Our Poor Clare Life

“Lord, my God, I trust in your merciful love. Let my heart rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord who has been bountiful with me. I will sing psalms to the Name of the Lord Most High.”

Psalm 13:6–7

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass…

…is the central point of our day and of our whole spiritual life by which all else is transformed from within and we are “built together into a holy temple in the Lord.” Our whole life pattern takes its form from the sacred liturgy which nurtures the divine life received in Baptism and intensified in our religious consecration. The prayer, work and recreation of the day both flow from and lead toward the offering of the Holy Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours around which our monastic day and year revolve.

The cloistered Poor Clare…

…is destined for the spiritual maternity of countless souls. The more perfect her life of love, the more fruitful is her motherhood of souls, for virginal love partakes of the boundlessness of Christ’s love for souls.

Sisters Who Live in Love

“How many, O Lord my God, are the wonders and designs that you have worked for us, you have no equal.”

Psalm 40:6

That intense form of religious family which is an enclosed community bears a valuable witness to Christ, and is a sign of hope and healing to our torn and fragmented world.
–Our Poor Clare Constitutions

We Cherish Our Religious Habit

We cherish our religious habit as a sign of consecration to God and as one of the most meaningful expressions of our shared life and ideal, reminding us continually of our particular role in the Church, hidden and apart, spouses of Christ and dwelling with him as we await his return in glory.

As Franciscan pilgrims, we walk barefoot as a sign of poverty and lowliness of heart and in witness to the transcendence of God.

A Shared Life

“Give thanks to the Lord, proclaim his name, tell all his wonderful works. Let the hearts that seek the Lord rejoice.”

Psalm 105:1–3

As a family of sisters united in Christ…

…we rejoice in our shared manner of living in all the activities of our community, and as daughters of our Mother St. Clare, we share her regard for the sacredness of the common meal as a profound sign of unity in the spirit, and delight to serve one another as she herself loved to do.

In the convivial silence…

…of our monastic refectory, where our spirits are served with well-selected reading, even as our bodies are refreshed with lovingly prepared food, we experience the deep and intimate bond of community which was forged at the Supper of the Lord.

Work As Grace

“Give praise to the Lord for he is good, his mercy endures forever.”

Psalm 118:1

Our holy founders St. Francis and St. Clare regarded the capacity to work as so special a gift of God that they called it a grace. The work which recreates a nun for more prayer is also the complement of prayer which ennobles and gives significance to her work. Whether she bakes bread or types letters, sweeps the cloisters or cultivates the garden, patches habits or plays the organ, the Poor Clare strives to remain united to God and to our Lord in his life of humble, human labor.

All of her works have meaning…

…insofar as they are expressions of her obedience, the loving sacrifice of her hands or mind, the overflow of her prayers. It is thus that a basket full of weeds pulled up from the cloister garden may shine as gold and curl as incense in the sight of the Lord.

Read about these Poor Clare communities:

Santa Barbara, CA

Belleville, IL

Los Altos Hills, CA

Poor Clare Federation of Mary Immaculate

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