Support the Training of Poor Clare Novices in Mexico
Thursday, February 18, 2010

Project Code: 230-03-79

Assisi, in the year 1212. A young and beautiful woman slips quietly out of the house of her noble-born parents. She is leaving behind her all the safety, the security, wealth and comfort of her former world in order to devote her entire life to poverty, chastity and obedience to her Bridegroom, Jesus Christ. She is burning with the ideals of St. Francis of Assisi, her spiritual guide, companion and brother in the Lord. Chiara Offreduccio di Favarone, as she is called, has left her horrified parents facing a fait accompli. She has her hair cut short, and by this gesture finally manages to convince her family that she has irrevocably chosen this life in radical imitation of Christ. Not that it was unusual, at this time, for a young woman to enter a convent; but as a young noblewoman from a distinguished family she could at least have been expected to choose a life in accordance with her status, in a recognized religious community. To choose such a life, in bitter poverty, was new and unheard of.

Very soon, however, other young women joined her. She herself would later become renowned worldwide as St. Clare of Assisi, the foundress of the Order of the Poor Clares. The Order that she founded had the distinguishing feature that not only the individual nuns themselves renounced all worldly goods but also the community itself was to remain poor and without possessions. Today there are thousands of religious sisters who follow the ideal of St. Clare. They devote themselves above all to Perpetual Adoration before the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

In Mexico, the Capuchin Poor Clares are the contemplative women's order with the most vocations. Young, beautiful and joyful faces smile beneath the veils, and many of their convents are already bursting at the seams. This is despite the fact that Mexico is a country with a deep-grained secular tradition, where politicians have again and again sought to shackle the Church as far as possible and where, as in many other countries of Latin America today – and despite the high number of Catholic believers – there is a determined attempt to eliminate Christian values more and more from society. As a result, the prayers of these contemplative sisters are more than ever necessary.

Father Werenfried van Straaten, the founder of ACN, once wrote of the contemplative life that it was like "pure snow, high in the mountains in the sunshine of God's love. Snow that melts, disappears and is apparently useless. But see! Small rivulets come rushing down, grow broader, merge together to form raging torrents, become waterfalls that drive power stations, machines, factories and entire industries. They conjure up oceans of light and then flow on, turning dry plains into fertile fields, clothing a grey world with trees, plants, corn, flowers, fruit and beauty and then on, bearing laden vessels into distant lands with food and everything else that is needed for a life of human dignity... This is the essence of all contemplative life, of all the silence in the presence of God, of all the attentive listening to God's Word."

We have promised $2,100 to the Capuchin Poor Clares of the South Mexican province for the formation of 10 young novices. Will you give to support them so that their prayer and their life may become a powerful river of grace, of love and of salvation, for Mexico and for the whole world?

Progress: 60% Raised: $ 1250     Goal: $ 2100

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