Sister Nancy Rose shares the beauty of religious life with the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. She discusses their deep commitment to prayer, the rise in young people exploring vocations, and invites women to attend an upcoming monastic experience weekend.
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The Catholic morning show. So wonderful to have you with us here on Iowa Catholic Radio. I'm Bo Bonner with Alexia Baker, Ayden Pugh and Brady Grimm. It is a wonderful morning and it is a wonderful morning to have you with us. Join us tomorrow. We'll be speaking with David Pepper from Sierra Club, followed by Ed Van Buskirk, executive director of If You Love Me, beginning his new series on the Ten Commandments. It will be quite the show, and you'll want to make it at seven a m we are about eighteen minutes away, seventeen minutes away from the top of the new of the new hour. So yeah, let's turn over a new leaf and get the show rolling. Let's turn now to our next interview of the day. We have sister Nancy Rose. She is a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration who are in Clyde, Missouri. Sister, thank you for coming on the Catholic Morning Show. Thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful to have you with us. I know as we were getting to chat right before this interview. Uh, you know, you were talking about, uh, the big news. Of course, all of us have been very happy for in this Easter season, uh, the news of the growing number of new converts and things like this. How does that sort of reality play out? How do you see that as a professed religious? What does that look like? For instance, uh, at your convent? Oh, we see it all over. We see it with increased number of guests attending our masses every day. We also, especially this morning, for example, we're seeing increased numbers of students from the Newman Center at the nearby Northwest State University in Maryville. Uh, so we're seeing increased numbers. We're also seeing, for example, we have one of our novices is making first vows in June. We're seeing another young woman enter in about two weeks, enter into our order. So yes, there's an energy that's out there. I think the Holy Spirit is working in the church and especially is working in the hearts of young people. Well, when it comes to the history of the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, of course, uh, you know, many different charisms, you know, not only between religious orders, but within something like the Benedictine congregations, uh, different Benedictines themselves take on specific, uh, what we said charisms and focuses, uh, depending on their history. So if you don't mind, tell us a little bit about your, uh, Benedictines particularly. Absolutely. Um, well, our communities, I'll just say up front, our main charism is prayer. Now our community, the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration began in eighteen seventy four. So we've been around over one hundred and fifty years. We're located in Clyde, Missouri, which is not very far from Iowa. I think we're about thirty miles from Iowa, in the northwest corner of the state. Uh, even though we joke in here that it's conveniently located in the middle of nowhere, we're surrounded by beautiful farmland. But our founding sisters came from a Benedictine convent in Switzerland. At the request of the monks of conception Abbey, and there are only two miles away from us. So those five sisters were initially brought here to teach the immigrant children that were in the area. But our foundress, mother, Mary Anselma, she knew from the beginning that prayer and adoration was what America needed at that time. And guess what? It still needs it. Prayer and adoration absolutely are still needed. And so we continue our tradition of monastic life and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for over one hundred and fifty years. Beautiful. That's a little bit about our history in terms of how we support ourselves. That happens in a number of ways. It's changed over the years. In the early years of our congregation, we've had, um, we've got over five hundred acres here. So we had a farm, we had, uh, dairy with um, prize winning Holstein cows that gave great milk. And so we, you know, we're, we're in that kind of dairy farming industry. Um, and of course, that changed over the years as supermarkets became easier and cheaper to just buy milk. So we kind of changed that ministry. But we've all, throughout most of our history for the last hundred years or so, we produce ultra breads. You know, those communion hosts that so many Catholics receive at mass. So our community makes those. And we're and by the way, we're currently the inventors and currently the only religious producer of the low gluten ultra bread. So those other, um, we developed because we saw a great need. Um, people were asking us, hey, I'd love to have a host for my niece or nephew or daughter. They have gluten sensitivity or they have celiac. Um, and our hosts meet the church's standards for, you know, what's what's valid matter, what's what's proper for Catholics in communion. So we make the low gluten hosts, people buy them, you know, we send them by mail. Um, we also make personal products like soaps, lotions, candles, lip balm, those kind of things we sell online and in our gift shop. So all of those works, the hosts, the personal products, they, they help support our way of life and our prayer, uh, and, and provide ministry, um, for, provide income for our main ministry, which is prayer. Um, we also, we pray the divine office four times a day. Uh, so that's something that most Benedictine orders, if not all Benedictine orders do. Um, we're blessed to have daily Eucharist. Um, the, we got presiders for our daily Eucharist at conception Abbey, which is only two miles away. Our spiritual fathers and brothers, and we also have exposition of the Blessed Sacrament every day as well. So, so these are some of the gifts that God has blessed us with, um, over the years. And our main ministry of prayer continues strong even today. Well, and one of the things that's coming up, you guys have a monastic weekend experience that people can experience an array of, of all of that that you've talked about. So give us a little bit of details about that if people are interested in the monastic weekend. Oh, absolutely. Um, four times a year we hold something called a monastic experience. It happens over a weekend. Um, you know, from Friday at about four thirty till Sunday at about one thirty. And, you know, we're hoping young people can find it in their hearts. You know, if they're open to the graces the Lord may be sending them to see in their hearts if they might be interested in reorganizing their priorities and maybe coming to an event, our next event happens the first weekend in May, so that would be Friday, May first. And so they typically, um, a participant would arrive around four thirty. Um I'll take them to the guest house. Uh, we have a beautiful guest house facility, like individual rooms and a kind of common kitchen and living room area. So it's really great for, for a group of the women we usually have. And that's followed by vespers at five thirty in our beautiful chapel. It's got these fabulous mosaics. People that come to visit our chapel say, I feel like this is a monastery in Europe. It's so beautiful. So they get to pray in that environment with the sisters. We chant the office, divine office, and then we go to dinner, and then afterward our, uh. And that's just a great opportunity to meet all our wonderful sisters. Um, and they help with dishes, of course, afterwards, that's part of it. And then we have, it's followed by the prayer Last prayer of the day. And then again on Saturday with starts with prayer and Eucharist. But we also give conferences on really interesting subjects that I think the women would benefit from. Uh, Lectio Divina session, which is really popular. So we have we ask our attendees to bring their journal and a Bible and then, oh, another treasure of the Benedictine sisters we have here will give them a relic chapel tour. Mhm. Now we're blessed to have over five hundred relics in our relic chapel. And it's a great place to pray. Pray we give them a tour. Um, and we acquired these relics after World War One. Uh, the monasteries in Europe were devastated. And through our magazine, uh, Tabernacle and Purgatory, which we now call spirit in Life, our readers raised money that we sisters then sent to all the starving monasteries in Europe and in thanks they sent us this wonderful collection of relics. So we asked women that come, hey, look for your patron saints. Maybe we have a relic of that saint right here. So and then, and then it continues with other really, uh, interesting, uh, conferences. We do a conference on adoration with Sister Joan, who actually wrote a book on adoration. Um, but then we also allow for some free time and fun time. Um, we, uh, we have, uh, they can assist one of the sisters here when making our soaps and lotions, touring our, uh, soap shop. Um, and we also offer an opportunity to work with sisters in kitchen and who are preparing the meal for Sunday. Um, so we do a lot of really neat things and then we get together again for prayer throughout the day. Um, one of the highlights too is the young women that come get to hear the Here the vocation stories of the sisters who are here. So we collect about, oh, I don't know, four sisters or so, and they tell their vocation stories how the Lord called them to the convent. Um, and it happens in so many interesting and varied ways, you would really be amazed. And our participants really, really enjoy that. And then the weekend includes with the meal, a lovely Sunday meal and preceded by prayer. Um, and then, and then that's it for the weekend. So, so many of them. Oh, they've given us rave reviews. Um, just, just for example, um, I wish every woman would have an opportunity to go and join a monastic experience. And so, you know, we get all these wonderful reviews. We really want your, your listeners out there to know that this opportunity here awaits them not very far away, a mere thirty miles from the Iowa border. So those are some of the things they could expect on a monastic experience. Well, sister, it's been absolutely wonderful. Unfortunately, we're hitting the end of our time here, so I want to make sure people know how they can go find out how to learn about your monastic life, and also get a chance to go to the monastic weekend. So your website is Benedictine sisters dot org. Impressed that you got that one? That's a really good website to have. Yeah. Isn't that amazing? That's that's perfect. Easy to remember. So so Benedictine sisters dot org. Upcoming monastic experience this weekend. Find out more. So once more we want to say Sister Nancy Rose, thank you so much for coming on the Catholic Morning show. Thank you so much, Beau. And God bless you to all your listeners. Um, and let's pray for our Pope Leo, who's done a marvelous job for us and who needs our prayer. Absolutely. We appreciate it. Listen to the Catholic Morning Show weekdays at seven a m central on the Catholic Radio Network, Iowa Catholic Radio dot com or the Iowa Catholic Radio app.