The headband thing was black like the black veil and came down to the ears over the guimp.

What is this? Are some pinned on veils sewed onto a headband? I found this unusual. Thanks for any help!

[emmaberry]

[quote name='emmaberry' timestamp='1345519730' post='2471060']
I thought I asked this question on VS, but I might be wrong, what with the search feature down.

At the Roswell Poor Clares, I saw that the nuns had a 'headband' thing that seemed attached to their veil, which was pinned onto the guimp/wimple/tocque/whatever. The headband thing was black like the black veil and came down to the ears over the guimp.

What is this? Are some pinned on veils sewed onto a headband? I found this unusual. Thanks for any help!
[/quote]

Here is a picture if that helps:

[img]http://web.inter.nl.net/users/clarissenklooster/images/antgard.jpg[/img]

[Lumiere]

I have noticed that on some, not all, nuns in the videos. I thought it was a mesh insert over the ears.

[emmaberry]

[quote name='Lumiere' timestamp='1345634753' post='2471906']
I have noticed that on some, not all, nuns in the videos. I thought it was a mesh insert over the ears.
[/quote]

Thank you Lumiere! So you don't think it puts pressure on the nun's head? I was thinking more of a hard rubber-type thing, but mesh sounds much more comfortable. I do wonder what its purpose is though?

[Lumiere]

You can see an example more clearly here:
[img]http://eindhoven-in-beeld.nl.s3.amazonaws.com/34648.jpg[/img]

Edited August 23, 2012 by Lumiere

[Lumiere]

It may allow for more air circulation or allow the nun to hear better.

[emmaberry]

[quote name='Lumiere' timestamp='1345689002' post='2472341']
It may allow for more air circulation or allow the nun to hear better.
[/quote]

Ohhh, so it is sewn into the wimple then? I thought it was attached to the veil. So maybe that part of the wimple is cut out and the mesh is inserted, like you said Lumiere, for better air circulation and hearing capability? That makes much more sense! Thank you for all your help.

[emmaberry]

[color=#222222][font='Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif][size=4][background=rgb(255, 255, 255)]

Just found out from a questionable source that the PCCs may not wear a scapular. I will ask the nuns about this on my next visit and let you know the 'official word'. If it is true, it may have to do with the fact that they were founded before Our Lady gave the scapular to St Simon Stock.
[/background][/size][/font][/color]

Edited August 23, 2012 by emmaberry

[Chiara Francesco]

[quote name='emmaberry' timestamp='1345698282' post='2472465']


[color=#222222][size=4][background=rgb(255, 255, 255)]Just found out from a questionable source that the PCCs may not wear a scapular. I will ask the nuns about this on my next visit and let you know the 'official word'. If it is true, it may have to do with the fact that they were founded before Our Lady gave the scapular to St Simon Stock. [/background][/size][/color]

[/quote]

I have known 1-2 to wear the scapular but others don't. I have read several books - bios and studies -(on my favorite Franciscan saint, besides Clare and Francis!) St. Colette of Corbie who reformed the Poor Clares, hence the "Colettines", and who was instructed by God and picked by St. Francis of Assisi to reform his order (friars also - in the beginning they had a Colettine type name, though I forget now exactly what it was, and then didn't use it but they used all of her reformed rule, constitutions, practices etc. as well as the nuns) and in several of these books it says she didn't have the nuns wear the scapular due to their vow and life of Poverty and another reason/explanation which I read and understood then but as it was awhile ago, I can't remember it all now. So you are right there.