1947 Chronicles (8): A Visit from the Bishop and a Growing Community

“Bishop O’Brien made a tour of the monastery with Reverend Mother and two of the Sisters. When he returned, he laughingly announced that he did not care to buy the place...”

In February, the Bishop came to bless the enclosure of the monastery and to preside over the elections of the new community. The next day, official positions in the community were announced and, in the beginning of March, the community received its first postulant.

His Excellency Henry J. O’Brien, Bishop of Hartford, visits the farmhouse monastery

“On February twelfth, the Feast of the Seven Founders of the Servites, Sister Marie Louis Bertrand installed the first buzzer in the monastery. Since our grilles had been installed and all other details for observing our cloister completed, our Bishop had chosen this feast day as the day of our elections after which he would install our Mother Prioress and then solemnly perform the ceremony that would separate our monastery from the world.

“The Bishop arrived promptly at three o’clock in the afternoon. After the election was confirmed in the little parlor, all the Sisters went to the choir, There, Bishop Henry J. O’Brien, standing behind the open grille window with his secretary, Father Hackett, and Father Moore, installed Reverend Mother Mary of Jesus Crucified as Prioress of the Monastery of Our Lady of Grace – it was exactly 4:15pm. Then, all the Sisters made a gesture of obedience followed by the kiss of peace, a sign of their filial love of the one God had chosen as His representative.

“The Bishop then invited all to be seated and there was a hurried scramble for benches and stools that had been pushed behind the prie-dieux. His Excellency gave us a fatherly little conference in which he told us that the ceremony was a novel experience for him, since Reverend Mother was the first prioress that he had installed, this being the first strictly cloistered monastery in his diocese. He welcomed us and said, in part, that he believed that every diocese had need of cloistered Sisters and that Hartford was no exception. He spoke of the first novitiate which was the ‘Apostles’ College,’ whose Master was Our Divine Savior Himself. He stressed the fact that Our Divine Savior is always walking with us and that the accomplishment of great things by us is not the important thing. What is important is that God sees our efforts and we must bear in mind that He is always with us. The Bishop concluded with all good wishes for a happy and cooperative community and added that he was looking forward to our advancement in the spiritual life. He gave us his pastoral blessing; to all as a community, then to each sister individually.

Cramped quarters in the nun’s farmhouse kitchen

“His Excellency then entered the enclosure and gave the fourteen foundresses another little informal talk in the community room. He readily accepted an invitation to have some ginger-ale which was served to him, and to Father Hackett and Father Moore. During this visit, Bishop O’Brien made a tour of the monastery with Reverend Mother and two of the Sisters. When he returned, he laughingly announced that he did not care to buy the place. The Bishop must have enjoyed his visit, for he accepted Father Moore’s invitation to stay for dinner, much to Reverend Mother’s confusion, for there was nothing in the monastery to serve the Bishop with becoming dignity. Being a humble as well as a hungry Bishop, he no doubt enjoyed the novel experience of eating dinner in the vestibule (which was Father Moore’s temporary dining room) on a card table with silverware and dishes that hardly matched.

“The next day, the Feast of St. Catherine de Ricci, the first chapter was held. As we had no chapter hall, chapter was conducted in the community room. Reverend Mother Mary of Jesus Crucified announced the election of the officials and all accepted with obedience. Reverend Mother then blessed all with Holy Water and intoned the words, ‘Adjutorium Nostrum in nomine Domini – Our help is in the name of the Lord,’ after which the first chapter came to an end.

“On March first, Clare Nightingale, a girl from Fitchburg, Massachusetts, entered our monastery. She became Sister Clare, who was the first aspirant to be received by us in Connecticut. When one of our Sisters expressed surprise that a young girl should choose to enter a monastery as new and unsettled as ours, Sister Clare replied, ‘I wanted to enter the first day you came. I want to watch it grow.’”

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