Hermit Sister Mary Clare

I was born in 1963 and raised in a Catholic family that attended Church every Sunday and every Holy day of obligation.

When my family began to pray the Rosary daily at my tender and challenging age of 13, a yearning in my heart for God and all that is holy began to stir. A member of my family was making wrong choices in life, which brought both of my parents to their knees and all of us to more prayer.

At the age of 17, my last year in high school, my father decided to invite me to go to 6 a.m. Mass with him before I went to school. I didn’t want to go at first, but he challenged me to go with him just for one month. This changed everything for me. After I went for one month, I patted myself on the back and stopped going to Mass daily. After a week of going to school, I missed going to Mass beforehand. I made the decision to attend on my own, and I have been attending Mass daily since the age of 17.

I veered off a little at the age of 21, and I entered the party scene, going out every weekend. Once, when I was at a club, everything went silent as I watched everyone dancing and drinking in slow motion. I heard a male voice say, “Would you find My Mother here?”

I thought to myself, “Is this Jesus? Is He asking me if Mary would be here?” I said, “If Jesus would come here to save sinners, then I suppose that Mary would be here, too.”

Then I heard Him say, “Do you want to do this for the rest of your life? Do you want to do this in your 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s?” As I looked around, (everyone still moving in slow motion), I continued to see the drunkenness, immodesty, and impure dancing, and I replied, “No! I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life.” As the scene came back to normal with loud music and dancing, I turned to my date and asked him to take me home. He was surprised since we had just arrived, and he wondered what happened to me. I couldn’t speak to him about it for fear of sobbing, and when I arrived home, I wept, asking God why He was doing this to me.

This was a turning point in my life that led me to discern the Consecrated Religious life. I ended up joining the Poor Clare Nuns of Perpetual Adoration on August 23, 1985, when I was 21 years old. Mother Angelica was the Abbess at the time, and I cherished the years that I was formed by her and other holy men and women of God.

It is hard to explain how one receives such a call and then is called elsewhere, but ultimately God had another plan for me, a call within a call, one could say. In 2012, I met Sr. Charista Maria, who is now a fellow diocesan hermit with me. Our Mother of the Eucharist drew us together through our similar spiritualities and charisms. Missionaries of Our Mother of the Eucharist—M.O.M.E. (our non-profit religious organization)—is our avenue of reaching out to others within our contemplative way of life. It is a means of drawing others to a deeper union with Jesus through Mary by means of videos, blogs, and the like. I live an eremitical life (the life of a hermit) within a laura (a dwelling of more than one hermit), where we have Eucharistic adoration and pray several Rosaries each day, lead a Marian Prayer Cenacle on our property each Saturday morning, and have deep faith discussions after the Cenacle. We sometimes have priests and consecrated religious come to our retreat house for silence and solitude. We make ourselves available to lead them into a deeper connection with Jesus and Mary in the depths of their hearts, which can bring human and spiritual integration and inner healing.

Praised be to Jesus and Mary!