Poor Clares pray for additional building funds

By Ambria Hammel | Dec. 2, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

TONOPAH — Every two weeks, Poor Clare Sisters of Perpetual Adoration leave their cloistered community in Black Canyon City for a journey southwest.

Three freeways and 90 miles later, with a long trail of dust flying behind their white SUV, the young sisters arrive in what is seemingly the middle of nowhere.

In less than a year though, the 40-acre lot near 387th Avenue and Bethany Home Road will be a place of distinction. By then the first permanent building, a chapel, will mark the location of Our Lady of Solitude Monastery.

That’s where the “desert nuns” will perpetually pray for Catholics worldwide in front of the Blessed Sacrament. So long as one minor outstanding need is fulfilled.

While the habited sisters have enough money to open the 9,000-square-foot chapel come September, they need more to build two nearby homes — one for themselves and another for priests on retreat.

The sisters’ home will serve as temporary living quarters while their monastic dreams of a 28-cell monastery — with recreation and work areas and gardens — become a reality. The small house will then be used solely for the laity. All told, it’s a $12-13 million project.

“We know it’s His will, so we step out in faith,” said Sr. Marie André, noting that it’s still a rough time for the construction industry.

The Poor Clares have been living in a makeshift monastery — one not equipped for them to live out their vocation through perpetual adoration — since coming to Arizona in 2005.

“We have five women who are interested in joining, but we don’t have room for them now,” Sr. Marie André said.

“It’s never easy to build, but we have to have our trust in the Lord,” she said while sporting an orange construction vest in the chapel’s entryway.

Work began on the chapel in September and the construction crew already has the footers in the ground ready for a cement foundation. The sisters buried miraculous medals and blessed rosaries in the structure last month.

Workers expect the structure itself to start taking shape by Christmas.

Crews also have a large electrical house at the chapel’s site nearly ready to go. It will ultimately be underground.

“We’re trying to maintain the simplicity and sacredness of the land,” said Fr. Don Kline, pastor of St. Joan of Arc Parish and longtime friend of the Poor Clares.

Fr. Kline joined the Poor Clares on their site visit Dec. 3. He blessed the construction crew and reviewed the project’s progress.

The Franciscan nuns plan to keep all of the buildings simple, but want the chapel to be of utmost beauty. Seemingly minor decisions, like where to install wiring, could result in more space for religious art.

A hand-carved wooden partition, known as a reredos, will separate the public and cloistered sides. Sr. Marie André said that people who contribute to the fund for the reredos will have their name added to a book that will be placed inside the finished wall.

Some 150 Catholics will easily fit on the public side of the chapel. They’ll be welcome for daily Mass, confession, adoration and silent retreats.

The sisters welcome other donations to support their project. They’ve sold a couple of thousand “living stones” that will line the public pathways around the monastery and chapel and hope to sell more.