In the example of  St.  Clare . . .

The Poor Clare Nuns

St. Louis, Missouri

When St. Francis of Assisi began his new form of religious life in the 13th century, his first woman follower was a beautiful young noblewoman named Clare. She embraced his ideal of Gospel living in most high poverty and became the first woman to write a religious rule, based on St. Francis's rule for his brothers.

While the brothers went out to preach the Gospel, St. Clare and her sisters lived the Franciscan ideal in the silence of the cloister, offering their prayers and sacrifices for the needs of the Church.

Today the Poor Clares still follow the example of St. Clare in devoted loyalty to the Church and to the Holy Father, living a life of prayer and worship, and a community life of sisterly love, simplicity, poverty and joyful penance. They wear a full-length brown/grey habit girded with a cord, white head coverings and a black veil. Their daily prayer comprises Holy Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office), periods of silent prayer, the rosary and other traditional devotions.

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is one of the focal points of the life of the nuns. In addition to the many times when all the sisters gather in the chapel for the liturgy, each sister spends a period of time kneeling in silent adoration of her Beloved in the tabernacle.

Though our community here in Oakville, a suburb of St. Louis, is fairly small, we know that each moment of the day, whether it is spent in prayer, or cooking, or making altar breads, or cleaning, or just enjoying one another's company at recreation, is touching the lives of countless millions of people who need the grace of God at that very moment.

Radiating from the Poor Clare's prayer life is a love which seeks to prove this love through sacrifice. By solemnly vowing to live in chastity, without possessions, in obedience and in enclosure, a Poor Clare commits herself to a life of penance and complete self-giving. Thus through constant prayer and ready penance she gives herself to God alone.

The sacrifices necessary to be faithful to her daily duties include observing the Lenten fast all through the year, never eating meat, silence, and observing papal enclosure. For the Poor Clare, these and all of her penances are "love tokens" to be offered to God for His glory and for the needs of His children.

Any Catholic woman between the ages of 18 and 30 having at least a high-school education and some work experience with good physical and psychological health and a desire to serve the Church in the hidden apostolate of prayer and penance may obtain more information from:

Mother Abbess
Monastery of St. Clare
200 Marycrest Drive
St. Louis, MO 63129