Poor Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Mercy

300 North 60th Street, Belleville, Illinois U.S.A. 62223-3927

Eucharistic Amazement (Summer 2022)

- After participating in Drive-Up Adoration in our monastery parking lot for the past two years, our friends rejoiced when we were able to safely resume our regular schedule of Solemn
  Exposition in our Chapel this past April.
  
  See our Mass and Adoration schedule
- Intensifying Our
  Eucharistic Amazement
  
  As we unite in prayer for the spiritual fruitfulness of the
  EUCHARISTIC REVIVAL
  organized by our nation’s Bishops, we are newly aware of the centrality of the Blessed Sacrament in our own Clarian spirituality and are striving as a community to deepen our gratitude for such a gift!
- We have also returned to our regular Sunday afternoon schedule, inviting the faithful to join us once again in the public Chapel for Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. How grateful we are to our permanent deacons who offer their faithful services to our monastic community!
- This summer, we have been discussing ways that we can deepen our own Eucharistic devotion. Mother has also begun a new series of spiritual reflections at our weekly chapters, offering us a verse-by-verse commentary on one of our favorite Eucharistic hymns: Adoro te devote.
- The Eucharist is the Sacrament
  of the Bridegroom and the Bride.
  Before a Sister’s profession anniversary, she customarily enjoys three days of private retreat. Our junior Sisters renewed their holy vows in May, and our novice is looking forward to her own bridal retreat before she makes her first profession later this year.
- Our Eucharist-centered spirituality leads naturally to our prayerful intercession for priests. Our dear Bishop, Most Rev. Michael McGovern (pictured above) offers our conventual Mass once or twice a month as his busy schedule allows. In early June, we rejoiced when our Diocese’s newly ordained priest offered one of his first Masses at our monastery.
- Clare’s whole life was a Eucharist!
  (St. John Paul II)
  Our Mother St. Clare truly centered her life on JESUS in the Blessed Sacrament. Her Eucharistic spirituality will be the focus of our Solemn Novena in her honor this year. As we invite our friends to join us in prayer, we are already asking her intercession for the Eucharistic Revival.


“We shall gratefully acknowledge our sacred heritage from St. Francis and St. Clare of outstanding devotedness to the Holy Eucharist by focusing our lives on the tabernacle….” (Constitutions, Art. 25) As daughters of Sts. Francis and Clare, we always prostrate when entering before the Eucharistic Presence of Our Lord and pray the prayer that our Seraphic Father taught his first followers: We adore You, O most holy Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all Your churches which are in the whole world, and we bless You, because by Your holy Cross You have redeemed the world.