St Clare Summer Seminar 2018

The recent seminar on St. Clare at the monastery for Franciscan novices was a great success and hugely blessed. The friars with their novice master, Fr. Antony Jukes OFM, were staying at the Friary and enjoyed meeting the local Franciscan Community.

The troupe of young men in brown Franciscan habits crossing the Salmon Weir Bridge every morning was a talking point in the city, both for the locals and the many tourists that have been descending on Galway these days.

The idea of the seminar was that the Friar novices would hear about St. Clare and her writings from Poor Clares and so pick up the living spirit of St. Clare through her followers. The novices were joined for the seminar by Galway novice, Sr. Clare Marie, and two solemnly professed sisters from the Cork Poor Clares, Sr. Anthony-Mary and Sr. Faustina. The whole Community attended one or two of the talks, and there was a special Holy Hour for the whole group.

It was a great opportunity to impress upon the novices the historical and living connection between the friars and the sisters, which has its origin at the very beginning of the Order. The introduction to both the rules [of Francis and Clare] is the same; ‘to observe the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, by living in obedience, without anything of one’s own and in chastity’

The experience of beauty is intrinsic to the Franciscan vocation so music, singing and the viewing of some the monastery’s archival treasures was also a feature of the seminar and Brother Sun was shining too!

Our Lady, under the title of the Immaculate Conception, is the Patroness of the whole Franciscan Order and the novices viewed details of an old altar hanging with an image of the Immaculate Conception done in needlework by sisters of the Galway monastery in the early eighteenth century.

The Marian antiphon ‘Tota Pulchra es’ has been adopted as a kind of Franciscan ‘anthem’ over the centuries. After a few spontaneous practices together, a recording was made, alternating the lines between the friars and sisters. It was deemed not too bad at all for an impromptu recording!

Видео St Clare Summer Seminar 2018 канала Poor Clares Galway