Zuster Angela Maria
First Profession, 8 September, 2007
On September 8 the Poor Clares of Eindhoven celebrated a great day of grace and joy as our Zuster Angela Maria professed her temporary vows during a solemn Mass concelebrated by four priests of the diocese. Born and raised in Eindhoven, Aneke joined our monastic family at a young age. After a year of postulancy and two years as a white-veiled novice, her one desire was to respond to God's invitation and embrace the Poor Christ through the sacred vows of obedience, poverty, chastity and enclosure. Her joy is mirrored on her sister's face: Two years after Aneke entered the monastery, Marijke followed her twin sister. Marijke will receive the holy habit and her new name on 24 September. Miriam, the third sister in this family of five children, made the trip from Rome to attend her sister's profession of religious vows. Miriam joined the Congregation of the Incarnate Word six months ago and looks forward to her own clothing in December.
"A Poor Clare does not vow to live in poverty or to observe poverty or to practise poverty, but to live 'without property'. She is a happy pilgrim moving thorugh the lanes of creation to the Shrine of the most holy Trinity."
"A Poor Clare does not vow to live in poverty or to observe poverty or to practise poverty, but to live 'without property'. She is a happy pilgrim moving thorugh the lanes of creation to the Shrine of the most holy Trinity."
Aneke's first Christmas in our monastery. She has seen her star!
"Today is the day before Christmas eve. Wreaths of redwood and fir form their own Advent O's against the doors. We leave the choir and pass under the life-sized image of our Lady of Guadalupe. The postulants lead the procession, heads demurely bent over their prayer books until the spray of snowballs at the chapter-room doors proves too much for them. The two black-veiled heads turn for a quick, delicious glance, and then jerk back to book and psalm. "All things are ready," we declared in the antiphon at Lauds this morning. Yet postulants, novices and nuns race about the monastery as though nothing at all were ready! "The Lord is already near...." I walk down the cloisters, and my heart moves to a single tune: Lord, it is good, so good to be here!
"Today is the day before Christmas eve. Wreaths of redwood and fir form their own Advent O's against the doors. We leave the choir and pass under the life-sized image of our Lady of Guadalupe. The postulants lead the procession, heads demurely bent over their prayer books until the spray of snowballs at the chapter-room doors proves too much for them. The two black-veiled heads turn for a quick, delicious glance, and then jerk back to book and psalm. "All things are ready," we declared in the antiphon at Lauds this morning. Yet postulants, novices and nuns race about the monastery as though nothing at all were ready! "The Lord is already near...." I walk down the cloisters, and my heart moves to a single tune: Lord, it is good, so good to be here!
The first Christian generations experienced the liturgy as the unfailing spring of life in and with Christ. There they gave themselves to the Lord tangibly and were suffused with His love and grace. For them there could be no separation between liturgy and life, any more than there could be a division between Christ and His Church. Life for them was Christ and community, communion with the Church as she celebrated the Lord's mysteries.
Click here to listen to Zuster Angela and Postualnt Clara.