Poor Clare Nuns of Los Altos Hills
About the Poor Clares | Horarium |
Vocation photo pilgrimage of our Sister Therese
This Poor Clare Monastery was founded in 1950 and is dedicated to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary. Our Order is an institute of the contemplative life ordained
in a special way for the praise and worship of God. Thus, our main work
is prayer. We pray the Divine Office six times a day and once in the middle
of the night. Our life is meant to give witness to Christ praying on the
mountain and to share in the most universal way the hardships, miseries,
and hopes of all mankind.
When we first came to Los Altos Hills, it was not the affluent
area it now is, but we find our life of poverty and simplicity gives a vibrant
witness to those who live around us of what life on earth is all about --
a preparation for eternity. We depend completely upon the alms of the faithful
for our livelihood yet work with our own hands making spiritual bouquet cards,
keeping our small gift shop supplied, making the burial habits for the Third
Order Franciscans and other such works, as well as maintaining our grounds
and caring for the monastery and the needs of our sisters.
We strive to live in continual and joyful penance, imitating Christ's
emptying of Himself and making more evident our love of God and neighbor.
Questions and Answers: A Penny Catechism of the Poor Clare Life
Q. Who created Poor Clares?
A. Our Mother Saint Clare answered this question when she exclaimed, "Be praised, my Lord, for having created me."
Q. Why did God create Poor Clares?
A. We like Our Holy Father's answer, as he expressed it in his letter
to the Order for the eighth century of the birth of our Seraphic Mother;
that our vocation is to follow, with "a passionate love, . . .the Poor and
Crucified Christ."
Q. Why do you dress alike?
A. Mostly, we suppose, because we think alike, at least on all vital
and crucial matters such as the wearing of a distinctive religious garb.
In other matters not of principle, the nuns show forth the widest possible
diversity of opinion, as is frequently revealed at recreation. This essential
unity of thought and purpose must be part of the Clare-charism, for our religious
habit has changed very little since our Mother Saint Clare first received
it back in the year 1212.
Q. Why do you speak through a screen in the parlor?
A. Because of our vow of enclosure, which of its nature seeks to
express its reality in signs. And this also explains the low brick walls
and ivy-covered fencing which surround our property. That is, we are perfectly
content to remain on our monastery grounds for the love of God because, as
our loved Mother Mary Francis has written, "God is enough, and everything
else is not enough."
Q. Why do you sing so much Gregorian Chant?
A. Primarily, because the Church has long asked and reiterated in
Vatican Council II's document, that it have "pride of place" in our monastic
liturgy, and we feel that the flowing melodies and Scriptural texts of the
chant give the finest expression of our life of prayer and union with God.
Q. Since St. Clare is patroness of television, why don't you have one?
A. Or, we are sometimes asked, at least a video? The main reason
is that we feel they aren't compatible, with our life of silence, simplicity,
and poverty. Electronics like these seems a superfluity which we can well
do without. Father Herbert Schneider, O.F.M., captures the spirit of our
monastic silence in his newly-published Commentary on our Constitutions when
he says, "The essence of silence is acutally to go on a spiritual pilgrimage.
. .Talkativeness readily establishes and roots us in this world, but silence
makes of us pilgrims. Silence helps us to walk, first of all, on spiritual,
interior paths.
Q. Why do you get up in the middle of the night?
A. Once again, we turn to Father Herbert's Commentary for an explanation at once succint and profound: "The
Office of Readings during the night bears a mystical relationship to the
nighttime Nativity of the lord and also to His Resurrection in the latter
part of the night, which marked the beginning of a new daybreak for all mankind."
Q. What do you do all day?
A. A tiny volume like this is, really, rather inadequate for listing
even a highly-condensed answer to this frequently-asked question. Suffice
it to say that we find a life of prayer and penance for everyone in the world,
the maintenance of our monastery and grounds for our growing community, and
striving to keep pace with the "God of surprises," amount to more than a
full-time, and highly satisfying, vocation, indeed!
Q. Why are you so happy?
A. "Because Our Lady of Guadalupe is your Mother," Father Thai Trinh,
O.F.M., would answer, and we would agree. And besides, is not happiness
the reward promised to the little poor ones of the Gospel? "Blessed are
the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven."
The truth of the matter is, that we have indeed found happiness
in the cloister, and this truth keeps drawing vibrant young women to enter.
Why is that? Well, we suppose it has everything to do with Who made us,
and why; and that takes us back to the beginning. Yes - God made us, and
for Himself; and we can imagine no greater happiness and fulfillment on earth
than to be living in ever-growing union with Him. Perhaps these words of
Pope Paul VI can best answer this question:
God is everything for us.
God is life. God is power.
God is truth. God is goodness
God is beauty. And, in the end,
God is our happiness.
ALLELUIA!