Monastery's Job is Prayer

Sitting in a pocket of peace, surrounded by a noisy mess of warehouses, transportation centers, and a belching interstate is a small, quaint monastery of cloistered nuns, whose job it is to blanket the world with prayer.

The nuns of the pray for peace. They pray for the leaders of our country and our world and for the priests who also devote their lives to God.

“We pray that God’s will be done and that people come to realize how much God loves them,” Mother Dorothy Urschalitz told me when I visited the monastery last week. “Prayer is the only way the church lives and breathes. That’s always been a teaching of the church. . . Evil can only be fought with prayer and penance. That’s not a popular way to think, but it’s true.”

Mother Dorothy told me the two ways we can show our faith are by caring for those in need and the underprivileged and by spiritual acts of mercy.

So powerful is prayer that there are those in the public who call the sisters immediately when something terrible happens in the world so the nuns can begin praying right away. They knew of the World Trade Center acts almost as they happened, the phone calls came in so fast.

The monastery, about two miles west of downtown Minooka, hasn’t been there very long, but the Poor Clare nuns are celebrating their 800^th anniversary next year. The sisters do not take vows of silence like some of their monk counterparts, but they do not partake in the outside world. They stay inside their walls, praying and devoting themselves to Christ. There are four needs for which they may go out into the community: to seek medical care, to vote, to take care of business, and to attend meetings.

They seek to keep their bodies and minds holy.

“There isn’t anything you do that doesn’t affect the body of Christ,” Mother Dorothy said.

One thing Mother Dorothy said surprised me. She told me that when someone says something to you that upsets you, you should really thank them. That’s a moment of self-realization, she said, that something someone else said or did could produce a negative reaction in you. Why is it that something dark was released in you?

The monastery has a mass open to the public each morning. You can check the times on their . Their chapel is also open to anyone who wishes to go in and pray or meditate, no matter what their religion.

The sisters are also looking for people to volunteer to come in and stay for an hour before sacrament. You can call them at 815-467-0032 for more information about that.

This weekly religion column is about people and groups in Channahon and Minooka who are being Light in their communities. The sisters at the Poor Clare Nuns Annunciation Monastery are certainly being Light, don’t you think? The word, Clare, even means light.

And with all the prayers being sent up from their walls, perhaps they deserve some prayers from us, as well. I’m going to go say one for them right now. See you next Sunday.