Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 12, 1993 TAG: 9308120274
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Landmark News Service
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium
The monastery lies under the flight pattern of Langley Air Force Base, less than five miles away, and near busy Warwick Boulevard. Radios occasionally blast from a neighboring apartment building. At times, the 14 nuns who live at the monastery cannot hear themselves pray.
But Tuesday evening and all day Wednesday, the jubilant nuns rang a pair of large bells named Maria and Chiara a total of 800 times each.
Maria, a 320-pound bell, sounds a loud low A, and Chiara, Italian for Clare, is a 55-pound bell that sounds a harmonizing E. The nuns ring the bells by pulling two long ropes in a small room under the tower.
The bells might have been rung a year too early, said Mother Colette, the monastery abbess. Historians aren't sure whether St. Clare was born in 1193 or 1194 because two different calendars were in use at the time.
But the celebration, though not the bell ringing, will continue more than a year, through Oct. 5, 1994.
Actually the bells were rung more than 800 times each.
"We're putting in some extras in case we lost count," Mother Colette said Wednesday. "So far none of the neighbors have complained."
The large brick monastery is reminiscent of an apartment building, except for the bell tower with a cross on top at one corner. The 5-acre site on Harpersville Road was remote and quiet in 1956, when the monastery was built. But civilization since has pressed in around it.
The Poor Clares in the monastery range in age from 26 to 77. They have taken the three regular vows of obedience, chastity and poverty, plus a fourth vow, enclosure. They leave their monastery only for medical reasons, typically once a year. If a loved one is dying, they may visit only in their prayers. Outsiders rarely are permitted inside.
The Poor Clares' work is prayer, and the longest they ever go without praying together is three hours and 45 minutes. They awaken at 12:30 a.m. for night group prayers.
St. Clare, a daughter of nobility, founded the Order of Poor Clares in 1212, and the modern Poor Clares lead essentially 13th-century lives, following the rules she laid down.
Although no television set would ever be found in a Poor Clare monastery, St. Clare has been the patroness of television since 1958, when Pope Pius XII bestowed that title on her. While bedridden with illness, Mother Colette said, St. Clare had a televisionlike vision of all the friars at another place in the city at midnight mass.
Asked to describe St. Clare, Mother Colette said:
"I would say she was a very strong woman, and yet she was outstanding in gentleness. She was a very joyful woman and yet she was not afraid to suffer. She was a woman capable of tremendous love, and her first love was Christ. She was concerned about others and expressed it by a life of prayer and intercession for others.
"She used the gifts of God for His glory and never misused anything."
Clare's Italian name, Chiara, means light, so an altar at the monastery was decorated Wednesday with bright yellow flowers.
Wednesday's celebration included a second mass - usually there is just one. And more than a year of celebrating will be a time for introspection and spiritual renewal, Mother Colette said.
by CNB