Meet The New Members Of The Tyringham Visitation Monastery

[Chiara Francesco]

Nice article on the nuns of the Visitation in Tyringham:  http://vistyr.org/

 

(Below taken from:  http://www.iobserve.org/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=2225&cntnt01origid=57&cntnt01returnid=58 )

 

It looks like this will be on a YouTube video from the Reel to Real people who did the previous 2 part video interview with these nuns as at the end of this article it says, "A video version of this story will be featured on the Jan. 19 edition of “Real to Reel,” to be broadcast at 7 p.m. on WWLP-22NEWS."

 

 

Jan 14, 2013

Top Story

Nuns reflect on their call to the cloister as church celebrates Vocation Awareness Week

Story and photos by Peggy Weber

TYRINGHAM – They come from California, Delaware, Pennsylvania and India.

 

One is a nurse; another was an assistant manager at a Walgreen's. They have different life experiences and span several decades in age.  However, the four newest members of the Visitation Monastery, here, have one thing in common: They all feel drawn to the life of a cloistered nun.

 

The four women acknowledge they are choosing a life that is definitely different.  Nestled in the Berkshire Hills, the Monastery of Deux Coeurs (Two Hearts) is a place of quiet. There is no cell phone service and life is guided by the ringing of the tower bell as the community of 18 sisters is called to prayer.  Sister Joanna Armstrong, 28, is a novice. She entered in February 2012. She holds a degree in environmental science and chemistry, with a minor in theology, form De Sales University in Allentown, Pa. She grew up in Pittsburgh and made her first retreat in Tyringham 10 years ago. However, she said it took her a while to figure out where she belonged. She did a year of service at a home for homeless, pregnant women in Arizona. She then worked with the Little Sisters of the Poor and went on a number of retreats.

 

"I entered a Carmelite community about three years ago and that just wasn't the right fit. So I left there and found myself at home and I basically became a parish hermit for two years until the Lord brought me back to this community," she said. "I've known the sisters for ten years and they've always been a family to me and finally the Lord got it through to me that I should be with my family."

 

She advised anyone considering a vocation to just take it easy. "The Lord wants to make it known so don't try too hard. I know I always thought that I had to figure it out by myself – when the answer was right in front of me. So I just let him lead and trust what he is saying. Don't overthink it," she said.

 

Sister Joanna said that many people don't understand or support a vocation to the religious life – especially the cloistered life.

She said she was told that she could do so much in the world. However, she said she feels she can touch the whole world through prayer. And it is prayer that is her favorite part of her newfound life.

"I like the ebb and flow,” Sister Joanna said. “There is continual movement and yet you're continually still. You are present always in the chapel and always moving to and from the chapel at all times. So, no matter what you are doing you know you're always headed to the chapel, even when you are walking out of the chapel."

She said her biggest adjustment is learning to go to bed early, since she has always been a night person. She said she does not miss her cell phone or the Internet and "just feels free from it all."

She also advised those who are discerning a religious vocation to "embrace the fact that he wants to love you and let him love you and just dive in. You know when you enter religious life it doesn't mean that you're stuck there. There is always a period of formation.”

Visitation Sister Mary Emmanuel Dominguez is the directress of novices for her community. She has served in that capacity for the last five years. "I am here to journey with my sisters through their vocation discernment and integrate their lives with the Sisters of the Visitation," she said.

 

She said that she gets an inquiry about the Visitations almost every day via email. She added that the community is currently connecting with four more women who want to enter. However, Sister Dominguez noted that there are practical considerations.

 

Their monastery can only house 24, so they have to figure out how they could expand the novitiate if necessary. “And we do have an age limit. Right now it is 18-43 because we are trying to look towards the future of our community,” she said. However, they will make some exceptions.

 

For example, one of their newest postulants is Sister Bernadette Heffernan of Wilmington, Del. She has been at the monastery for six months. The 68-year-old is a nurse and widow. She also was an active religious in the 1960s in the Felician community.

Sister Mary Emmanuel said that Sister Bernadette has been a friend of the Visitations for years – even when their monastery was located in Delaware. (The nuns relocated to Tyringham in 1995.) And Sister Bernadette had previous experience with religious life.

Sister Bernadette said that she has been connected with the Salesian charism and the Visitations for a long time, but that she watched a television segment about the 400th anniversary of the community produced by the Diocese of Springfield, Mass., on its "Real to Reel" program.

 

She made some visits and she loved "the spirit of the sisters.” She added, “I found them prayerful and joyful and found a peace that I didn't find anywhere else."

 

Sister Mary Emmanuel said that this response is common. “When I ask a person what makes them want to enter, it is because they are trying to find a deeper relationship with the Lord. They feel they can do that by entering into a community who will support them in that way.”

"We're looking for someone with enthusiasm, someone’s who's very interested in the religious life, someone who is a deep, faithful Catholic,” said Sister Mary Emmanuel. She said that anyone considering religious life has to be open, willing to take a risk, and be someone who dares to be different.

 

Sister Anna Thannical understands how her choice to live in the cloister is seen as different.  A native of India, she said, “This has been in my heart a long time. I've been discerning a long time. I wanted to be a cloistered nun since I was a little girl.”

 

The 48-year-old came to America in 1989 after graduating from college. She was married and developed a career. She became an assistant manager at a Walgreen's. She lived most recently in Norwalk, Conn.

 

“In my heart, I knew something was missing. I found the missing piece, here,” she said. When she told her employers that she was leaving she said “they were all upset.”

“The district manager and my community leaders came to me and asked if there was any way they could hold me. I said no. They said my next position was store manager and that there was high potential for me. I said, no, I had found my treasure,” said Sister Anna.

 

The middle child of a close family of five, she said that her family misses her but they had a great conference call at Christmas.

Sister Jennifer Mendenhall, 21, left a life in Hanford, Calif., for the snowy northeast. She came in September 2012 after working in a preschool and attending community college.

She found the Visitation Monastery via the Internet and said she felt that “God drew me here.”

 

“I came last March for two weeks and then spent a month in June. My parish (St. Brigid) and family saw my vocation and supported me,” she said.

 

Sister Mary Emmanuel said there are many women who seek their kind of life.

 

“I do believe that people are looking for sisters who are going to live what they say they are living,” she said. “They want a deep prayer life. And I think that especially in our community, our great devotion to the Eucharist is so important.”

 

A video version of this story will be featured on the Jan. 19 edition of “Real to Reel,” to be broadcast at 7 p.m. on WWLP-22NEWS. 

 

[Gabriela]

Thank you so much for posting this, Chiara Francesco. I am interested in this community. Will you post the video version if it becomes available online?

[krissylou]

How wonderful!

 

And two of the postulants are over the stated "limit" of 43.  One just by a bit, but the other by a lot!

 

(FORTY THREE seems a particularly random age limit.  My guess is that some people wanted to set a limit at 40 and some people wanted it to be 45 and they compromised!  Anybody have another plausible explanation???)

 

 

[Chiara Francesco]

Thank you so much for posting this, Chiara Francesco. I am interested in this community. Will you post the video version if it becomes available online?

 

Sure I would check the Real to Reel YouTube channel:  http://www.youtube.com/user/diocesespringfieldma/videos?view=0  -  I'm subscribed to their channel so hopefully they will post this new video interview.

 

 

 

Here is the the previous Part 1 interview of these nuns:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRSN9KyPWsg

[Chiara Francesco]

How wonderful!

 

And two of the postulants are over the stated "limit" of 43.  One just by a bit, but the other by a lot!

 

(FORTY THREE seems a particularly random age limit.  My guess is that some people wanted to set a limit at 40 and some people wanted it to be 45 and they compromised!  Anybody have another plausible explanation???)

 

Earlier this year or maybe late last year, their upper age limit was 50 yrs.  As for the older postulant, the artilce says, "The 68-year-old is a nurse and widow. She also was an active religious in the 1960s in the Felician community."  So she was a former religious, used to religious life etc.  As for the others, perhaps they entered BEFORE they upped the age limit.

 

It's sad some of the Visitation monasteries have upper age limits of 43-5 and 50 yrs as St. Francis de Sales wanted his order open to older women but if they are near capacity and a good majority of the sisters are older, I can see them wanting younger ones if possible.

 

The Visitations of Rockville, VA, Philly. PA and Snellville, GA take up to 60 and maybe older, last time I knew.

 

Also though they say "43" they probably consider a bit older in certain cases - as a lot of orders do.

[truthfinder]

I remember one community that had a random age like 43 but it was because they wanted the sister to be fully professed by 50, for example.  It might be the reasoning here?

[PadrePioOfPietrelcino]

Oh yippee so excited. :)

[PadrePioOfPietrelcino]

Oh yippee so excited. :)

[PadrePioOfPietrelcino]

Oh yippee so excited. :)

[Immanuel]

Earlier this year or maybe late last year, their upper age limit was 50 yrs.  As for the older postulant, the artilce says, "The 68-year-old is a nurse and widow. She also was an active religious in the 1960s in the Felician community."  So she was a former religious, used to religious life etc.  As for the others, perhaps they entered BEFORE they upped the age limit.

 

It's sad some of the Visitation monasteries have upper age limits of 43-5 and 50 yrs as St. Francis de Sales wanted his order open to older women but if they are near capacity and a good majority of the sisters are older, I can see them wanting younger ones if possible.

 

The Visitations of Rockville, VA, Philly. PA and Snellville, GA take up to 60 and maybe older, last time I knew.

 

Also though they say "43" they probably consider a bit older in certain cases - as a lot of orders do.

 

Yes, I was a little sadden by this when I first read it but I get it...

[VeniJesuAmorMi]

Beautiful article! It will be nice to keep an eye out for the video also. :)

 

When I lived in FL about 4 years ago there was a woman at the Parish I went to who entered the Visitation Monastery in Mobile, AL. She had her clothing in 2010. She was a widow and had five daughters. I don't know her exact age when she entered but she was past her sixties. I didn't know her (or even know of her!) until it was announced one day after Holy Mass that she was entering. It was really nice to know that she was still there and became a novice. That was a couple of years ago, but it would be nice to find out that she is still there. :) They seem to be an older community, but perhaps if between 2010 and now maybe they have received more vocations. They say that the age limit is 60, but I do know that this woman was older. The monastery is beautiful and has a long history. It will be nice if they also can get more vocations to be able to keep the monastery going. If anyone is interested here is their website: http://visitationmonasterymobile.org/

[krissylou]

I remember one community that had a random age like 43 but it was because they wanted the sister to be fully professed by 50, for example.  It might be the reasoning here?

 

Ohhhhhhhh.

 

THAT makes sense.  I wasn't thinking of nun math.

 

Yes, I know that part of the charism of the Visitandines is welcoming older vocations -- but that also has to be balanced with feasibility given the needs of the community.

 

A friend of mine just spent six months at a Visitation monastery (a different one).  She would have entered if they would have taken her but they said "Sorry, too old."  She's 75.  They have an aging community -- at 75 she was right about in the middle with half the sisters older and half younger than her.  So, at this particular time, the Sisters think that they cannot reasonably add another septagenarian to the mix, they need to add some younger sisters in there so the community can keep going.

 

Too bad, but she understands and accepts it and is grateful to have had the opportunity to stay for six months.

 

If the community were larger, with a variety of ages, they might have been able to welcome my friend with open arms.

 

As I was looking that I was wondering if maybe possibly the Tyringham sisters thought they would be able to accept a 68-year-old entrant when she was entering alongside a couple postulants in their twenties.  I have no idea, but I could imagine how that would affect the "well we like her and she seems to have a vocation but can this really work?" discussions.

[Chiara Francesco]

Here is the video that goes with that interview with the Tyringham Visitation novices:

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6klQlpG1Zc&list=UU-fcLzLFFaZVzCtEtmbraWg&index=1

[VeniJesuAmorMi]

Here is the video that goes with that interview with the Tyringham Visitation novices:

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6klQlpG1Zc&list=UU-fcLzLFFaZVzCtEtmbraWg&index=1

 

It was a great interview and the advise that was given is great for those in discernment. :)

[Chiara Francesco]

It was a great interview and the advise that was given is great for those in discernment. :)

 

I agree, especially the novice who talked about not over-thinking things and letting God lead - I could relate to that!