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Living as Pilgrims (Summer 2025)
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LIVING AS PILGRIMS
IN THE CLOISTER
Pilgrimage is one of the essential aspects of a Jubilee Year, and we are honored to have our monastery chapel designated as one of the sacred sites for pilgrimage within the Diocese of Belleville for the Jubilee Year 2025.BUT our Holy Mother Clare exhorts us in our Holy Rule to
liVe ALWAYS AS PILGRIMS.
How do we do that as cloistered Poor Clare Nuns?
Here are a few ways...
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1. WE LIVE AS PILGRIMS BY TRAVELING LIGHT
Holy poverty is one of the hallmarks of our Franciscan charism, and we strongly desire that the same simplicity which our holy founders cherished will be evident everywhere in our lives today. Our Constitutions remind us that we are to help one another in community to keep our needs few, our holdings small and our lives uncluttered (53.2).
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2. WE LIVE AS PILGRIMS BY REMAINING FOCUSED ON OUR SACRED DESTINATION.
Our lives as Poor Clares are oriented toward one goal – HEAVEN! And, we wish to bring everyone in the world along with us to that most sacred destination: through our enclosed contemplative life, we are called to give clear witness that man belongs entirely to God, and so keep green among the human family the desire for a heavenly home. (Constitutions 20.1)
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3. WE LIVE AS PILGRIMS
BY TRAVELING TOGETHER
On our Poor Clare pilgrimage of faith, we are not alone. Having the support of Sisters in community is a great gift as we strive to be a constant encouragement to one another in love, peace and joyousness (Constitutions 95.2).
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4. WE LIVE AS PILGRIMS BY RELYING ON GOD'S PROVIDENCE.
Our Holy Father Francis and Holy Mother Clare wished us to put aside undue solicitude and to depend on the care of our heavenly Father (Constitutions 60.1). We experience that loving and tender care on a daily basis, seeing God’s marvelous hand at work in the details of daily life and through the goodness of our friends and benefactors.
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5. WE LIVE AS PILGRIMS
BY ENLARGING OUR HEARTS
TO HOLD THE WHOLE WORLD
While pilgrims often set out with a personal prayer intention in their hearts, they always gather more along the way, praying for those they meet on their journey and for all who help them reach their sacred destination. We, too, are called to have hearts for the world, becoming spiritual mothers to all mankind and gathering everyone’s needs into the embrace of sacrificial love (cf. Constitutions 16.2)
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It is this desire to embrace the entire world that drew several of our Sisters to an enclosed contemplative vocation:“As a teacher, I could only reach 25 or 30 students at a time.
But as a contemplative, I could reach the whole world through prayer.”
“I realized that in an active apostolate, there was only so much I could do to help others.
It’s not words that change people’s hearts; it’s grace that changes hearts.
And the only way to bring grace to people is through prayer."
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The vocational journey of one of our eldest Sisters was a true pilgrimage which took her from Canada to Chad to the United States, from serving the poor and the lepers as a missionary nurse to offering her whole life for the mission of the Church as a cloistered Poor Clare.
I grew up in Québec, Canada, and was the eleventh of the twelve children in my family. One of my older sisters became a Poor Clare Nun when I was still very young. Then, another of my older sisters joined a secular institute and served in Haiti as a missionary. When I was finishing my schooling, some members of her secular institute invited me to come to Montréal and see what kind of work they did. I liked it very much and decided to become a member, too.
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Then, I went to train as a nurse, because I wanted very much to go to the missions. Actually, I wanted to go to the Great North to work among the native people there, but God had another plan for me.
Instead, I spent twenty-five years as a missionary in Chad, one of the poorest countries in Africa. There, I ran a small clinic for the rural poor, caring for the sick, helping mothers when they had their babies, tending the needs of lepers and even nursing the victims of the civil wars that took place during my years there.
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When I returned to Canada after twenty-five years in Chad, I desired to know what our Lord wished me to do next. So, I attended an Ignatian retreat. There, I met with the priest/director who did not even know me. I was surprised when Father said, with no preamble, “You have served God as Martha, and now you will be Mary, sitting at His feet.”
I wrote to my older sister who was already a Poor Clare, telling her what the priest had said and sharing about my growing attraction to the contemplative life. She wrote back saying, “Come and see if this is God’s call to you.”
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I came, and I saw that it was God's call. And over the years, I have come to see more clearly how He has made the whole world my mission field!
Our Sister today as she continues to inspire the young members of our community with her missionary zeal.
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