Cloistered nun tells of hidden life in Alaska monastery

On a recent snowy morning, Blessed Sacrament Monastery in Anchorage looked especially quiet. There were no cars in the parking lot, and only a small sign on the building gave evidence of the Catholic cloister.

But inside the hushed monastery, live a handful of cloistered nuns who are about the work of saving the world.

They are members of the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, a cloistered religious order that was first established in 1807 in France by Blessed Mary Magdalene of the Incarnation. The order operates 85 monasteries worldwide — all are dedicated to the perpetual adoration of the Eucharistic Christ.

Focused on Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, each nun spends her life praying and sacrificing for the good of the church and the salvation of souls.

In a rare interview, the superior of the Alaska monastery Mother Maria de la Milagrosa spoke with the Catholic Anchor about the tremendous but largely unseen life inside a cloistered monastery.

Speaking in her native Spanish and with the aid of an interpreter, she gave the interview from behind a metal grille in a visiting room near the monastery’s chapel.

Living only for God

Motivated by the love of God, the nuns are “planting the seed for the good of souls,” Mother Maria explained. In that quiet work, rising like farmers before the rest of the world for long days, they trust God to yield a harvest which they might never see in their lifetimes.

“It is a life of faith,” in the sequestered world of the monastery, Mother Maria continued. “We don’t see the fruits, but we believe the word of God that he will draw them out.”

Speaking of the nuns’ mostly hidden existence, Mother Maria called it a “testimony that God is here and we live only for him.”

“It is possible to live only for God,” she stressed.

Mother Maria, 67, has done just that. She entered the cloistered religious order more than 50 years ago, at age 15.

But with a slight frame, lively, dark eyes and a generous smile that hints of some hidden, happy secret, Mother Maria radiates youthful joy.

“A vocation is a gift from God,” she said. “It is so great, one cannot explain it.”

The desire to “give your body and soul for the Lord. It’s very strong,” she added. “One tries to put it off, but the Lord insists.”

At 15, Paz, her given name at birth, needed her parents’ permission to enter the monastery. Her mother agreed more easily than her father. On her birthday, he asked Paz what she wanted as a present, even suggesting a nice trip.

“No, I want permission,” she responded with resolve.

He cried as he signed his consent for his last daughter of three to enter religious life, she recalled.

In 1960, Paz (meaning peace) made her first profession in the re-established monastery in Guadalajara. There, in 1963, she professed her final vows and spent the next 28 years.

Pumping for graces

In 1985, at the invitation of then Anchorage Archbishop Francis Hurley and the urging of a group of laity in Anchorage, Mother Maria traveled north with a small group of fellow nuns to establish a monastery in Alaska.

With her arms mimicking the motion of an oil pump, the cheerful Mother Maria explained that the congregation’s special mission in the resource-rich state is “to pump the grace for all the archdiocese” and “to testify to the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.”

The religious order locates its monasteries in cities in order to provide people access to the Blessed Sacrament for veneration. So, the Anchorage monastery’s chapel is open to the public every day, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., for Eucharistic adoration. Visitors kneel adoring Christ in the consecrated host, exposed in a large, bronze monstrance, while in another section of the chapel, the nuns take turns in adoration from behind the cloister grille.

But even while performing daily chores or praying elsewhere in the monastery the nuns strive to continually focus on the Blessed Sacrament.

“I like to always stay before the Blessed Sacrament in my mind or body,” explained Mother Maria.

That means constant communication with God every day — while she is waking at 5:15 a.m., reciting the Divine Office and rosary with the congregation, resting in her cell, and reading the pope’s statements in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

The activity of prayer

The constant prayer of the cloistered nuns is critical activity for the church and the world, Mother Maria said.

She noted St. Paul’s teaching that each member of the Body of Christ has a mission.

“The function of the foot cannot be the hand’s,” Mother Maria said.

While the “active,” uncloistered religious have a mission to serve God’s people, she said, the “activity” of the cloistered religious is prayer and sacrifice for the church and the world.

However, she observed, that after the Second Vatican Council, which encouraged visible engagement with the world, the cloistered Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration were criticized by some for not broadening their mission outside the monastery.

“It is not that we are rejecting the world,” explained Mother Maria of the separation the monastery grille represents. “We love the world.”