Sr Chiara Marie of Our Lady Star of the Sea: “Every part of the day is sanctified by Christ through praying the Divine Office.”
REGINA: Were your parents happy about your decision?
SR. MARIA JOHANNA: I had always taken for granted that my parents and siblings would accept my entering religious life, both because I saw how they were when my sister entered her community, and because my parents had always adopted the position that we belong primarily to God.
Nevertheless, there were a couple of conversations in which something my parents said let me glimpse that, even while they were being supportive, they were also finding it hard to see me go.
REGINA: What’s so great about your life now?
SR. CHIARA MARIE: That my life is centered on God. The Blessed Sacrament, exposed in the choir is literally the center of the monastery. St. Dominic wanted the nuns to be free for God alone.
Every part of the day is sanctified by Christ through praying the Divine Office. I have this sense of everything I do flows from and to God, both spiritually but also physically as we regularly stop everything to go and pray, either the Office or Mass.
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