The Sisters of the Immaculate at Lanherne have for ten years occupied a convent owned by the Carmelites. This is not odd for them as they are unable to own property. However the Carmelites have announced that they wish to put the convent on the open market, unless... well, unless the Sisters can come up with something.
Please pray for a solution to be found. The community is unique in the British Isles and if they lose the convent they will have to return to Italy. The order, and the community at Lanherne, is international.
If we English Catholics can't find a home for these sisters who want to devote their entire lives to praying for us, then I say we do not deserve the conversion of England for which we all long.
(reposted from LMS Chairman blog)
3 comments:
These nuns are not actually the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate, but rather a newer branch of the same family called the Poor Clares of the Immaculate (Italian = Clarisse delle Immacolata). They are distinct from the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate, which is a totally active/apostolic Order. These nuns are strictly clositered, and follow the Rule of St. Clare.
But they are indeed founded from the same family as the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate, and some of the original members of this new Poor Clare branch were volunteers who came from the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate.
They have I believe 5 cloistered convents-- 1 in England, 3 in Italy, and 1 i believe in France.
There is also a small new foundation of strictly cloistered male members of this religious family also....founded from volunteers from the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate...but their single foundation in in Italy.
So to recap...there exists:
The Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate
The Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate
The Poor Clares of the Immaculate
The Franciscan monks of the Immaculate (cloistered)
The Third Order Regular Sisters of the Immaculate (another new active/apostolic Order founded about 10 years ago).
Very interesting, blessings
http://wayfarersquest-rsctt.blogspot.com
Everything must be done to keep this convent from being sold on the open market. The history of the Lanherne convent goes back more than a thousand years, to early early times. If God should send me the money I would absolutely buy this property in a heartbeat and keep it always available for the nuns. I first learned about this convent in a book called "The English Carmelites" by Sheppard, 1943. Here is an excerpt from ch.8: " ... they [the nuns] were given the Manor House at Lanherne, in Cornwall ... [they] took up residence on Sept. 10, 1794. ....
Lanherne is ideally situated for a Carmelite convent--remote and secluded, two miles from the rocky coast at Mawgan Porth. Its history and Catholic associations go back not only to pre-Reformation times, but even to the pre-Saxon period. It is a tradition that Mass has been offered there ever since Celtic times--a practice that was not discontinued under the persecution of the sixteenth and following centuries."
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