Embracing God’s call to a new habit
Poor Clares invest youngest sister into cloistered order

By Ambria Hammel, The Catholic Sun
May 17, 2007

Children may not get to decide whether they are ready to embrace a sibling, much less help choose its name. But sisters bonded in the Lord have a little more say.

They discern through prayer the possibility of welcoming a new sister such as Sr. Mary McDonald into the order and what name they will give her to signify the transformation.

“I’ll be like a whole other person,” Sr. Mary said one week before the Poor Clare Sisters of Perpetual Adoration accepted her as a novice in their order. The move marked the final step before taking temporary vows.

The Poor Clares physically altered their young sister as a sign of her new spiritual commitment during a public investment ceremony May 3. At the foot of the altar inside Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral, they cut Sr. Mary’s hair, clothed her in the order’s traditional habit and gave her a new name as a bride of Christ.

Answering the call

“She is actually responding to a choice more than making a choice,” Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted said to churchgoers who packed the pews in support. “For Christ, the bridegroom, says to her: ‘It is not you who chose me, it is I who chose you. This is the great mystery of life today that is being celebrated.”

The novice nun said she used to dream at night of joining the sisters, but never sought out the order until they came to her door, literally. Her family invited the Poor Clares to their home for a meal as one of Sr. Mary’s brothers, a seminarian, helped the holy women settle in the Valley in 2005.

“It was just like that spark that I needed and I just began to think about it. This is what the Lord is calling me to,” Sr. Mary said.

Before that, she had always seen herself raising a large family and working in an orphanage because of her love for children.

“But I could see how using that love for kids was directed in a more contemplative way,” Sr. Mary said.

She spent extra time in adoration. That’s where she said her vocation was confirmed.

Sr. Mary joined the Poor Clares in their cloistered home in Black Canyon City last May and became a postulant, the preliminary stage of religious life, in August.

Practicing new habits

The investment ceremony marked her public declaration of her desire to spend the rest of her life in adoration and intercession.

“So I’ll be trying to live the vows without actually taking them,” the novice nun said.

The bishop said she is the first woman to be received into a monastic foundation within the diocese, which marks a new moment in its history.

Following Sr. Mary’s public intention to join the order, Sr. Marie André, mother superior of the Arizona cloister, cut the novice’s hair much like St. Francis cut the long, blonde hair of St. Clare when she joined the Franciscans at 19.

“It was a sign of giving up all of the worldly beauties,” Sr. Mary said. Hair, she added, is still a mark of earthly allure in today’s culture. 

The young Poor Clare didn’t think churchgoers would be surprised by the haircut because she had it cut last year and donated the hair to a charitable organization. Yet the transformation was evident as they watched Sr. Marie chop off Sr. Mary’s shoulder-length, dark brown hair.

It now rests just below her ears on each side and slightly higher in the back. Her new ‘do made it easier for Sr. Marie to fit Sr. Mary with a new multi-piece white veil to replace the simple one she donned all year.

The new attire includes a head covering resembling that of a pilgrim, a collar and a bride’s veil. Each piece symbolizes the desire to exemplify God’s purity. This trait is also seen in the white Host of the Poor Clares’ devotion: the Eucharist.

The sisters will fit Sr. Mary for a black veil in a few years. Black, she said, represents death to the world and is “a sign that we’re not for this world.”

Sr. Mary further sealed her commitment to the Poor Clares when Sr. Marie covered the young nun’s tan skirt and white-collared long sleeve shirt with a floor-length, dark brown robe that the professed sisters wear. It serves as a reminder that God created human life out of dust and therefore, every gift is from Him.

To signify Sr. Mary’s union with Christ, the Church’s bridegroom, Sr. Marie opened an old-fashioned scroll to reveal the novice nun’s new name.

“You will now be known by Sr. Jeanette Marie of the Precious Blood of Jesus,” the mother superior proclaimed.

Preparing for vows

Sr. Jean Steffes, CSA, diocesan chancellor and director of the Office for Religious, said Sr. Jeanette will spend the next two years intensely studying the mission, charism and spirit of the Poor Clares as well as their spiritual life. This will help her discern if she is ready to take the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

“I know a lot of grace will be poured out during that time,” Sr. Jeanette said.

The challenging part will be missing out on daily life with her family, whom she will get to see once every six months.

She takes comfort knowing the distance will strengthen and perfect their love and that she’s striving to live God’s will.

“From the time I was 5, I can see little things where it’s like the Lord was preparing me for this, but He didn’t just totally open my eyes until a couple of years ago,” Sr. Jeanette said.

She described the Lord as a gentleman.

“He’ll use the little daily things and He’ll wait for you” to answer the call to a vocation, she said.