Spanish cloistered nuns see surge in vocations [CNA]

[CNA_News]

Madrid, Spain, Nov 5, 2009 / 01:51 pm (CNA).- A 43 year-old prioresses has revolutionized an old Poor Clares convent in Spain, turning it onto a magnet for dozens of young professional women.

Sister Veronica joined the Poor Clares Convent of the Ascension founded in 1604 in Lerma (Spain) at at time when it was going through a vocations crisis. It was January 22, 1984, and Marijose Berzosa - Sr. Veronica’s name prior to entering the convent - decided, at age 18, to leave behind a career in medicine, friends, nightlife and baketball.

“Nobody understood me. There were bets that it would not last, but they did not feel the force of the hurricane that drew me in,” says Sr. Veronica. “I was a classic teenager looking for a way out … and I made a decision in just 15 days.”

Full article…

 

[reggieM]

Remarkable story – such good news.

The Spanish daily El Pais, one of the newspapers most sympathetic to the current Socialist government’s campaign against the Catholic Church in Spain, could not resist publishing an extensive report on Sr. Veronica. According to the newspaper, she “has become the biggest phenomenon in the Church since Teresa of Calcutta,” as “she has made the old convent of Lerma into an attractive recruiting banner for female vocations, with 135 professional women with a median age of 35 and 100 more on a waiting list.” The paper adds that Sr. Vernoica has also “opened a house in the town of La Aguilera, 24 miles from Lerma, at a huge monastery donated by her Franciscan brothers."

Faithful nuns – traditional and orthodox in belief and prayer, but innovative in methods and approach. That’s a great mixture.

One of the sisters in the community interviewed by El Pais defines the cloister as “an house open to those who knock on our door. We want to share our faith, to make known what is happening to us. And if they see Jesus in us, go ahead. Spain is so pagan that we need to share our faith, not live it alone. It is time to act.”

 

[albertziggy]

This is very encouraging. I pray that other traditional orders follow suit. I wish the article was more specific in the secret of the community’s success so other communities can use it as a model.

In Christ,

albertziggy