This morning at seven, I attended Mass at Templo Santa Clara, where a community of Poor Clare sisters resides under the spiritual assistance of the Franciscan friars. Padre Kasper celebrated Eucharist for the sisters and the several people of God who came to the sisters’ simple but ample chapel. It was a quick worship service—no homily, just the liturgy of the Word and liturgy of the Eucharist. The sisters supplied the music ministry and proclaimed the Scripture readings.
At seven-thirty I hopscotched from Templo Santa Clara to the corner of Calle 25 de Mayo and Avenida Heroinas to catch the bus to Maryknoll. I found Brother Scott on the bus, and we motored to Maryknoll, where I had 20 minutes to gulp down tea, bread, and a banana. At noon, as soon as classes were over, we jetted immediately from Maryknoll, caught the bus, and in no time reached Plaza Colón, and we walked briskly the couple of blocks to get to the Monastery of Jesus Crucified and the other community of Franciscan women, the Capuchin Poor Clare sisters.
We were early—the sisters were singing the office of midday prayer—so Brother Scott and I rested ourselves in the sitting room outside the cloister for several moments. When the singing stopped we got up to look around, wandering into other meeting rooms for visitors and finally stepping into the cloister garden, a magical landscape of many shades of green, with aviaries of African parakeets and tropical parrots, fountains and pools, a hermitage chapel, and plenty of palm trees. Hermana Victoria found us browsing the grounds, and she welcomed us gently and happily to the refectory, where lunch awaited.
Any apprehension I had prior to the visit was dispelled by warm smiles, hot quinoa soup, and a hearty main course of beef and chicken (eggs for the vegetarian brother), rice, and a sweet potato known as camote. The clarisas also offered their very own wine, bottled and distributed on their behalf for their communities in Cochabamba and Oruro. (They also market communion wine and even an egg liquor. Read this newspaper article about their cottage industries.) It felt easy to be in the sisters’ company because they are comfortable with each other and joyful in their way of life. It also felt easy to communicate with them. So, in spite of my usual reserve at meals and despite my inhibitions in speaking Spanish outside the controlled environment of a classroom, I offered a few questions to make conversation and interjected now and then while the sisters and Brother Scott were weaving a thread of discussion.
Before we knew it, more than an hour had gone by, but the best was yet to come. The sisters presented a colossal torta, a mocha cake large enough to serve 50 people! The confection was in honor of Our Lady of Carmel, the patroness of Bolivia, for the feast day. And it was the work of their own hands, as they do all the baking for the galletas (cookies) and other goodies they sell. This torta was an unbelievable sight, which is why the sisters took selfies of themselves and us with the magnificent dessert to prove its existence. And of course it was our pleasure to have more than one serving!
The geniality continued for some while, as the sisters proudly showed us a photo album commemorating the diamond jubilee of their eldest sister, Hermana Josefina, who marked 60 years of religious life in August 2017. One of the sisters then presented us their guest book, and Brother Scott and I left them loving and prayerful messages in the best written Spanish we could muster.
We made many goodbyes with refrains of gracias repeated over and over. With one more quick walk through the lovely garden, Hermana Victoria showed us to the monastery exit, and once more we were returned to the ordinary world.
While I still feel that a life of monastic enclosure would be greatly confining, for me, anyway, I must admit I was enchanted by the world of piety and beauty the Capuchin Poor Clares have tended for themselves. Brother Scott and I were impressed by the sisters’ easygoing hospitality and real care for one another. They have received as guests our fellow Capuchin brothers who studied Spanish at Maryknoll, and not only did they remember their names but they also remembered when they lived in Cochabamba. For sure, both of us will bear their blessing with us through the rest of our journey in Bolivia.
I know you would like to see some pictures of the Capuchin Poor Clare sisters. Well, wouldn’t you? Click on this link to a friar’s blog for photos of the Capuchin clarisas of Cochabamba and Oruro.
Finally, a postscript to Sunday’s post. Shortly after I wrote that we had resigned ourselves to not seeing our Capuchin brothers in Santa Cruz, Brother Scott received a message from one of them. We are indeed most welcome to visit the friars, and we are invited to stay with them this weekend! We are gratified to see the window of opportunity open when we thought it had closed for good. We hope to finalize the arrangements for travel shortly.
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