Life at The Convent

Life at The Convent by Sister Clare Agnes

Sister Clare Agnes

For the Sisters here our life only makes sense because we believe and know that God has called us into a place where we can serve and love him through a very special relationship with him. It is through this relationship that we can, as it were, tap into his love for the whole human race, and enable it to spread to the most needy in our world through our prayer.

Because prayer and attentiveness to God is at the core of it all, silence is of paramount importance. So when we speak to each other, we try to speak quietly, and we move around the house quietly and do our work quietly. This is what our four women found so difficult, and yet it contained the secret of finding the peace they were looking for. This, I suppose, it the biggest difference between our way of life and that of most other people, but then we are motivated to keep to it. We often fail, but the ideal is always before us.

Apart from that, our life is very simple and ordinary. Our work consists of doing all the ordinary household chores of answering the door bell, cleaning, cooking, washing and gardening. Three sisters are involved in making special clothes that priests wear when celebrating Mass. Others make cards and candles which we sell in our small shop. Others care for our sick and elderly sisters. We run a small guest house where people come for a time of quiet and prayer but we don't have organized retreats.

However, all this work is interspersed with prayer. We go to the chapel seven times a day to praise God through saying and singing the psalms and readings of the Divine Office, the official prayer of the Church. Very important to deepening our relationship with God are the two spaces in the day when we meditate on our own. There is also time set apart for reading and pondering on the Bible, and for reading other spiritual books, so that our minds and hearts are fed. The prayer is really our main work and the reason for our existence at all.

Our life-style is very plain. Hardly any of our floors have carpets. Our clothes last us for a very long time. No worry about what to put on in the morning! Visits to the hairdresser are not necessary because we always wear our veils. Our food is mostly vegetarian and healthy. We have plenty of fruit and vegetables. Our bedrooms, or 'cells' as we call them (nothing to do with prison), have just the bare necessities. All this is because the gift that St Francis and St Clare handed down to us was that of poverty. Our desire for God knocks out our desire to own lots of things. As Jesus was poor, so we like to imitate him.

Just as we have given to God our right to own money and things, so we give him our right to marry or to have an intimate physical relationship with anyone. This can be tough, but again because God draws us like a magnet, it is not impossible. Also, because Jesus spent his life doing what his Father in heaven wanted him to do, so we give to God our free will through our vow of obedience to God through our Abbess, the person elected to lead us, and together with her we try to discern what is God's will for us at all times.

Exterior of the convent

So, you see, our life is very structured - something that is not so necessary for most other people. It may seem dull and boring, but against this structure all sorts of things happen to interrupt the normal routine. We have visits from other Poor Clares from all over the world. Every year we have two retreats, with half the community doing one and the other half the other. There are comings and going between our foundations in Kenya and Hollington. There are the joys and sorrows of sharing in family news. We often say "When is life going to be normal?"!

A final word about Enclosure. This means that apart from what is "useful, reasonable, evident and approved", we don't go out and about. We choose to remain at home, which is for us a 'sacred space' where we meet God in a special way and where we can be with him without interruption. Our families and friends come to visit us, but we do not go to see them unless there is urgent need. We don't go on holiday, but we have 'holidays' at home - i.e. when the normal routine is changed, either for an individual or for the whole community.

Are we happy? I would say yes, because this is what we have freely chosen to do. Anyone who is not happy usually leaves. The real heart of the life is that God enables us to grow spiritually. Through trying to follow the teaching and way of life of Jesus we become free to discover the answer to the question "Who am I, really?" It means coming to a basic honesty about one's selfishness and pride; it involves bringing to God all the hurts and bitterness of the past, going way back into childhood. You have to grow into self esteem because God, who created all things and people good, has made you beautiful. This is a very painful process, as our four women found. They went through in six weeks what takes us years! Their journey was begun here, and we pray that it will continue, as ours does, for the rest of their lives. It is only when we are free like this that God can use us for his purposes.