The End of the Life of a Monastery

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JANUARY/F EBR UA RY 2020 WWW.CD OM .OR G

SPECIAL EDITION

Saying

goodto bye a house

prayer of

THE MONASTERY OF ST. CLARE CLOSES

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A FAITH WEST TENNESSEE SPECIAL EDITION

Saying

goodto bye a house

prayer of

THE MONASTERY OF ST. CLARE CLOSES

STORIES AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY KAREN PULFER FOCHT

KAREN PULFER FOCHT is a Catholic wife, mother and photojournalist

in Memphis. She has spent years covering faith in Memphis, including the Poor Clare Nuns, who she has covered for more than 20 years. You can follow her work and blog at karenpulferfocht.com.

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Concealed

behind tall brick walls and strong iron gates in a struggling Memphis neighborhood, a group of nuns has been quietly praying for the city and its people since 1932.

Few people have been behind these walls of the Monastery of St. Clare. The silent and prayerful lives of the women, who have chosen to live here in community, have remained a mystery and a curiosity to most outsiders.

But a loyal group of friends and followers have supported them in every way you can imagine, only asking for prayer in return.

In a neighborhood that is plagued by crime and residents fighting to climb out of poverty, these women have chosen a life that St. Clare called the “privilege of highest poverty.” The nuns rely on these friends for generosity, food, donations and even occasional help around the monastery.

They have been called to a life of prayer and silence; to live in community and in radical poverty. They have chosen to live by the Rule of St. Clare (1194-1253), a set of guidelines of poverty and piety, based on how she lived during the Middle Ages in Assisi, Italy. She was the first woman to write a set of guidelines for a religious community. It was a bold gesture, since all religious group rules in her day were determined by men.

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The last three people living in the Memphis monastery had one final Mass together shortly before the nuns pulled away once and for all. Father David Knight is at center, Sister Mary Marguerite is at right and Sister Claudia is at left. The three have lived in the monastery most of their adult lives. Their numbers have dwindled down to four sisters. In May of 2018, the Vatican issued guidelines that all contemplative communities should have at least seven members. The monastery will be closed at the end of 2019. The nuns have relocated to other monasteries.

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h The nuns are keenly aware of the violence and despair in the neighborhood just outside the tall monastery walls for so many years. “We stop and pray each time we hear gun shots,” says Sister Marguerite. More than once there has been an intruder lurking in their halls in the dark of the night. Fortunately, they were never harmed.

On the feast of St. Clare, in August of 2019, the sisters were applauded for all the fruits of their prayer, during their final St. Clare public celebration for the Catholics of Memphis.

The Church had ordered that the monastery be shuttered.

In May 2018, the Vatican issued guidelines that all contemplative communities should have at least seven members. The Monastery of St. Clare – the last contemplative monastery in Tennessee – had dwindled to four.

They have sought out ways to continue their vocations. They reached out to other Poor Clare communities around the country and found others to join. There are about 20,000 Poor Clares worldwide.

“In these past 87 years, the community began to dwindle,” explained Father Albert Haase during that Mass. He shared their process of discernment with the worshipers in attendance. They prayed and asked, “What does God want from us now?”

Each of them came to realize that their mission here is complete, he says. “But their vocation goes on.”

Choked up, finding it difficult to get out the words that she had planned to share, Sister Marguerite says, “We are leaving, but we will continue to pray for you and you will always be in our hearts.”

As she looked into the faces of the husbands, wives, children and elderly that she had spent a lifetime praying for, she was unable to say more.

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They prayed and asked, “What does God want from us

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By September of 1999, the sisters were down to seven Poor Clares. They believe that as a community they have a strength and a power that no one would have individually. They

now?”

lived as a community by the Rule of St. Clare.

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The death of Abbess Sister Helen in October 2005 caught the nuns by surprise. Sister Marguerite grieves by Helen’s tomb, which is beneath the monastery. All the nuns who’ve lived in the monastery and passed are buried in the crypt. “She was not just a fellow sister, she was my best friend,” she explains. “I know she is with the Lord, but I miss her very much.”

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The Poor Clares of Memphis were blessed with more than 100 relics. A relic usually consists of actual physical remains of a saint or a piece of their personal belongings. These are handed down from Rome, from monastery to monastery, from church to church. This past August, the visiting sisters handled the carefully ordered relics with care, matching the relic with the official authentication papers from Rome. Some of the relics date to the first century.

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So for the last several months, they have been packing up the monastery. A sewing room filled with shelves of brown and black material for veils and habits was cleared out. Cabinets filled with candles and other materials used in the liturgy were cleaned and given away. Statues of saints were taken down from their pedestals. Many of the items will be used in other churches in the region.

Other sisters came in small numbers from their respective new communities to help the aging four Memphis sisters with the daunting task of unraveling more than 85 years of religious life in a monastery that was originally built for many more. At its peak, the monastery housed 30 holy women.

One of the critical duties was taking inventory of the relics. The Poor Clares of Memphis were blessed with more than 100 relics. A relic usually consists of actual physical remains of a saint or a piece of their personal belongings. These are handed down

from Rome, from monastery to monastery, from church to church. The visiting sisters handled the carefully ordered relics with care, matching the relic with the official authentication papers from Rome.

Some of the relics date back to the first century.

These relics are often exposed and venerated by the faithful on feast days. Included in this huge number of relic riches, they handled relics labeled: part of “the veil of the Blessed Virgin Mary”; “a piece of the habit of St. Francis of Assisi” and “the ash of St. Francis and St. Clare,” which was placed together in a reliquary.

Their collection of Church treasures continues, including relics from St. Peter, Catherine of Siena and the Poor Clare founder in America, Mother Mary Magdalene. There were also splinters carefully filed away and labeled as being from the original cross of Jesus, according to tradition and authenticated by the Vatican.

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Women who enter the Poor Clares take vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and enclosure. The nuns rarely leave the monastery.

The cloistered life calls for a physical separation from the world.

Visitors are greeted by a nun behind a grate at their entry. As older nuns pass, the order’s ranks are dwindling as few young people are feeling called to their cloistered life.

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“Fill our

hearts with your grace, Lord.”

h Bishop Alphonsus Joseph Smith brought many of the relics to the monastery from Rome. Smith invited the Poor Clares to Memphis in the early 1930s. He said when he became a bishop, he wanted the Poor Clares here to pray for the priests.

The relics will go to the diocese and other churches that express interest.

As the day approached for Sister Anthony to leave, she answered the door with tears in her eyes, saying, “This is really hard for me, it is a very emotional time.” She was looking forward to joining her new sisters, but that didn’t make her last hours and last good byes any easier.

Sister Anthony grew up here and has deep roots in Memphis. She is one of the Memphis Irish Travelers. She is the youngest sister and was the last nun to join the Memphis order back in the late 1980s.

On her last day, friends came for a pizza lunch.

Danny Robinson, 82, hobbled in on his cane; he’s been coming to the monastery since he was a teen.

He cherished his last moments with the nuns as the nuns from Ohio and Memphis all sang a prayer over him just inside the cloister. Then he and John Lichterman said goodbye. Sister Anthony leaned into Lichterman. He held her and hugged her.

Before lunch, Sister Anthony said her last Hail Mary with the last two nuns she has lived with for more than 30 years. Sister Claudia prays, “Fill our hearts with your grace, Lord.”

These women had chosen a cloistered life, but their days have been full of visitors, phone calls and emails from people asking for prayers from around the world. They chose a life of poverty, yet their lives have been filled with abundance.

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The Poor Clare Nuns held the last public feast of St. Clare Mass on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2019, at the Monastery of St. Clare in Memphis. The nuns left the building that has housed their order since 1932 in the Frayser neighborhood of Memphis. Their numbers had dwindled down to four sisters. The monastery closed in the last days of 2019.

h During lunch, the nuns talked about some of the prayer requests they have gotten. There are often two sides to a prayer request, they say.

Parents call asking for prayers for their son who is playing football, and a win for the team – then someone from the opposing team calls asking the same. They have gotten calls from opposing sides in war-torn countries asking for victory, too. Sister Marguerite says that her prayer for them often becomes, “Lord, you know what is best!”

They also discovered that the nuns from Memphis and the nuns from Ohio were all praying for the same man in Nigeria. Sister Claudia adds, “I once got a call from a Jewish man. He said, ‘I am not asking you to pray for my conversion, only my intention.’”

The next day, Sister Anthony departed and then they were two.

On that Sunday before leaving, Sister Marguerite and Sister Claudia, both in their 70s, take Communion, sing, pray and listen to the word of God at the monastery’s last Mass. Also attending were the faithful, who have worshipped in the public chapel each week, many since they were children.

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Sister Anthony prays in solitude in the afternoon following her kitchen duties. She says she loves to spend time with God, and that she thanks Him each day for being with her. She frequently answers the phones and door and often takes in the prayer requests from the public. She says she loves to pray for people who have no one to pray for them. (Note: The picture on the wall at right is of Bishop Alphonsus Joseph Smith, who asked the Poor Clares to establish in Memphis.)

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In 2005, the oldest nun in the monastery, Sister Mary Regina, 85, (center), was bedridden and cared for by Sister Claudia (left). Sister John, (right) has been a Poor Clare more than 70 years.

h Father David Knight, 88, the oldest priest in the diocese, was the celebrant of the Mass. He has also called the monastery home for the majority of 45 years. Many of the worshipers cried, as did the nuns, knowing that they’d likely never see each other again. They all had reached the end of this monastery’s life, together.

Father Knight speaks softly from the altar, “This is a holy place, that has been full of many holy women who have lived here,” he says. “All of you have contributed to the life of this monastery.

Many of you grew up here. Thank you for loving these sisters so much.”

He continues, “We need to hold onto and treasure the faith that we have. It’s worth preserving the work of these nuns and the Catholic Church.

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“The sisters came here to pray for the priests, because they needed it.” Father Knight adds.

“Inadequate priests have been with the Church from the beginning and we will have them until the end of the world” He prays for all who have participated in the life of the monastery: “Lord, we ask you to transform our hearts, so that through us, you may transform the world.”

A young boy, Connor Dwyer, moves between the nuns and hugs them over and over again. He walks out with tears in his eyes, saying, “I am going to really miss you.”

Laura Grisham, crying, holds the hand of Sister Claudia and says, “ I have no words.”

In the spring of 2003, Sister Mary Regina leaves a tiny chapel on the grounds of the monastery. She felt called to be a nun at the age of 10. She became a nun at 18, and lived the cloistered life and by the Rule of St. Clare at the monastery in Memphis, Tenn., for more than 40 years until she passed away.

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Aging Sister Mary Marguerite (left) joins visiting Poor Clare sisters for lunch at the St. Clare Monastery in Memphis, Tenn. The sisters came to help the Poor Clares in Memphis close up the monastery.

There are about 20,000 Poor Clares worldwide.

“A bond is very quickly

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when you pray

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Many tearful good byes were said in their last days at the monastery.

Sister Claudia, who has been living at the monastery for more than 50 years, is at left, while Sister Mary Marguerite is at right.

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for people.”

With just a few days left, the sisters packed their belongings and said good bye to this endless stream of visitors.

This is the hardest part for Sister Marguerite. People often tell the Poor Clares their most intimate secrets and problems. “A bond is very quickly established when you pray for people” she says.

She is a bit nervous about this major transition and about learning a new way. “We follow the same way of life, but each house expresses it in its unique way” she says. She says she decided to drive to South Carolina, instead of fly, because that will make her transition easier.

On the day Sister Marguerite and Sister Claudia leave, Father Knight has a tiny Mass at a table in the guest quarters. A handful of people are present. The nuns are in travel clothes instead of their habits. Their chapel has been emptied; the tabernacle has been removed.

Father Knight gives a brief homily, “Jesus is everywhere, you are going from a holy place to a holy place.

“Everything is changing here, you are leaving this house, this town, these people, but you will still be leading a Poor Clare life,” Father Knight says, “This is a type of death, but God is with us all the time He is with us where ever we go.” He reminds them, “Our happiness is not dependent on anything on this earth.”

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This past August, visiting Poor Clare nuns took a careful inventory of the relics, which were eventually put in the care of the Diocese of Memphis. Each August, the sisters would invite the public in to venerate the relic of St. Clare during a special Mass they held on her feast day.

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(Photo taken in 2011) Father David Knight, a retired Memphis priest, spends most of his days writing from a simple room adjacent to the Monastery of St. Clare in Frayser. He has always been a prolific writer. Knight has written more than 30 popular and practical books on spirituality and the Catholic Church. He was the last one to leave the monastery at the end of 2019, at the age of 87.

h “We have to keep on this journey wherever it leads us,” Sister Claudia says.

Before they pull away on a rainy, gray November morning, Father Knight gives them one last blessing through the car window.

By Thanksgiving week, Father David Knight is the last person left in the building. Knight is a prolific author who has written more than 40 books. He has just days to wrap up the four decades he has been in this monastery before he has to leave, too.

As he purges a lifetime of homily notes and spiritual writings, he reflects to himself, “Has this been a good use of my time? Have I used the life I have been given, the gifts I have been given, to bear the fruit of God?” He says he looks back at many of the burning questions he had as a young man. Over time, he has learned many of the answers.

As hard as it’s been to get used to the idea of leaving the two tiny rooms that he has called home for so long, he has a deep understanding and belief that God is in the hearts of the people and not in this old building.

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Silence is really a gift …

one learns how to

listen to God SISTER JOHN’S LIFE AS A POOR CLARE

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Sister John of the Poor Clares lived out her vocation as a cloistered nun until she passed away at age 93, after spending most of her life at the Monastery of St. Clare in Memphis, Tenn.

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efore she died at age 93 in 2017, Sister John spoke of how life as a Poor Clare had changed in the 70 years she lived in the

monastery and about her calling to be a nun.

Sister John walks into the chapel in the monastery.

When Sister John joined the Poor Clares on Dellwood, they slept on a mixture of hay and corncobs and only once a year would it be refilled. “It was a great day,” she laughed as she remembered her early years as a nun. Every room was called a cell and each cell had no electricity. She wore handmade cloth shoes in the winter with no stockings, and they went barefoot in the summer.

She entered in 1945. As a child, she lived near a monastery. She went by the monastery often. “I can’t explain a vocation to you,” she said. “There was something there that drew you, you have this calling, this desire and you can’t get rid of it.

“I prayed about it, I thought about it,” she said. Her mother had cancer. “I told God, I can’t go to be a nun until Mom dies.” Both of her parents died within a short time.

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In 2005, Sister John, prays her Rosary in the chapel. As a young girl, she felt called to the cloistered life, saying that she just couldn’t leave the idea of being a nun alone.

h She remembers going out to the monastery near her home to get information. “Praise be Jesus and Mary, what can I do for you?” said Sister Theresa. “Do you know it was so strange?” recalled Sister John. “I want to enter” she said.

Sister Theresa replied, “What do you want to be?” Sister John (then just Rita), said, “I want to be cloistered.” Sister Theresa said, “Now go down to the second parlor and the reverend mother will come see you.”

Sister John remembers sitting there and there was a great big picture of the devil casting everybody into hell. The grate was covered and the curtain got pulled back and there was Mother Stella. “That woman was a saint” Sister John said.

“Then we talked a bit and she sent me home. I thought, how am I going to tell my grandmother what I did?”

That was before the changes of Vatican II. Those days were tougher. She remembers how they prayed in Latin and said the litany of saints in the middle of the night. It would be really cold, as they did not run the furnace and sometimes it was really hard to get back to sleep. “This was poverty,” she said, but the Poor Clare houses were loaded with women. They would get up at daybreak and start on chores. Her days were filled with hours in the chapel, choir, prayers and meditation. They made altar breads.

They fasted and she did not eat meat until the 1970s. One of the hardest things for her to learn was to be obedient, she admitted. She learned to never question anything.

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This chapel once flourished with many vocations filling the prayer stalls in the early part of the 20th century, when the St. Clare Monastery was built. Over time, the sisters’ ranks dwindled and the monastery closed at the end of 2019..

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“I lived with some very holy nuns. It’s a wonderful vocation.”

In 2012, Sister Anthony celebrated 25 years as a nun. The number of Poor Clare nuns in Memphis has dwindled. They are a community of Catholic women who have chosen to embrace the way of life proposed by a young Italian girl in Assisi more than 800 years ago.

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In 2003, Sister Mary Regina, at age 82, looks outside from her bedroom window. She had been a nun since she was a teen. A vow of poverty is part of being a Poor Clare nun. The nun had few belongings and was content in one room of the monastery. Sister Mary Regina prayed up to seven hours a day. She preferred to spend most of her day in silence.

h Her days were spent in complete silence. She speaks softly as she conveys the teaching “the point is that the silence brings about that stillness, silence is really a gift that one learns how to listen to God. You may not get it for years and years. It is an effort that one has to make to really communicate with Jesus. It’s that relationship that the contemplative is called to.” She goes on with a joyful bliss in her voice, “It’s a process of inner purification.”

She went on to explain how the Rule of St. Clare urges one to seek God. “As a Poor Clare, to grow in God you have to become a person that is open to the sufferings and concerns of the people out there. Life goes on, if you are going to be helpful to the Church, now you are to pray for the Church and the world.

That is the mission of the Poor Clares. If you don’t have a vocation to this life, you’d be miserable.

“We laugh about the old days and that. They were good, I don’t regret it, they were precious, and they had their own jewels. I lived with some very holy nuns. It’s a wonderful vocation,” she said.

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A guest takes Communion during a Mass at the monastery. Taking Communion together, the celebration of the Eucharist, was central to life inside the monastery.

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Father David knight says a blessing over Sister Claudia and Sister Mary Marguerite before they started their journey to Travelers Rest, S.C., where the sisters are joining another Poor Clare community. Father Knight said Mass for the sisters in their private chapel most mornings.

h About her prayer time, she said, “I pray for the homeless everyday and the people who don’t have any work, and the people that are persecuted for their faith. And the children! Oh God, you think about the kids living in our city getting abused. I am living in here but the world outside is so sick, and yet there are still some beautiful things.

Deep down there is so much goodness in everybody.

“God provides every day,” she said. “Just think since 1212! Clare said we would depend on God, that is part of the poverty. We live on the providence of God, and God provides in ways that would blow your mind.”

However, she sees that the culture is changing, especially for women. “When I entered, we didn’t have that many opportunities for career,” she said. “I went to parties, I had a boyfriend, I thought about being a doctor.

Today, women can even run for president! We have really advanced! It shows women have potential.

“I believe that there are still vocations today, but people need to listen,” she said. “With all the modern technology today it is hard for young people to have that ability.

“After 70 years as a nun, I don’t know how to explain, I guess I’ve grown into the life. It isn’t the hard things that you remember. You remember the good things.

These were all helps somehow to find God. You couldn’t see it then. The joy of the vocation and that God is so close. There is a certain inner joy that you can’t put stuff like this into words. It is just there. But it wasn’t there 70 years ago, there was all these inner growings.”

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There are moments of great consolation and there are moments of great peace and inner joy;

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A moving van showed up to the monastery in mid-November 2019 to move a few of the items the nuns were taking with them to the Monastery of St. Clare in Travelers Rest, S.C., where two of them were moving.

They left behind about 90 percent of the items in the monastery, much of which was repurposed or donated away.

h She said she is glad the changes in the Church came: “It opened up to the beauty of what our vocation is all about.”

Sister John had a very long life, most of which she spent gazing, meditating and contemplating God. “Its personal,” she said. “If God wishes to grant you that certain something, then God grants it to you. There are moments of great consolation and there are moments of great peace and inner joy; this great love. It’s amazing, isn’t it? He gives it to us. He wants us to know that He is with us. It’s this that gives us the increase in faith to really accept what comes no matter what vocation we got.

Life is just wonderful.”

She added, “He wants us to be like children, who are always full of wonder. That is what God is asking us to do, to look and appreciate the wonders that he has given us. We are all wanting God, I really believe that.”

Sister John died on July 7, 2017, at age 93.

this great love.

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The last four Poor Clares in Memphis, left the city in twos. Sister Anthony left to join the Poor Clares in Cincinnati, as had Sister Alma months earlier. Sister Marguerite and Sister Claudia went to live with the Poor Clares at the Travellers Rest, S.C.

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The witness of St. Clare:

LIFE OF VIRTUE

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Still alive in Memphis n this issue, we are celebrating the presence and ministry of the Poor Clares in Memphis for more than 80 years, and we

are expressing our gratitude for the great work they have done. For decades, the Poor Clares have lived in poverty and prayed for the city of Memphis and its people. Surely their prayers and witness have brought untold graces upon the people of West Tennessee throughout that time.

As a way of celebrating and expressing gratitude, it is appropriate to take a quick look at the life and teaching of their foundress, St. Clare of Assisi.

St. Clare was a close friend of Il Poverello (“the little poor one”), St. Francis of Assisi. She admired Francis’ zeal and his commitment to the Gospel, and she wanted to form a community of cloistered nuns to support his charism and mission. So, the Poor Clares were born in the Middle Ages in Italy, and they spread quickly throughout the Western Church.

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The spread of the Poor Clares happened specifically because of Clare’s devotion to Jesus and the Church, which her new sisters shared. This devotion came through in everything that Clare wrote and taught. For example, she wrote a series of letters to a noblewoman, a lay woman in Prague.

In the final letter, she wrote: “Happy, indeed, is the one permitted to share in this sacred banquet so as to be joined with all the feelings of her heart (to Christ) whose beauty all the blessed hosts of the Heavens unceasingly admire, whose affection moves, whose contemplation invigorates, whose generosity fills, whose sweetness replenishes, whose remembrance pleasantly brings light, whose fragrance will revive the dead, and whose glorious vision will bless all the citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, because the vision of him is the splendor of everlasting glory, the radiance of everlasting light, and a mirror without tarnish. Look into this mirror every day …”

(Fourth Letter to Blessed Agnes of Prague)

Poor Clare nuns (right) came to drive Sister Anthony (center) from Memphis to Ohio when her time came to leave the St. Clare

The Magazine of the Catholic Diocese of Memphis

Monastery.

The Catholic Diocese of Memphis PUBLISHER

Amy Hall EDITOR

Lorena Monge

Their generosity and their loving spirit will be remembered in our city and diocese for a long time to come!

In her words, we see a great devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist, and we come to know more about the graces of Jesus Christ and how they are effective in our lives. Contemplating Him invigorates us. The affections of His heart move us. His generosity fills us. His sweet fragrance revives even those who are dead (physically AND spiritually). His sweetness replenishes us when we are depleted. Light comes into our lives by remembering Him. He is the mirror without tarnish, the splendor of everlasting glory and the Light that provides all the radiance we might ever need! St. Clare, like St. James in the New Testament, reminds us that we should take the opportunity to look into that mirror every day. (Jas 1:25) The Catholic Church has been blessed by the ministry and intercession of St. Clare for eight centuries now. In America, our flagship Catholic television station (EWTN) was founded by a Poor Clare. Closer to home, the city and Diocese of Memphis have been blessed by the presence of the Poor Clares for nearly a century. Indeed, they have taught us by their example how to gaze into the Mirror that provides splendor and light to our lives.

And they taught us how to be devoted to Jesus in the Eucharist as they made altar breads for parishes and churches throughout West Tennessee.

Their generosity and their loving spirit will be remembered in our city and diocese for a long time to come! We must make every effort to extend this witness by our own devotion to Jesus and St. Clare’s example. St. Clare, pray for them and for us!

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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 VOLUME 6: ISSUE 3

Janna Stellwag GRAPHIC DESIGNER

InnerWorkings PRINT MANAGEMENT

Karen Pulfer Focht CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

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SPECIAL EDITION

The Poor Clare Nuns held the last public feast of St. Clare Mass on Sunday, Aug, 11, 2019, at the Monastery of St. Clare in Memphis. Many holy women have lived behind the walls

of this monastery. The nuns left the building that has housed their order for more than 85 years.