My main organization, a private association of the faithful without the intention of becoming an institute of religious life, will reach its 30th anniversary in October. In August, I will celebrate 30 years of final promises with the Dominican laity. The organization started life as the Society of Our Lady of the Cloister, and those of us discerning cloistered vocations were brought together by Divine Providence. I had always envisaged a monastic community that would host vocation retreats like the Visitation, and lived that way of life as much as I could, while holding down a job.
Additionally, I received inspirations for two pro-life communities. Our area had also been named a new diocese. I took these inspirations to our new bishop. He told me I could live the main charism myself. I had no idea that there was such a thing as canon 603.
Obviously, I married, and during our 27 years of marriage, we spent the first few years sending out packages of vocation literature to vacation hotspots around the US. Once we got the internet, I built the main website and started posting links to the world’s cloisters.
We changed our name in 2008 when a number of aspirants became an association of the faithful with the intention of becoming an institute of religious life. The emerging charism was named the Reparatrix Society of Our Lady of the Cloister (Cloisterites). Due to a number of factors, we were not able to retain aspirants. We still have lay Cloisterites, though, and I still give them a monthly formation module.
At about the same time, I received a vocation to one of the pro-life charisms cleared by the first bishop of Knoxville. She is still with us. More on that later.
Through the years, I had received inspirations for a gargantuan number of new communities. Since folks could not tell the difference between established and proposed communities on our main website, we set up a different website and email address, and removed the proposals from the main website.
For a number of years, on the feast of St. Anthony of Padua, I received the inspiration to bring all of the proposals under our Charity charism. The more I studied Sts Vincent & Louise, the more I could see how the proposals fit neatly into six categories: combination (medical, education, social); social; prisons; educational; medical; and sacerdotal. There would be Company Recluses, who are going to integrate Passionist spirituality in their poustinik way of life.
While studying Vincentianism, we also discovered that the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary, about whom The Nun’s Story was written, were actually cloistered. This past month, I also learned of St. Angela of the Cross, who founded the Company of the Cross in Spain. They were cloistered with a charity emphasis.
So, all that being said, we are going to bring the main organization under the CAMM/CCMM umbrella as an outreach of our Cloisterite Ministry, which is in the Sacerdotal Division.
